All I Can

Sharon Van Etten is a songwriter, musician, performer, and actress. Impressive sure, but that’s not why fans crowded the merch table she manned at her early gigs, hoping to share a word. In All I Can, recorded exclusively for Audible’s Words + Music series, Van Etten muses on the emotional power of music and along the way demonstrates the truism of the personal illustrating the universal. Her research in the affairs of the heart was hard-won, her catharsis earned; her recordings are a master class on emotional survival.

Van Etten takes us through her early struggles and her fascination and focus on how music connects with us so deeply. Her charmingly modest account of a career that has blossomed well beyond her indie rock roots and into acting and collaborations with likeminded creatives like David Lynch, Jeff Goldblum, and Norah Jones is enlivened by performances of several of her best-known songs, including "Stay", "Seventeen", "Like I Used To", and "I Love You but I’m Lost".