Second Cup Cafe: Paula Cole

The "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone" Singer Returns

(CBS)  Ten years ago, Paula Cole's "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" was playing everywhere. It was the anthem for frustrated women, unable to find a suitable man.

She enjoyed success with her album "This Fire," and her song "I Don't Want to Wait" became the theme for the hugely-popular TV series chronicling teen angst, "Dawson's Creek." She even won a Grammy for Best New Artist, but then seemed to go on hiatus and disappeared from the limelight.

"In all of the honest expression, struggle and painful hard work of 'Harbinger,' 'This Fire' and 'Amen,' I stood outside myself and saw myself running furiously on some giant hamster wheel," she wrote on her MySpace page. "I wanted out. I wanted to rest. I wanted a child. I wanted to leave New York City and look for a new life. I was at the beginning of my mid-life crisis."

Cole now has a 5-year-old daughter, Sky, who struggles with severe asthma that Cole wrote "requires total vigilance." She is also embroiled in a divorce.

Things changed in her business life as well. She parted ways with her record company.

"My old manager told me I'd never get another record deal again and I sobbed in an alleyway," she wrote. "I read Jungian psychology. I mothered my fantastic kid. Somewhere in there I moved back East, to my authentic culture, I separated from my charming man, and miraculously, I desired to sing again."

Now the former Lilith Fair rocker is back. She went on tour with singer-actress Mandy Moore and now has a new album, "Courage."

[autumnseer]

This is one of my favorite CD''s currently. It is not "precious and pretentious" as the cynical comment above suggests. At least give it a shot. I''m personally glad she''s back.

[lmarkert-2009]

Great music! Heard her for the first time in a long time this morning on the Early Show and was immediately drawn to the message thru her music. Interesting how life changing events can bring out a "new" person. Go Paula!!!

[keithle1]

Ugh. She''s awful. Daughter''s name is "Sky."
Puh-leeeeze. Why are women so precious & pretentious? Another marriage bites the dust.

There is better music than this out there. I guarantee it.