A few years ago, the Canadian singer Leslie Feist bought a home in Los Angeles: a house with a small plot of land where she could plant tomatoes in February, and find a kind of warmth and ease far from the fierce Ontario winter. Today she sits bare-armed in the sunshine of a California morning, the sound of birdsong catching on our video call. Above her, two gleefully coloured pictures have been thumbtacked to the white kitchen wall: one by her father, Harold, an abstract expressionist painter, the other by her young daughter.
Feist adopted her daughter in 2019 and her arrival proved a galvanising force in the life of the songwriter. She tries to describe the experience – the vulnerability, the sleeplessness, the love – and tells how in the time before her daughter arrived, a photographer friend gave some advice: being a parent will incinerate you. Feist balked. But the friend continued: “The person who rises from the ashes is someone who you’ll be really glad to be for the rest of your life.”
