I distinctly remember the first time I heard Paula Cole’s music and saw her perform. It was on a 1995 show called VH1 Duets in which she and Melissa Etheridge performed Cole’s song “Watch The Woman’s Hands.” It was a powerful performance of a great song. But what struck me was Cole’s hand movement as she repeated the lyric “Oh we need her.” She was intense and focused, raising and lowering her hand like she was bringing down a hammer. Consistent with the lyrical content of the song, it seemed to be a celebration of the power of women and an abject rejection of sexist notions about who women should be as individuals and in society.
But after talking with Cole for The Hardcore Humanism Podcast about her new album American Quilt, I recognized that in retrospect that I got the story partially right. The song and the performance was a smashing of sexism, but part of a larger context of how Cole has approached her life and her art. In our discussion, Cole explained how she has had to overcome barriers – both personal and societal – to embrace her open-minded and authentic voice, which she describes as being a “love warrior.”
For Cole, jazz was more than an art form. It was an approach to life that valued improvisation – the fundamental idea that veering from the conventional norm was not only acceptable but also encouraged. She immediately resonated with the free-spirited nature of the music and culture. “I was wanting to be an improviser and wanting to be free in the magnificent idiom that is jazz, which is like one of the great American art forms,” Cole told me. “I loved it, and I continue to love it. And I have dedicated myself to this my whole life.”
Ideally, when we feel ourselves yearning to be open-minded and free, we can naturally flow into that comfortable, relaxed and self-accepting state. But this is easier said than done. And so, paradoxically, Cole’s embrace of jazz brought her face to face with some more limiting and self-critical thoughts. She explained how she felt a strong sense of being an “imposter.” First, she questioned simply whether she was talented enough to be a jazz musician. “I couldn’t overcome inner demons … One was the evil puppet head within saying you suck, you suck, you suck,” Cole recalled.
Second, Cole felt that because jazz was an art form whose originators were predominantly African American, she questioned whether she fit into the world of jazz. And third, she felt that many jazz standards were written by men, and therefore represented a distinctly male perspective with which she did not resonate. “They were written from white male perspective,” she explained. “They were like coming from this very quaint 1950s like mid-century picturesque small perspective, that was imagined by a man. And they were kind of silly.”
Overall, Cole simply felt that she did not fit into the world of jazz. “I didn’t know where I fit in. I didn’t feel authentic yet,” Cole said.” And I think it took me decades to finally arrive to the point where I felt like, okay, I feel like I can step out now and sing standards. So, it wasn’t till my what was my late 40s 50s that I really kind of became public, with my jazz singing and creating a recording.”
One of the keys to Cole’s ability to embrace her own authentic voice in jazz was to identify and confront her own sense of perfectionism. Perfectionism can be incredibly damaging to one’s sense of well-being. And unfortunately, Cole was working in a world where the artists often attained incredibly high standards. “I have really high standards … I’m sure there’s perfectionism in there … And like those voices in my head of perfectionism or feeling like an imposter — they were too great for me to surpass in my 20s,” she recalled. “I’m not good enough. I don’t have perfect pitch. I can’t always hear inside all of the chord changes. I’m not a Chet Baker. Oh, I suck. I’m not like Ella.”
As time went on, while Cole was still in college, she recognized that her perfectionism and the feelings that emerged from that mindset, were unsustainable. She needed to find another way to embrace her art without the ongoing judgment of herself and comparison to others. Her first pivot away from perfectionism was the simple decision to be open-minded rather than be confined to the closed-minded self-criticism of perfectionism. “But these people are geniuses,” Cole explained. “And I was comparing myself to them, which is very unfair. And I was just me and I was just trying. And I was at the beginning of my path.”
The next step Cole took was that she decided to go to therapy to work on these issues. Cole was not prepared for how intense therapy would be and described how overwhelming she found the whole experience. “I’m coming from parents of silent generation. It’s not that comfortable to go to therapy, it’s not comfortable to admit it … It’s kind of shameful. So, I didn’t feel even entitled to be there,” Cole said. “It took me about six months to stop…crying…I would sit there and I would not be able to lift my head and look at the therapist. Took about six months for me to lift my head and look her in the eye and just start talking. I didn’t feel entitled to be there … And when I started talking, and I don’t even remember all that I talked about but just feeling worthy.”
And this was a breakthrough that enabled Cole to begin her journey as a songwriter, in which she felt that her own thought, feelings and perspectives were valid. “It became clear that … I’m entitled to talk about my truth. Entitled to sing about my truth,” Cole explained. “And that was the positive breakthrough that I realized. It was this epiphany that I want to write my own music. I want to write my truths.”
“Watch The Woman’s Hands” was one of the first songs that Cole wrote after this breakthrough. “And so I just started sitting at the keyboard and things started coming out, like ‘Watch the Woman’s Hands,’” she described. “And so I realized, wow, okay. This is this is great. This is just great. And it flows. And it’s like the universe said ‘Yes, yes, yes.’”
Unfortunately, as Cole became a prolific writer of popular songs, including “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone” and “I Don’t want To Wait,” she found herself once again being put in a box. She was now labeled as a “pop” singer rather than a jazz singer. So ironically, all of the work that she had done to free herself of judgment put her right back into a place where she was confined by expectations.
But Cole did not give up. She understood that her true “jazz self” was not about singing jazz. It was about the willingness to break norms and conventions, and take risks in music to find one’s authentic voice. “The spirit of jazz, which to me is freedom — it’s freedom,” she said. “You should be like Herbie Hancock says — you should be willing to make mistakes, when you are in that curious and playful place of being open and you’re listening to the other musicians … When you’re in a playful, open learning mindset. It’s beautiful.”
And yet Cole is quick to point out that even one’s “jazz self” is not really about jazz. She utilized another term – “love warrior.” And that term encapsulates what has become Cole’s personal and professional mission, which is to help other people feel unbound by doubt and convention. “And we’re all hopefully striving to be love warriors and … revolutionize this society so that we can be on equal footing and hear each other and love each other 100%. So, is that possible? I don’t know … But let’s talk about it.”
It was at that point that I recognized that what I was witnessing in Cole’s performance of “Watch The Woman’s Hands” was not simply a performance of a song, but an assertion of Cole’s life philosophy. And the hammering of Cole’s hands was a reflection of her ability to transcend doubt and judgment, find her authentic voice, and invite others to do the same. “I’m in that moment … I’m not thinking like, I’m just tapped into a river of transcendence … and music is flowing,” Cole explained. “And then I kind of can’t help myself. I find myself gesticulating. And I’m like, slapping myself and my hand is up in the air, and I’m dancing, and I’m moving and I’m singing intensely. And, hopefully, I’m there. Hopefully, that’s where I want to connect. And it is like the spiritual ministry in a sense.”
Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz
