Sarah McLachlan

Recording Artist

Though she has performed for the Pope, she is reported to regard herself as agnostic.

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She covers the bitingly atheistic XTC song 'Dear God' in a 1996 XTC tribute CD, A Testimonial Dinner (thirsty ear recordings).

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One reader suspects McLachlan to be a full believer, pointing to her songs mentioning 'Heaven, Hell, God, Jesus, angels, and even Eden'.

This reader also reports that in an interview featured on the program 'Egos and Icons', which was shown on the Canadian music channel MuchMusic, she says, 'It's like, God!' She says the word 'God' in a disgusted sort of manner, but then immediately covers her mouth with her hand and says, 'Sorry, I didn't mean to say that.'

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Excerpted from a May 28th, 1996 SprintChat:

Q: Hi, Sarah, I hope you won't mind a personal question. What religion do you follow?

A: I don't follow any organized religion, but I do believe in the idea of god as a verb -- being love and light. and that we are part of everything as everything is part of us.

[...]

Q: Your most recent releases contain quite different examples of direction. 'Full of Grace' and 'I Will Remember You' are very soft and restrained, while your cover of Dear God contains a building intensity and anger that makes the song so sublime (and you may have guessed that I prefer this). Will we see more of this on your next album?

A: 'Dear God' is not a song that I wrote and it has an intensity that perhaps I don't possess on my own.

[...]

Q: Did you have any reservations from an ideological standpoint about covering the song 'Dear God'?

A: None whatsoever.

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with contributions from CDA and others