Music

Beverly’s Grammy winner, in Groton on Saturday, talks James Van Der Beek, “Dawson’s Creek,” her new archival box set, and “letting yourself suck.”

By Lauren Daley

February 12, 2026 | 10:39 AM

9 minutes to read

When I reach Paula Cole at her Beverly home, she’s itching to leave it.

“There are enormous snow banks outside. I feel so isolated and cooped up and socially starved — I cannot wait for this concert. I am thrilled to play this concert. I actually really need this,” Cole tells me with a laugh.

Same, Paula.

In a winter Boston meteorologists have officially declared “so freaking miserable,” we all freaking need this.

It’s time to oh dear god finally get out of the house and sing when Cole plays a Valentine’s Day show at Groton Hill Music Center in Groton. (Forecast for Saturday: a balmy 40 degrees. I plan to wear shorts.)

Fittingly for a Feb. 14 show, “I find myself choosing more songs about love. I’m just so grateful to be doing what I love. Nothing gives me better joy than when I hear the audience singing.”

The Rockport native won’t get to hear her audience sing again until September when she kicks off her This Fire: 30 tour, which includes a stop at Boston’s The Wilbur Sept. 18. The tour, celebrating the 30th anniversary of “This Fire,” will see her perform that album in its entirety.

Fans will want to mark their calendars for September for another reason. 

The Berklee College of Music alum tells me she’s been hunting through her archives, dating back to her student days at Berklee, to unearth rare and previously unheard tracks.

“I’ve been going through a mountain of analog tapes … like an archivist. I’ve put together a 64-track release — all my demos, from 1989 starting when I was a Berklee College of Music student, to 1996,” she tells me. “Half are tracks nobody’s heard.”

She says “Sonic Memoir,” a planned 4-disc or 7-vinyl, will also drop digitally “concurrently with the ‘This Fire’ tour. It’s a window into my process, and into that time period. It’s really a passion piece,” Cole says. “It’s a big love letter to my fans.”

The recordings are “impressively eccentric,” Cole, 57, tells me with a laugh. “Like, I have to pat myself on the shoulder about what a weirdo I am.”

The Gen X Lilith Fair activist who flipped the bird and bared armpit hair during her 1998 Grammy performance is never not true to herself. It’s what’s always so refreshing about interviewing Cole, and why her devoted cult following loves her. No bull, all Cole. 

Now, I need to add here that I spoke with Cole two days before James Van Der Beek died. The native New Englander and “Dawson’s Creek” actor died Feb. 11 at age 48, per his family’s Instagram post. He’d revealed in 2024 he was being treated for colorectal cancer. 

His AP obituary mentioned: “‘Dawson’s Creek,’ with the moody theme song Paula Cole’s ‘I Don’t Want To Wait,’ helped define The WB as a haven for teens and young adults…”

On Wednesday, Cole posted to Van Der Beek’s Instagram: “A bodhisattva. His kindness still shines. I’m so sorry and send my loving comfort to your beautiful family. Much love.” 

When we spoke Monday, Cole, obviously, spoke of Van Der Beek in the present tense. Much of what she told me reflected that sentiment. 

We also talked Bad Bunny, the Lilith Fair documentary, reuniting with Sarah McLachlan, getting weird, learning guitar, and the Buddhist lesson in letting yourself suck.

Boston.com: So did you watch the Super Bowl?

I watched the halftime show! [laughs] Bad Bunny was great. It was just beautiful. I loved it. I thought Lady Gaga was fabulous, too.

Right? I didn’t expect to see her there. 

Or Ricky Martin!

You also surprised a Boston audience by joining Sarah McLachlan on stage when she was here in November. How did that come together?

So before [the “Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery” premiere], it had been years since we’d communicated. We lost touch. Then I went to the Toronto International Film Festival for the premiere, and there was Sarah on the red carpet. We saw each other and it was like when the theme song breaks out, and the characters run to each other in slow motion.

[laughs] That’s great.

We just looked at each other, like, “How did we lose touch?” We exchanged numbers. I ended up singing with her in Winnipeg. She contacted me again for Boston, like, “Hey, come on out!” 

She’s so lovely and down-to-earth. It’s just wonderful connecting again. Now that we’re both in our upper 50s, we’ve raised our kids and we’re finding more freedom. We’ve been through divorces, a lot of the similar machinations of life that women in the music business go through. I didn’t know how much I missed her.

You told me you weren’t able to go to the “Dawson’s Creek” reunion last fall, but the cast and James Van Der Beek’s family sang your song. [“I Don’t Want to Wait,” the show’s theme song.]

How beautiful. It was actually better that I didn’t go. Then I didn’t sing the song— they sang the song. It was amazing. James Van Der Beek is one of the most spiritual beings on the planet. What a divine soul. Beautiful, beautiful man. I met him years ago at some event we did for “Dawson’s Creek,” and he was just as kind and humble and full of light.

For a promo event?

Yeah, then we went back and I watched the Mike Tyson/ Evander Holyfield match with James Van Der Beek and Michelle Williams. [laughs]

That’s an epic ’90s story. And it must’ve been so moving to see his family and friends singing your words. 

Very touching. People know that song, and they’ve attached great meaning to it. The song has taken on some other level of importance to people. So now, when I sing it in the concerts, everybody sings, it’s just a very beautiful, loving, unifying moment. 

I asked Sarah about the Lilith Fair documentary when she was here. Were you involved in making it?

They were very respectful in keeping me involved in all those final edits, which I really appreciated, because I didn’t feel the narrative was entirely there in some of the earlier portrayals of Lilith Fair. But they were very respectful, they wanted to get my story in. So it was quite the process, receiving the edits, and seeing that part of my life. Sometimes it was hard, but overwhelmingly joyful. 

And then I’m there in the theater, meeting [producer] Dan Levy, and Eugene Levy.

Oh, I love them.

They were so loving. And [executive producer] Diane Sawyer came up to me, thanking me. I just felt so humbled by these people who were touched by Lilith Fair. It felt wonderful and, honestly, overwhelming. 

I was in the theater watching my life from this period of time that was pre-digital and largely uncaptured, for better or worse. Our mistakes, thankfully, were mostly forgotten — but so much of that history was lost because we didn’t have cell phones.

I just couldn’t stop crying. Thankfully I brought Kleenex. I was just weeping, seeing my life up there on the big-screen, with Joan Osborne sitting next to me. 

It must’ve felt like a class reunion in a way.

Yeah, it was wonderful to be with women friends from that period. We knew some of the sh— we endured and the solidarity it took to stand up to the patriarchy.

What do you hope Gen Z viewers get out of watching it now on Hulu?

That no one’s going to bless it, no one’s going to help you: You have to build it yourself. Especially now. There aren’t going to be major constructs out to produce and finance a message of feminism. You’re going to have to go do it. It can be done. Create your own opportunity.

Speaking of that attitude, you got an award since we last talked from the She Rocks Awards in 2025. [Founded  by the Women’s International Music Network, honoring “trailblazing women from all areas of the industry.”]

It’s wonderful to be acknowledged. You know, my husband went to see Leonard Cohen at Berklee years ago, and it was a third full — later [Cohen] was filling the Wang. So artists have ups and downs. It’s about looking long and keeping faith and believing in what you do. Sometimes you get accolades; sometimes you get criticism. Sometimes people will be cruel; sometimes people will be obsequious. You have to keep a Buddhist middle path. You have to do it because you love it. I love music. I can’t do anything else. 

I love that. You just announced a new tour: This Fire: 30. What’s it been like, reflecting on 30 years of those songs?

Each song is a world. On “This Fire,” they’re unusual. It’s creative and arty and raw. I love that, because that era was still full of highly produced, slick albums.

You recorded it with drummer Jay Bellerose, from Maine. 

Another New Englander. We met at Berklee when I was 19 and we never stopped making music together. He’s the Nicks to my Buckingham and the Buckingham to my Nicks. [laughs]

[laughs] Nice.

We recorded it in a few days. I produced it myself, which was radical, because women weren’t really producing themselves — you were guided to some elder male producer. 

So it was a real moment of heeding my inner voice. It was empowering. It’s a small, quiet voice sometimes, and it tries to be stamped out. 

And also, I’ve been, in the past couple years, going through a mountain of analog tapes. I’ve put it all together as a 64-track set that I’ll release concurrently with my tour in September. It’s called “Sonic Memoir.” We’ll take pre-orders for the LP [boxset]. I’m going to have a zine — it’s going to be a whole thing.

Wow. What sparked this? Was it just an idea that you had, or somebody approached you?

It was very organic, just me poking around the house. Actually, you know what made it happen? My former boyfriend and friend, Mark Hutchins, died in [in 2023]. We graduated Berklee and drove cross country and lived in San Francisco for a few years. 

When he died, I realized I had a lot of his recordings, and wanted to get them digitized. I’m looking at all these DAT [digital audio tapes] tapes, thinking, “I need to save this, otherwise it’s just lost.” Along the line, I realized: “Maybe I should release it.” The lightbulbs just kept going off. It was an intuitive, following-my-nose process. One idea led to the other, and “Sonic Memoir” was born. 

[The tracks are from] a seven-year period before any fame hit me.  I had no self-consciousness, I was just singing about social, political things, being outrageous and writing weird music. Very free. I learned about myself. It was almost like doing therapy. [laughs] 

Are you writing any new music now?

I am. I finally committed to learning guitar. It’s been about a year and a half. I try to practice every day. I’m not naturally gifted at guitar. I find it hard, but I want to have a new compositional space, to be a beginner again, to allow myself to suck at something and not be too hard on myself. That’s where these songs are coming: on the instrument I can’t play very well.

There’s a Buddhist lesson in that, too.

I want to have an area of growth. So I just have to suck. I just have to have my fingers hurt and sound awful and be frustrated. It’s been a beautiful practice. 

Interview has been edited and condensed. For information on Saturday’s concert, visit the Groton Hill Music Center website. For information on September’s show at The Wilbur, visit thewilbur.com. For updates on vinyl pre-orders check PaulaCole.com.

Lauren Daley is a freelance culture writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.

Lauren Daley

Lauren Daley is a longtime culture journalist. As a regular contributor to Boston.com, she interviews A-list musicians, actors, authors and other major artists.

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