By Benson Daniel
Canadian singer and songwriter k.d. lang has opened up about the experiences and influences that shaped her career, from growing up on the vast Canadian prairies to her enduring fascination with Patsy Cline and the unusual childhood connection that eventually inspired one of her most famous photographs.
Lang, who grew up in the small Alberta community of Consort, said the landscape of western Canada remains deeply embedded in her artistic identity. The wide open spaces, stillness and simplicity of prairie life helped shape the way she approaches music, fashion and visual art.
She recalled a childhood surrounded by large expanses of land and relatively few distractions, where a tree, a hill or even hay bales in a field could become striking visual experiences.
“The sky was very important,” lang said, describing the feeling of the prairies as less about loneliness and more about solitude and solace.
That minimalist environment, she explained, continues to influence the way she decorates her home, dresses and performs. Rather than being drawn to crowded or complicated imagery, she said she naturally gravitates towards simplicity and emotional expression.
One of the more unexpected influences on her creative life is her fascination with barber shops.
Lang revealed that her childhood home may have provided the explanation. Her father operated a drugstore in the small town where she grew up, and a barber shop stood next door. As a child, she would watch the barber cutting people’s hair.
Years later, that memory resurfaced when she was working on what would become one of the most recognisable celebrity magazine covers of the 1990s.
For the 1993 Vanity Fair cover, photographed by Herb Ritts, lang appeared seated in a barber chair while supermodel Cindy Crawford appeared to shave her face. The image became an important moment in popular culture, challenging conventional ideas about gender, sexuality and celebrity presentation.
Lang said she had been fascinated at the time by the French film The Hairdresser’s Husband and suggested to Ritts that the shoot should take place in a barber chair.
Ritts later called her back with an unexpected addition to the plan: Cindy Crawford.
The shoot took place on the roof of Ritts’ building in Hollywood during golden hour. Lang described the experience as magical and said she remains proud of the image decades later.
For her, the photograph was more than a provocative celebrity portrait. She believes it became a significant artistic and social statement that has retained its power over time.
Music has been equally shaped by the people and places that influenced her.
Lang’s fascination with Patsy Cline began while she was studying at Red Deer College. She became absorbed in Cline’s life and music and eventually built much of her early artistic identity around that influence. She later formed the band the Reclines, a name that itself paid tribute to the country legend.
Decades later, lang still describes her connection to Cline as something difficult to explain.
She admires the emotional openness in Cline’s singing, particularly the combination of vulnerability, empathy, humour and humanity that made the singer’s performances so powerful.
Lang’s own approach to singing follows a similar emotional path. She said she tries to immerse herself in song lyrics and construct an internal visual world around them, allowing the emotional story to shape her performance.
Her career has also included collaborations with artists such as Neko Case and Laura Veirs. Looking back on their work together, lang said bringing three established artists into one creative process was challenging because each had spent years developing their own ways of working.
The collaboration ultimately produced strong friendships as well as music, although the touring period was relatively brief.
Lang also reflected on her spiritual practice, which she described as central to almost everything she does. Meditation and spirituality, she said, have given her a different perspective on life and helped anchor her sense of purpose.
That search for authenticity appears to run through much of her career.
Whether she is singing about heartbreak, revisiting Canadian songwriting traditions or appearing in an unconventional fashion photograph, lang has consistently resisted being confined to a single artistic identity.
The 10th anniversary edition of the Case/Lang/Veirs album is due for release on September 4, giving listeners another opportunity to revisit a collaboration that brought together three distinctive voices.
For lang, however, the past does not appear to be something she simply looks back on.
The prairie landscapes of her childhood, the songs of Patsy Cline, the barber shop beside her father’s drugstore and the extraordinary image created with Crawford have all become pieces of the same artistic journey.
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