Sara Bareilles: Feeling Ugly As a Teen Was Actually A Beautiful Thing
Singer Sara Bareilles talks confidence in her new book. (Photo: Getty Images)
Sara Bareilles writes songs that make you want to change the world, kick ass, weep, and find real love (sometimes all at once). Case in point: her 2013 empowerment anthem, “Brave,” which she penned for a friend who was struggling with coming out. Her latest single, “She Used to Be Mine,” delivers the haunting, powerful, moving music that Bareilles has become known for. The song is from her new album, “Waitress,” which is the score of her upcoming debut Broadway musical based on the 2007 movie of the same name. You can already picture the teary-eyed audience singing along in the theater.
Despite inspiring everyone else, Bareilles reveals in her new book, Sounds Like Me: My Life (so far) In Song, her own hurdles in finding confidence. She writes about feeling like an outcast while growing up, grappling with doubts about her beauty, and trying to gracefully handle the challenge of staying authentic in the (not-so-authentic) music industry. “I think, more than anything, sometimes these songs that I write are pep talk songs to myself,” Bareilles tells Yahoo Beauty. “I do know that I want to spend my time and my energy as an artist encouraging something positive. I want to make people feel loved and seen and heard. So I want to feel those things, too.”
Tune-in to watch Sara Bareilles’ one-night only performance exclusively on Yahoo on Thursday, November 5 at 8:00pm ET, where she’ll be previewing tracks from her new highly anticipated Broadway musical, “Waitress,” along with a few of her greatest hits. You can catch her performance on the Live Nation Channel on Yahoo or through the Yahoo App on mobile (IOS & Android) or connected devices (Apple TV, Roku, Xbox).
Sara Bliss: What made you decide to write a memoir? What did you want to say and share?
Sara Bareilles: I got approached with this opportunity to write some sort of memoir. It didn’t really have much structure initially. It was really just having been asked the question that I started to think about, “How could I actually do that?” I said, “Yes,” and then was sort of horrified at how difficult it turned out to be. There were lots of times that I wished I had said, “No!” But ultimately, in the end, I came around, and I really love this book and the whole process. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I think ultimately that made me feel that much prouder of myself for having completed the task.
In your book, you write about a moment in seventh grade when a boy ran away from you when you asked him to dance — one of those cringe-worthy moments so many teens go through. But it ended up being something that shaped you. How so?
My struggles as an adolescent ultimately informed my desire to understand those uncomfortable feelings. It’s the reason I started writing in my journal. If we are in the middle of something shameful, it’s hard to understand the value of it in the moment. But in retrospect, I see that feeling like an outcast, or feeling ugly or unlovable, was actually a really beautiful thing for me because it made me understand how painful that is. It made me want to be the kind of person who seeks out creating a comfortable space for people who do feel like that. I want to be someone who speaks to messages that are uplifting, and to tell people how loved they are. So it’s really informed how I am in the world in a big way.
Throughout the chapter, you repeat the sentence, “You are beautiful,” writing to yourself at different points in your life. When did actually start saying that or believing that about yourself?
It’s still a challenge. I have to constantly remind myself to employ positive self-speak. I think it’s something you have to practice. It’s like learning a foreign language; if you don’t practice it, it will go away. I think I only started doing that in the last handful of years when I was experiencing so much dissatisfaction, and so much pain, sadness, and depression. I really was so lucky to get exposed to such wonderful resources like meditation, therapy, and awesome self-help books that have totally changed my life. It’s something, again, that you have to practice. And some days are better than others. Today was a good day and yesterday was a bad day. I still struggle with it, big time.
Do you think being performer exacerbates those insecurities?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I had to go to a photo shoot yesterday and I was having minor panic attacks because I felt ugly. It’s so visceral. It’s so normal. Everybody, I think, on some level, can relate to what that feels like, just feeling exposed and raw. Even though, at the end of the day, I’m such a loud advocate for: ‘It doesn’t matter, you’re beautiful anyway!’ I still have those feelings about the way that I look. As someone who’s in the public eye to some capacity, it kind of comes with the territory. It’s a blessing and a curse. I have to be really mindful of how I have a relationship with that in my life. I think the more you can not give it too much power, I think it can stay in the room but it doesn’t have to be the loudest voice there.
The cover of singer Sara Bareilles’s moving new memoir.
You write that being a judge on the show The Sing Off caused you to be “slapped with your own self-image issues,” thanks to the pressure of having to dress and look a certain way. Did you feel like you couldn’t speak up at the time? How did you handle it?
I really did struggle with that. I did speak up at the time, to the best of my ability, and it sort of didn’t do the trick in that moment. I look back on how I handled it now and I feel like, in some ways, maybe I was really dramatic or maybe I overreacted. But it was true to me at the time that I felt like I was being asked to do something that felt inauthentic to me, and I didn’t know how to stop the train. I’m somebody who’s very outspoken and totally comfortable being the annoying voice in the room who’s like, “I disagree with all of you!” But I still observed myself feeling powerless. It was a great reminder that there are a lot of people out there that feel that, in a lot of different ways. So I think in some ways I really need to dig deeper and know to fight harder for that for myself, but also on behalf of other people as well.
Your song, “Brave,” is one of the most inspiring songs ever, and it took off in such a big way. Were there any stories around the song that were really moving to you as a songwriter?
That song is just a miracle to me that I get to be part of its legacy. I’ve learned so much from that song. It was such an awesome collaboration with Jack Antonoff, and he informed so much of it, it just felt like this really special communion of heart symbols. One of the things that stuck with me is the video that came out of the Children’s Hospital in Minnesota. I had written it as a love letter to a friend who was struggling with coming out, so it had one very specific message in my mind. But that was the first time that I was so struck by the fact that the song was kind of taking on this life of its own. It was becoming about cancer patients, and about people feeling strong enough to speak up to a bully at school. It was just all of these little moments that have come to life that have really colored that song experience for me. It’s really amazing.
So many of your songs are so inspiring and empowering. Where do you find that within yourself?
I think on my best days I’m finding that connection with this idea that there’s something bigger than all of us out there. Like anything, it changes. Some days I’m feeling really connected to that, and other days I’m feeling really doomsday and think, “The world is going to s—, and I’m on the train as well.” But I think, more than anything, sometimes these songs that I write are pep talk songs to myself. I do know that I want to spend my time and my energy as an artist encouraging something positive. I want to make people feel loved and seen and heard, and so I want to feel those things, too.
You new album, “Waitress,” comes out on November 6, and the Broadway show opens next spring. Tell me a little bit about the meaning behind the song, “She Used To Be Mine”?
That was the first song that I wrote for the musical, for Jenna. She’s in an abusive marriage and she’s trying to devise a plan to get away from her husband, and he discovers her plan to leave, and she feels like all is lost. But on an emotional level, the song is sort of about waking up to your life and realizing that it doesn’t look like what you thought it was going to look like. I found so much of myself in that song. I think that it really ended up being my window into the score of the show and finding voice in these characters, and finding myself inside their story as well.
How did it relate personally?
The thing that I love about Jenna is that she’s deeply flawed but learns to love herself anyway. I think that that song really speaks to the struggle inside of her. She’s kind of noticing all these polarized expressions in herself — she’s messy but she’s kind; she’s good but she lies. I think we all have these sort of shadow selves that are a part of our humanity. There are parts of ourselves that we’re not as proud of, but we sort of have to learn to love those anyway. That really spoke to me.
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Tune-in to watch Sara Bareilles’ one-night only performance exclusively on Yahoo on Thursday, November 5 at 8:00pm ET, where she’ll be previewing tracks from her new highly anticipated Broadway musical, “Waitress,” along with a few of her greatest hits. You can catch her performance on the Live Nation Channel on Yahoo or through the Yahoo App on mobile (IOS & Android) or connected devices (Apple TV, Roku, Xbox).
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