Background
Following the 1993 release of her third album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, McLachlan spent two and a half years touring. This long period on the road finished in January 1996; she was due to begin work on her fourth album in April of that year, but was mentally exhausted. She later said "When I got off the road, I thought Fumbling was my swan song, I'd never make another record ever again. I couldn't imagine writing another song in my life. I had a huge psychological block for a long time." She spent time working in the studio in Quebec but struggled to produce anything for her new album. At her manager's suggestion, she returned home to Vancouver and took six months off. She said that after this break—and some time spent in therapy—she began to feel more in control of her creativity and started writing material for the album.
One of the first songs written for the album was "Angel". McLachlan said that writing the song was easy, "a real joyous occasion." It was inspired by articles that she read in Rolling Stone about musicians who turned to heroin to cope with the pressures of the music industry and subsequently overdosed. She said that she identified with the feelings that might lead someone to use heroin: "I've been in that place where you're so fucked up and you're so lost that you don't know who you are anymore, and you're miserable—and here's this escape route. I've never done heroin, but I've done plenty of other things to escape." She said that the song is about "trying not to take responsibility for other people's shit and trying to love yourself at the same time." Another song that she found easy to write was "Building a Mystery", co-written with her regular collaborator, Canadian musician and producer Pierre Marchand. Marchand heard her playing a guitar riff and suggested adding some lyrics that he had already written. They came up with the rest of the lyrics together, according to McLachlan, "pretty darn quickly." When the album was finished, McLachlan commented, "I was so happy when I could let it go. I didn't give it another thought when it was done."
Read more about this topic: Surfacing (album)
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