Sarah McLachlan and her fight to end animal cruelty

With her dulcet, gentle mezzo-soprano and poetic ballads, Sarah McLachlan could easily have secured a permanent place among the music pantheon on talent and skill alone.

The release of her greatest hits album Closer: The Best of Sarah McLachlan emphasizes this. Culling tracks from her best-selling discs Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Surfacing, Mirrorball and the double-platinum Afterglow, as well as adding two new tracks, the compilation, like McLachlan’s songwriting, is a subtle alchemy of power and grace.

With more than twenty nominations for Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy) and eight wins to her credit, McLachlan has clearly garnered critical acclaim, and commercial success, especially for her 1997 release Surfacing, which was certified by the RIAA as selling more than ten million copies, has not eluded the singer-songwriter either.

As McLachlan put it herself on her official website, “I never have set goals, in the sense that I expected to be successful or get to a certain place. My idea of success has always been, does it feel right? Does it feel good to me? Do I enjoy doing it? And somehow miraculously, I've been able to follow that path and have a great success at it.”

She was also the founder and principal behind what came to be the hugely popular Lilith Fair, a three-year series of concerts designed to promote women in music, which helped launch the careers of a number of female artists, and featured performances by such luminaries as Paula Cole, with whom McLachlan first toured in 1996, Sheryl Crow, Shawn Colvin, Jewel, Suzanne Vega, Fiona Apple, and many more.

But twenty years after initially signing with Nettwerk Records, following her graduation from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, it may be McLachlan’s philanthropic works for which she’ll be best remembered, especially for her devotion to animal rights causes.

Following the release of Afterglow, McLachlan reportedly took the $150,000 budget allotted for the music video to support “World On Fire” and instead donated all but $15 to a bevy of world-wide charities, then used the remaining money to film a video explaining how the money was used in the communities which it benefitted. The feature was awarded a 2004 Grammy for best short-form music video.

She performed for NBC Television’s tsunami disaster relief telethon, helped headline a benefit concert with fellow Canadians Avril Lavigne and Bryan Adams in 2005, and in all assisted in raising more than three and a half-million dollars to aid Asians affected by the disaster.

In November of 2008, she was awarded the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award the night before the Juno ceremonies, recognizing “an outstanding Canadian artist whose humanitarian contributions have positively enhanced Canada’s social fabric.”

The one single iconic image from her long and illustrious career may owe itself to a commercial, however. In what may be history’s only example of a commercial advertisement virtually guaranteed to cue the waterworks, McLachlan’s touching “Angel” was tracked over close-ups of abandoned and unwanted animals in an ad for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals [SPCA].

“In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there”

The soulful desperation of McLachlan’s voice and the sparse piano figures evoked rivers of empathy and an ocean of tears from newly-inspired supporters for the animal-rights cause, and sparked a campaign that brought in over $30 million. The effect was so profound that Jo Sullivan, VP of Communications with the ASCPA, told a newspaper that “She has literally changed the way we fundraise.”

In the process, McLachlan may have also changed both the face of animal-rights organizations, and her own legacy. Few who have seen the commercial, the accompanying endorsement by McLachlan, or the full-length video can easily erase the evocative images from the mind.

“It’s chilling,” said one SPCA supporter who said she donated for the first time after viewing the commercial. “I’d heard the song before and found it beautiful, but paired with the video of those poor animals, it’s more than one person can easily endure without wanting to take action.”

There are worse things to be remembered for than as a champion for abused animals. As is often noted, there are none who deserve our protection more than those who cannot cry for help.

Thanks to McLachlan, those who up to now have silently endured, may have finally found their voice.