The singer was in a Covid bubble with her painter father and young daughter, but then everything changed. She discusses why she’s no longer willing to pull her punches, and explains her decision to pull out of a tour with Arcade Fire
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.”
