Album Notes

Marianne Barlow: Singer, Songwriter, Teacher, Face Painter

From auspicious beginnings in the San Fernando Valley (like, omigosh!) where she learned her first guitar chords, Marianne’s travels have taken her to Northern California (where she began writing songs and learned to sing harmony), London, England (where she bought her first electro-acoustic and started plugging in), and back to the San Francisco Bay Area (where she currently resides surrounded by lemon trees, earthquake faults and way-cool preschoolers who play drums and pretend to be Barack Obama).

Marianne’s music is mostly inspired by love affairs of various sorts: love affairs with dreams, love affairs with unavailable people, love affairs with California on a warm day in early spring, and love affairs with women’s stories. Some of the heroines who make appearances in her songs include Dorothy (you know which one), Janet (uh-huh, Michael’s sister), a cat named Cleopatra and a cannibal woman named Dzunakwa. If you have experienced any sorts of love affairs in your life, you will surely appreciate the truth and familiarity in Marianne’s words and music. To quote an early favorite author, Shel Silverstein, “If you are a dreamer, come in…”

Reviews:

“Marianne Barlow’s music speaks of beauty and depth. She weaves haunting emotional and personal lyrics with strong melodies and rhythms to create some real gems. This is only the beginning…” –Christine Kane, singer/songwriter

“The songs are clever and inventive and passionate and tastily embellished.” –Shersten Johnson, music professor