Singer, Songwriter Judith Owen

"Dogs Bring Joy On A Daily Basis" - 29th September 2011



Described by Jamie Cullen as intelligent and sassy – the female Randy Newman, Judith Owen has a voice that combines the purity of folk music with the heart and soul of jazz.  Her skill on the keyboard transports the listener on a melodious journey through her life experiences incorporating melancholia, sadness, joy and humour. 

“I’ve written songs about my dogs.” She says, “’I’ll Watch You While You’re Sleeping ‘– many people think it is a lullaby to a child but actually it is about my first dog, Victor as I watched him asleep when he was dying.  It was time for me to care for him as he had cared for me”

I felt tears well up at the same time as feeling deep concern.  I couldn’t help thinking that this experience, devastating to most dog owners, must have been catastrophic for someone suffering depression. 

Judith’s condition will come as no surprise to anyone that has been to see ‘Losing It’ with Ruby Wax now in its final week at the Duchess Theatre in the West End of London.  Judith and Ruby have been playing to packed audiences throughout seasons at the Menier Chocolate Factory and at the Edinburgh Festival.  It is an innovative piece of theatre in which Ruby and Judith address the problems of depression with immense humour and honesty about their own suffering.  During the first act, comedienne, Ruby Wax describes her experiences in her typically wise-cracking style while Judith provides an emotive musical backdrop of piano and song.  The second act comprises of a question and answers session that brings amusing quick fire responses from both artists and often develops into a form of group therapy. This may not be what everyone expects to gain from a theatrical experience but one has to admire the performers’ bravery and sincerity in wanting to raise awareness of this debilitating illness. 

“Victor was my first dog” Judith tells me.  “He was a yellow Labrador/husky cross and he was huge.  In some ways I was sorry for him, for the way he had to cope with me when I was ill.  He lay on my bed waiting, never asking to be taken out.  It was as if he knew there was something wrong and he never hurried me.  Victor was a mellow, sensitive dog who absorbed sadness.  He changed my life. All depressed people should have dogs around them.  They teach us to be better people.  They allow us emotion and give us permission to behave as humans.”

I asked if Judith had a family dog as a child.

“Yes, we did but it became ill with a liver infection after it had been in kennels.  My mother had never been able to look after it properly; it was just one more thing that she couldn’t cope with.”

Judith was born in Llanelli and both her parents were opera singers.  Her mother, she told me, had suffered from depression and committed suicide when she was aged fifteen.  

 “I was lucky with Victor because my husband, Harry would take care of him when I wasn’t able. When someone is suffering from deep depression, they literally cannot do anything at all; they cannot eat or even dress themselves.”

Judith is married to the multi-talented Harry Shearer who is foremost an actor but also an author, director, musician and playwright among a host of other accomplishments.  He is famed as being the voice of the Simpsons playing several of the resident characters.

“Harry was terribly worried about how I would cope with Victor’s death but, in fact, it was a cathartic experience for me and it showed me how to grieve.  When my mother died, it was so shocking that it had to be swept under the carpet.  There was none of the usual ceremony.  It had to be covered up, almost as if it hadn’t happened at all.  When I lost Victor, suddenly I could allow myself to go through all the normal stages of mourning with no restriction.”

“My dog and cat died within two weeks of each other.  I felt unutterably lonely....empty....I needed the energy of a dog.  A comedy writer, who is my dear friend and had owned Victor’s brother, rang to tell me that the film ‘Marley and Me’ was being made and that the film company and had got thirty Labrador retrievers that would all need homes when filming was finished.  He asked if 5 months would be too soon after Victor’s death and I thought the timing was perfect.  As it happened, filming was postponed for a month but stupidly the producer hadn’t thought that the puppies would grow in that time, so the thirty dogs they already had purchased had to be found homes immediately. “

“Now my comedy writer friend and I own sisters!  I called mine Doris Day.  I have another cat too.  Her name is Ella Fitzgerald.  It seemed appropriate as Doris Day learned to sing by listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Ella was my idol too.”

I asked where the animals were now.

“They are both in Santa Monica having a wonderful life.  I Skype Doris every night.  She doesn’t know, of course, but I have to see her.  She is a bouncing ray of light and happiness.  She is the perfect dog for me now I am well, just as Victor was perfect for me at that period in my life.”

I suggested that dogs chose us.

“I think we choose them.” Judith was quick to reply.  “We see a little of ourselves in the dog, in the same way that we do when we choose a husband.”

I could not argue with that idea. 

Judith admitted to feeling a little lonely in London and I suggested that would change if she were to walk a dog.  She agreed wholeheartedly.

“Dog owners are drawn together by their dogs and share a very special relationship.  But they are damn funny too, quite absurd!”

Judith has had a busy year that has involved a lot of travelling and although she has missed her pets, she realised it was kinder to leave them at her home in Santa Monica.  However she is looking forward to ‘compassionate leave’ in October when she will pay them a flying visit.  She is hoping that Doris can come over here in January when her pet passport will be ready.

“But only if she can travel on the seat with me and not in a hold!” she stipulates.

I asked Judith how she would summarise the relationship between dogs and humans.

“Above all things dogs teach people to be in the moment.  The past has gone, the future doesn’t matter, we must learn live in the present.  Most people find this difficult but for a dog that it is how life is.”

Judith Owen will be live in concert at the Pheasantry with special guest stars Harry Shearer, Gabriella Swallow on Oct 3rd, Nov 4th and Dec 6th

She and Harry Shearer will also be appearing at the Purcell Rooms on Dec 4th performing a ‘Happy Holiday Singalong’

JUDITH OWEN LIVE AT THE PHEASANTRY
VENUE:  The Pheasantry, 152, Kings Road,
London SW3 4UT
DATES: Tuesday 20th March 2012
TIME:  8.30pm
TICKET PRICE:   £15.00
RESERVATIONS:    Tel:  0845 6027017  (option 8)