Doing interviews at the Sugarbowl Cafe in Edmonton yesterday, Jann Arden tried not to make a spectacle of herself.

"Nobody could care less that I'm here," she says.

I'm not so sure about that. There were plenty of sideways glances from the denizens of this south-side coffee shop, plus the place was packed at 1 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon.

Arden is one of these rare celebrities who seems unaware she's a celebrity - or at least in a state of denial about it. By the time I talked to her, she says she had signed about 20 autographs, which she's always "humbled" to do. "I don't think I've ever said no to a single soul, even if I'm shopping for feminine protection in Costco, I'll stop and sign their bras for them. I've signed grapefruits, I've signed bare (butts). Pose that question to your readers: How long would you leave a Jann Arden signature on your (butt)? Win a Pontiac!"

She's goes on, "Who else do you know who goes to Costco with a gurney to buy feminine protection? Only me. I have a enough feminine protection for the rest of my life. I'm 38. How long could this go on, another 10 years? That should be it, eh? Menopause should rear its ugly head and I should be done with it."

Arden, as you can see, is in fine wit. I'd be surprised if she wasn't. Her humour has always been a foil for her melancholy music. Her concerts are the kind of events at which you can laugh, cry, run the gamut of emotions. Now, for the first time, the Arden wit comes into her music, on her new album, Blood Red Cherry.

At least three tracks stand out. Best Dressed is a bluesy romp about a drunken, desperate woman going out on the town. Janeen is a slag-fest directed at the mean person everybody's run into. And I Only Wanted Sex gives a wry twist on the typical breakup song: "The hardest part of goodbye is moving all your stuff. Hey, what's the name of that one guy? I sure could use his pickup truck."

OK, so it's pretty dark humour, but you were expecting Moxy Fruvous? Besides, tragedy and comedy aren't as far apart as one might think.

"Same thing," says Arden. "Let's hit him over the head with a board and see how hard people laugh. There's something very erroneous about that - but funny. When you wipe out on the ice and smash your tailbone, you're laughing until the pain sets in. You laugh at humiliation. You laugh because you want to deflect something, and maybe that's what my humour is all about. I want to deflect any attention towards me. It is a shield. I know how to protect myself. I can protect myself with my wit, with my intelligence and my speed and skill. In comedy, I can protect myself from people really getting to the core of what I am."

Even so, Arden is candid when it comes to her personal life. She broke up with her fiance last year, recalling the heartbreak with obvious pain. Good thing Blood Red Cherry had already been written, she says, but she had to take a break from recording the CD. She couldn't sing, she couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep. "My parents had to console me and give me tranquillizers," she says. "That's what's parents are for."

Then she goes off, deflecting her grief with a comic rant inspired by Celine Dion: "God damn it. I was planning a wedding album, too. Sell a few million of those, staple a tiara to my head, close-up picture of the ring, the half-eaten cake. Aw, it would've been beautiful. Goddamn it. I'm going to be out, what, a hundred Gs on that? I was going to buy a Winnebago, for chrissakes."

Getting serious again - an afternoon with this girl is like being on the Mindbender - she talks about the struggle between ego and spirit. She says she learned how to tell the ego to shut the hell up and listen to her spirit for a change. The catalyst was her trip to Africa for World Vision.

"You go over there so pompous thinking I'm going to help all these poor people with my humanitarian mission," she says, "and when you get there you realize, I'm not helping them. They're helping me realize how important it is to embrace the moment. Talking about the ego versus the spirit, I think my ego has always gotten me in trouble. It's always, aw, have another drink, you're too fat to ever make it, you're never going to be good enough. And my spirit, and I don't want to get too Deepak Chopra on anybody here, but I'm just learning now in my 30s, I'm so much more happier when I'm driven by things that are essentially invisible."

Breaking up was a good thing, she says now. It wasn't the right person. And she feels a lot better today.

"I'm out of the woods," she says. "I'm all right. My parents are doing good. I got dumped. Maybe that's the way to close: I got dumped. I'm now living my own songs."

Arden plays the Winspear Centre in mid-June. The date will be announced soon.

Today at 2 p.m., she will conduct a live chat with fans on www.canoe.ca/JamMusic.