{"id":6744,"date":"2026-10-04T00:30:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T00:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/?p=6744"},"modified":"2026-10-04T14:51:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T14:51:31","slug":"paula-cole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/paula-cole\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Cole"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Paula Cole on This Fire<\/em> 30 years later<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirty years after This Fire<\/a><\/em> first introduced the world to songs like \u201cWhere Have All the Cowboys Gone?\u201d and \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Wait,\u201d Paula Cole is taking the album back on the road. The This Fire: 30 tour <\/a>comes to Charleston Music Hall <\/a>on Friday, November 13, 2026, and I had the chance to sit down with Paula to talk about the album, the music that shaped her, and what happens when a song takes on a life of its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The art of making an album<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Paula has always thought about her records as complete works, not just collections of individual songs. When she performs This Fire now, she\u2019s playing it in sequence from beginning to end, something she says feels like taking the audience on a ride. We talk about the importance of sequencing and how the songs, sounds, and production choices work together to create that journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paula also shares some of the artists who shaped her approach to making music, including Kate Bush<\/a>, Peter Gabriel<\/a> and XTC<\/a>. Kate Bush in particular was an important example for Paula of what was possible when a woman took control of the creative and production process and followed her own musical instincts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dolly Parton and the power of women telling their own stories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dolly Parton<\/a> also comes up in our conversation, including her songs \u201cJust Because I\u2019m a Woman<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Bargain Store<\/a>,\u201d which Paula sees as powerful examples of women telling their own stories. Paula also shares a wonderful story about spending an unexpected day in the studio with Dolly while waiting for an engineer to repair some equipment. They spent the day talking, sharing stories, and getting to know each other. Paula still considers that time with one of her heroes a gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonic Memoir: Demos 1989\u20131998<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Paula\u2019s\u00a0Sonic Memoir: Demos 1989\u20131998<\/a><\/em>\u00a0offers another look at the music that came before the finished records. The collection features\u00a063 pre-digital recordings, including early versions of \u201cWhere Have All the Cowboys Gone?\u201d and \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Wait,\u201d along with deep cuts and demos that many fans have never heard. There\u2019s no autotune and no polished distance from the process. Instead, you get to hear Paula working through ideas, developing songs and finding her way toward the artist she would become. As Paula describes it,\u00a0Sonic Memoir<\/em>\u00a0is a love letter to her fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a song becomes bigger than its writer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the biggest theme running through our conversation is what happens when music leaves the person who created it and becomes part of someone else\u2019s life. Paula has heard from fans who found comfort, strength, and even a new sense of themselves through her music. She has also watched those songs move from one generation to another. That\u2019s the magic of music. You can write a song in one moment of your life and never know where it will eventually land. Thirty years later,\u00a0This Fire<\/em>\u00a0is still finding people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See Paula Cole in Charleston<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Paula Cole\u2019s\u00a0This Fire: 30<\/em>\u00a0tour comes to\u00a0Charleston Music Hall<\/a> on Friday, November 13, 2026, bringing the album that helped define her career back to the stage in its entirety. For Charleston music fans, it\u2019s also a pretty special full-circle moment for me. In 2021, I emceed a Lilith Fair tribute<\/a> at Charleston Music Hall where local musicians celebrated the music of that era, including Nora Roy performing \u201cWhere Have All the Cowboys Gone?\u201d Five years later, Paula Cole herself will take that same stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get tickets to see Paula Cole in Charleston<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/discoteepee\/content.blubrry.com\/discoteepee\/paula-full-interview-compressed.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paula Cole on This Fire 30 years later Thirty years after This Fire first introduced the world to songs like \u201cWhere Have All the Cowboys Gone?\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[365,373,571,574,1388,1390,1491,2392,2394,2393],"class_list":["post-6744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-charleston-music","tag-charleston-music-hall","tag-disco-teepee","tag-disco-teepee-radio-show","tag-music-blog","tag-music-blogger","tag-ohm-radio","tag-paula-cole","tag-this-fire-30-tour","tag-this-fire-album"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6744"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6771,"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744\/revisions\/6771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discoteepee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}