Jill Barber on the Royal Wedding and Marrying Her 'Own Prince'

Vancouver songstress Jill Barber has never read a Harlequin romance novel, but her orchestral, sultry jazz-pop epitomizes that dreamy, idealistic view of love. It's almost certain a man has thrown on her music to get his date in the mood. On her latest album, 'Mischievous Moon,' most of the songs are about being totally open for love.

"I like to say that I'm a hopeful romantic as opposed to a helpless one," Barber tells Spinner. "I get caught up in the fantasy of it."

While there is a love-gone-wrong song on 'Mischievous Moon' (and it happens to be the single, 'Tell Me'), most are purely positive. 'Took Me by Surprise' is about getting knocked off her feet by a man; 'Daydreamin'' is about knowing love is a "stones-throw away"; 'A Wish Under My Pillow' is about dreaming "we'd never be apart and we'd always have this feeling."

All these are delivered in a spellbinding soundscape of a bygone era, when women in evening gowns were courted by dapper gentlemen who held the door open for a lady and pulled the chair out for her at dinner.

"There was a time when all popular music was romantic, and those times are gone," says Barber.

"What I love when you turn up an old record is the hopefulness and the romance of it all and I get swept away in it. The alternative is regular life, but if you elevate it with a little bit of romance I enjoy that feeling. I try to apply that view to my entire life, not just the romance of romance."

Watch Jill Barber Perform 'Mischievous Moon'
Barber is a fairly new bride herself, having found the man of her dreams in CBC Radio host Grant Lawrence. Not surprisingly, she watched the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on April 29, even though she had a concert that evening.

"I'm a little embarrassed how much time I spent watching it," she laughs. "I didn't watch it when it was happening it live. I was sleeping, but I was staying with my folks in Toronto and my mom PVR-ed so we watched it when we woke up."

It was hard to identify with a wedding of that size and pomp, but she says, "The only thing is I know the feeling of walking down an aisle, not to the extent that she was. I was there with her in a way walking down the aisle. There is also the similarity that I'm married my own Prince."

"Speaking of the Royal Wedding," she adds, "a lot of people walk down the aisle to my music or had their first dance. To me, that's a wonderful thing. I enjoy having my music be a soundtrack to moments and lives. That is such a great honour as a musician."

Barber's music doesn't come with a warning sticker "For Couples Only" and she doesn't want anybody to feel left out.

"I enjoy making music that makes people feel romantic and it's not so much about couples. I don't want to make anybody [feel bad] that doesn't have somebody in their life to be romantic with them. It's a state of mind," she says.

"I think that romantic, kind of dreamy, whimsical mood that I love, that I get when I put on my favourite records, is a feeling of being transported. That is a romantic idea, that you can put on a song and it can carry you away. That's the kind of music that I'm attracted to listen to and, therefore, also the kind of music that I love to make."