Mary Lambert

There had to be at least 400 people packed into the grand atrium of Seattle's Museum of History and Industry last month, gathered for the annual Arts Corps fundraiser.

The non-profit, which provides classes for children who may otherwise not have access to creative outlets, draws some of the Northwest biggest arts supporters. And when Mary Lambert sang her hook from "Same Love" - a song that's gained more than 31 million YouTube views - the room stopped.

And I can't change

Even if I tried

Even if I wanted to

My love, my love, my love

At one of the tables, Dave Matthews mouthed the words along with her, as many did that night.

"I've been wanting to meet you," Lambert recalled Matthews saying later. He told how he loved the song and her performance. And Matthews was glad to hear his wife had asked for an autograph – he said they and their daughters are big fans of Lambert and Macklemore, who created "Same Love" with Ryan Lewis.

"Same Love" came out in 2012 and quickly became an unofficial anthem for the Referendum 74 campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington. When crowds flooded onto East Pike Street in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood after it was clear the measure would pass last November, hundreds of supporters chanted for the song to be played.

And the momentum is still going.

"Same Love" has gone double platinum in Australia, went to No. 1 there and in New Zealand earlier this year, and peaked at No. 89 here on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. Later this month, the group is expecting another national television audience and Lambert plans to join Macklemore and Lewis at the Sasquatch Music Festival.

"We would not have won in four states if there had not been as many cultural influences," longtime LGBT community leader Anne Levinson said. "And these cultural influences happen in the music community, in movies, on TV, with support from professional athletes, military heroes, and individuals coming out.

"It's very hard to demonize people when you know them."

Though crowds haven't always been as accepting as people in Seattle.

A few days after Lambert's standout performance at the Art Corps Festa, she performed "Same Love" with Macklemore and Lewis at the Paid Dues Independent Hip Hop Festival in California. When she looked out onto the tens of thousands of hip hop fans, people stared with little visible emotion. Some artists didn't say much when she went backstage. It was the coldest reception she'd ever had for the chart-topping song.

"I felt like I was singing to homophobia," Lambert said.

Macklemore, who has gay uncles and wrote the song out of frustration with hip hop's position on homosexuality, helped her put the performance in perspective.

In the crowd of 20,000 people, there were 2,000 of those who felt something, he told her. And though you might never be told, something good will come from that.

There were times that Lambert, 23, thought she'd never be in a position to change people's hearts.

"As a teenager, I was a complete mess," she told the Arts Corps crowd. "I was heavy into drugs, completely reckless, and I was basically just waiting to die. I grew up in an abusive home, poor, suicidal, and a severe case of the gay."

Lambert was 18 when she went to her first poetry slam hosted by Youth Speaks Seattle, which is now an Arts Corps program. She went to writing circles taught by some of the greatest poets she knew, and met friends that helped her find the strength to be a proud gay artist.

"I wanted to live again," she said, "so I could go to the next poetry slam."

Today Lambert's a full-time artist, and it was through poetry that she met Hollis Wong-Wear, who has co-written songs with Macklemore and Lewis and also co-produced videos for "Thrift Shop" and "Wings."

"Can you come to the studio today?," Wong-Wear asked last May. Macklemore and Lewis had one track to finish on "The Heist," and they wanted to hear her ideas.

Lambert penned the hook for "Same Love" in two hours.

Her echoing line "Not crying on Sundays" came from her own experiences at Mars Hill Church in Seattle – a place Lambert said isn't hateful, but clearly thinks being gay is a sin. She would come home from services and cry, ashamed and apologizing to God for being who she was.

That continued until she realized that a loving God wouldn't condemn her for being herself, Lambert said.

When she sang the song for Macklemore and Lewis, both were in tears. Don't change a thing, Lewis told her.

You can make the case for gay rights politically and with evidence, Lambert said. "But the only way you that you really, really change people is reaching into their heart and grabbing them and saying, 'We're the same.' And I think that was my goal."

Since the release of "Same Love," dozen of high school and college kids have contacted Lambert sharing stories of how her song helped them find acceptance.

At the Arts Corps benefit, she told the crowd about a student who came out to her parents during Thanksgiving break. The parents accepted what was said, but didn't call as much afterward. And the topic was never brought up again.

As the student and her mother made the roughly three-hour drive back, there was the urge to talk more. But she didn't know how to start the converstation. So she played "Same Love."

"'She started crying,'" the student wrote. "'So did I. Then she apologized for being upset with me. She asked me to forgive her for not understanding, but she said she would try to. She told me she doesn't want anything to separate us and that she wants me to feel comfortable opening up to her.

"I am so glad that 'Same Love' exists," she wrote to Lambert. "I'm so happy I was able to use it to tell my mom how I was feeling. Even the first time I heard the song, just your words and voice made me cry.

"Because that was the first time I felt like someone was on my side."


- Seattle PI

It's a rare summer scorcher in Seattle, and Belltown streets are stirring. A parade is about to kick off a few streets east and Third Avenue is already lined with chairs—families fighting for the spot with the best view. Inside Bedlam Coffee the opening notes of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' new cut "Same Love," fill the room.

The story goes like this: Straight white rapper writes song in support of gay marriage, unknown lesbian singer adds hook, and the buzz begins. But on this afternoon, it's not the MC's controversial verses—pointing the finger at rap and religion for being out of touch—sparking conversation.

"You know the girl who sings on this track is a Belltown local, right?" one barista chimes in.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. She comes in here all the time."

A native of south Everett, 23-year-old Mary Lambert has been making noise in the local scene since graduating from Cornish College of the Arts last year. In addition to being an aspiring musician, she is an accomplished slam poet, with accolades that include competing in Russell Simmons' Brave New Voices International Competition and being named Seattle's 2011 Grand Poetry Slam Champion and the 2012 Northwest Regional Slam winner.

"I think when I found [spoken word] I was really frustrated in the church and coming out and being in that really weird place." says Lambert. "And I just wanted to swear a lot."

Known for her compelling words, poignant arrangements and soulful delivery, Lambert is a perfectionist in all sense of the word—something that's had her working on her debut EP, Letters Don't Talk, for more than two years. But when the Macklemore camp called saying they needed a voice to tie "Same Love" together, she jumped at the chance.

"I feel like I had spent my entire life training for that moment," Lambert says.

A dynamic writer, whose childhood consisted of making songs up on the spot, Lambert excels in high-pressure situations. Whether it be sweet talking customers as a bartender and server, or crafting poetic verses for a new song or slam, she knows how to make it sound right.

"I think it's just that feeling of being a performer and wanting everything to sound flawless," Lambert explains.

Or, she concedes, she's just really good at faking it—a claim that's hard to believe when hearing the passion and thoughtfulness with which she sings.

"She just has an immense amount of love radiating from her personality, and that's the best type of person to work with," Macklemore adds. "It's rare, you get that type of person in the studio."

Letters Don't Talk, available now on Bandcamp, and in physical format starting Sept. 1, is starkly different than her verse on "Same Love"—playing to the quieter, more delicate features of her vocal palate. But the standout is the intricately produced "I Know Girls (Body Love)," a pulsing song-poem that has Lambert dropping lines about self-image over thundering bass line and a throbbing beat.

"The funny thing is women like us don't shoot, we swallow pills, still wanting to be beautiful at the morgue, still proceeding to put on makeup, still hoping that the mortician finds us fuckable and attractive," Lambert spits on the track.

The arrangement slants disjunctive, but the message does not: Lambert's songs, like the singer herself, are tender and bold, heartfelt and heartbreaking. - The Seattle Weekly

The chorus features the unbelievably beautiful voice of Mary Lambert, a folk/spoken word singer from Seattle. (Seriously, go listen to her - she’s like Feist + Jewel + Sarah McLachlan). The lyrics are so heartfelt: “And I can’t change, even if I try, even if I wanted to,” the chorus begins. “My love, my love, my love... she keeps me warm, she keeps me warm.” By simply describing the feeling of warmth, Lambert conveys love as it feels for any couple, straight or same-sex. At the end of the song, she chants “Love is patient, love is kind,” returning to the subject of marriage.

The rap and the chorus balance each other perfectly. The spoken word articulates smartly why we should support gay marriage, and the melody moves us to see what same-sex love feels like. (Spoiler alert: it feels the same as straight love.) The rap is the brain, while the chorus is the emotional heart of the song.
- Policy Mic

“Letters Don't Talk” by Mary Lambert is a fascinatingly experimental singer-songwriter album. The second track entitled “Forgive Me” opens with a daring vocal harmony, the background voices seeming to be digitally pitched and effected. The background violin holds the song together while other instruments such as piano and bass build slowly around a repeating chorus, featuring the lyrics “Cigarette out like our dying light”.

The track “I know Girls (bodylove)” stands out as the most amazing selection, and boasts absolutely brilliant lyricism. The track opens with a slam poetry style talk-rhythm, features a chorus, and dips back into the poetry. The poetry within “I know Girls (bodylove)” is achingly heart breaking, and emotional on many levels.

At times lyricists of this caliber tend to only focus on vocals, perhaps accompanied by a lone acoustic guitar, “Letters Don't Talk”, however, is a record with equally skilled instrumental experimentation, making for one incredible listen. - The Examiner

Mary Lambert’s name first popped on the radar as a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis collaborator on their Marriage Equality single “Same Love.” This month the Seattle songwriter is running with the momentum and releasing an EP titled “letters don’t talk” at the Crocodile on August 29th. Each of the five tracks stands on it’s own with Lambert’s evidently strong personality giving things direction, but the vocal melody of the James Blake influenced “Forget Me” is the one going through my head over and over again today. - Sound on the Sound

"Macklemore wrote this track back in April, and tried to take the perspective of gay, bullied kid. He says that, “Growing up in the Catholic Church, I saw first-hand how easily religion became a platform for hate and prejudice. Those who “believed” were excused from their own judgments, bypassing the stark issue of basic civil rights.” Macklemore makes one beautiful track, helped by the vocals of Mary Lambert on the hook, with her voice giving me goosebumps. Not to mention the amazing production from Ryan Lewis. Be sure to mark you calendars for Oct. 9th, when Mack and Ryan drop their debut album, The Heist." - DML