# Madison Cunningham

An episode of [Norah Jones Is Playing Along](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1645438817), 21 Apr 2026, 57 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/025f97a9-e326-4258-84c2-b37600f3a041/945ccb55-cdee-4a02-9209-b432017c0fcb/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=daeef4e2-7a2d-4121-b869-b37600f3a049

GRAMMY-winning singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Madison Cunningham joins Norah for a thoughtful hang and a set of striking duets on Madison’s songs. They talk about writing authentically and the artists who helped make songwriting make sense. Recorded 10/15/25. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You
[0:03] Speaker 1: can visit Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe
[0:06] Speaker 1: while you're there. Hey, I'm Nora Jones and today I'm
[0:08] Speaker 1: playing along with Madison Cunningham. I'm just playing lo wey.
[0:18] Speaker 1: I'm just paging.
[0:20] Speaker 2: Loon we you.
[0:25] Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. I'm
[0:28] Speaker 1: here with Sarah Oda.
[0:30] Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, welcome to our show. We have an awesome
[0:33] Speaker 3: episode today. We have the Grammy winning singer, songwriter, guitarist
[0:38] Speaker 3: and pianist Madison Cunningham. She has collaborated with tons of
[0:42] Speaker 3: people including Lucy Dacus, Remy Wolf, Mumford and sons Lucius
[0:48] Speaker 3: and Andrew Bird, a lot of our podcast homies. She's
[0:53] Speaker 3: an incredible songwriter. Her lyrics are very emotionally sharp, and
[0:57] Speaker 3: she's a real storyteller.
[0:59] Speaker 1: I love her music. It is something about it. It's
[1:04] Speaker 1: just like arresting and it's very very beautiful and heartfelt.
[1:10] Speaker 1: But also she's an incredible musician and it's complicated, so
[1:15] Speaker 1: it's all the things wrapped up and you feel perfect Vessel.
[1:19] Speaker 1: Her voice is incredible too, so beautiful.
[1:23] Speaker 3: Yeah, you're going to hear her beautiful voice. You're going
[1:25] Speaker 3: to hear kind of how she became such a poignant lyricist,
[1:31] Speaker 3: and also some of the musicians and artists that inspired
[1:34] Speaker 3: her along the way. And Yes, amazing music as always
[1:38] Speaker 3: from across Madison's catalog, including her latest album Ace that
[1:42] Speaker 3: came out last year in twenty twenty.
[1:44] Speaker 1: Five, a very beautiful album. Yeah, come join us with
[1:48] Speaker 1: Madison cutting head. There is some spicy language in this episode,
[1:52] Speaker 1: so listener discretion is advised. It's not that bad, but
[1:56] Speaker 1: just so you know it's there, Okay.
[2:02] Speaker 4: Okay, saying you could do me harm in saty.
[2:41] Speaker 5: Of your arms while you had a red of bombs
[2:47] Speaker 5: dropping my fool of sunder clouds, keep been a craft
[2:57] Speaker 5: on the ground, winds.
[3:01] Speaker 6: Sliping round, suffering, turning in.
[3:09] Speaker 7: And turning out the line and old.
[3:13] Speaker 8: Deep stops in the carphone on your drive, whether you're drowning.
[3:24] Speaker 2: A fall.
[3:32] Speaker 1: In wa.
[3:40] Speaker 9: In your ivy lie.
[3:59] Speaker 8: Who bearing no resens to an agent innocence of.
[4:19] Speaker 2: The audience. Good now.
[4:25] Speaker 8: As the grand lous phase.
[4:29] Speaker 2: It hits me as a drive away a.
[4:34] Speaker 10: Loveacy hair, go gray.
[4:44] Speaker 1: Far in.
[4:52] Speaker 9: Where in in Mela Way.
[6:26] Speaker 10: I have chills. That was amazing, amazing, That was the
[6:30] Speaker 10: hardest Why I know we got it got You're so good.
[6:34] Speaker 10: That voice is just.
[6:35] Speaker 1: Oh your voice has been making me cry all week.
[6:38] Speaker 1: Oh man, it's so beautiful.
[6:40] Speaker 10: I just felt like music. That's how it should feel.
[6:42] Speaker 1: That is what it is. Yeah, wait a second.
[6:46] Speaker 10: It was music.
[6:47] Speaker 1: Oh that was so beautiful. I feel is so beautiful,
[6:51] Speaker 1: your feel. That was amazing. Compliments salad, Yeah, it.
[6:55] Speaker 10: Is a compliment. Salad, coming right up.
[6:58] Speaker 1: I love your guitar playing. Thank you, it's so amazing.
[7:01] Speaker 10: Thank you so much.
[7:02] Speaker 1: How do you do it?
[7:05] Speaker 10: How do I do it? I don't know.
[7:07] Speaker 1: When did you start? When did you start?
[7:10] Speaker 10: I started playing guitar when I was about four or five.
[7:14] Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, that makes sense now.
[7:17] Speaker 10: Yeah. My dad was a He played guitar, He played
[7:20] Speaker 10: acoustic guitar, and like as a as a kid, I
[7:24] Speaker 10: I was told by my parents that I wanted to
[7:28] Speaker 10: play kind of immediately, and I think I just really
[7:30] Speaker 10: wanted to be close to my dad and wanted to
[7:33] Speaker 10: share some sort of like a language with him, with
[7:36] Speaker 10: him and subconsciously, you know, and that's really sweet. Yeah.
[7:39] Speaker 10: I was almost like picking up a baseball bat or
[7:41] Speaker 10: something and being like, let's go play catch. You know.
[7:43] Speaker 10: That was that was the feeling of learning to play,
[7:47] Speaker 10: which was Yeah. I mean, my love for it has
[7:51] Speaker 10: grown changed and morphed over the years, but I think
[7:54] Speaker 10: watching his passion for it also was just naturally going
[7:59] Speaker 10: to be in.
[7:59] Speaker 1: Facts Okay, Yeah, was he professional or.
[8:04] Speaker 10: Was within h church circles?
[8:07] Speaker 1: Cool?
[8:08] Speaker 10: Yeah? Yeah, and he's still he's still doing it and
[8:10] Speaker 10: still performing and writing his own music, and he's yeah,
[8:16] Speaker 10: he was. He's been a big support.
[8:18] Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, that sounds really sweet. Yeah, yeah, very sweet.
[8:23] Speaker 1: Did you take lessons when you were little?
[8:25] Speaker 10: I started taking piano lessons first, okay, and my uh
[8:31] Speaker 10: piano teacher was very quickly caught onto the fact that
[8:34] Speaker 10: I couldn't, like, I couldn't read music and she was
[8:38] Speaker 10: trying to teach me and I couldn't. Like it never stuck.
[8:42] Speaker 1: So she was like, because you remind was too fast
[8:45] Speaker 1: with the music part, and you've already kind of knew
[8:48] Speaker 1: what you wanted to hear by ear.
[8:49] Speaker 10: I think it must have been that I was like,
[8:50] Speaker 10: just I could, like I could replicate what I heard
[8:55] Speaker 10: pretty quickly.
[8:56] Speaker 1: By just.
[8:58] Speaker 10: Yeah, by just memory. And I think she was like,
[9:00] Speaker 10: let's just focus on your training. And I do regret
[9:03] Speaker 10: not having learned or I wish that that would have
[9:07] Speaker 10: kind of settled into do.
[9:10] Speaker 1: You really really really It hasn't really come up, I guess,
[9:16] Speaker 1: but like it was exactly and it's not gonna it's
[9:21] Speaker 1: like map, It's like, yeah, I don't know, I really
[9:23] Speaker 1: really needed that.
[9:26] Speaker 10: But yeah, anyway, that was kind of the that was
[9:29] Speaker 10: where the love for it started.
[9:32] Speaker 1: That's cool.
[9:33] Speaker 10: When did you start playing?
[9:34] Speaker 1: I was seven. I started taking lessons, Okay, yeah, wow.
[9:38] Speaker 1: I didn't want to practice though, so I wanted to quit.
[9:41] Speaker 10: Yeah did you hate it? You must have hated it.
[9:43] Speaker 1: My teacher was really nice. I wanted to take lessons.
[9:45] Speaker 1: I wanted to play piano. My teacher was great. I mean,
[9:49] Speaker 1: it was just the classical programs and it didn't really
[9:51] Speaker 1: vibe with my brain, I guess. And then I quit
[9:55] Speaker 1: after five years because my mom said I could after
[9:58] Speaker 1: five years. Wow, only after five years? So I quit.
[10:02] Speaker 1: And then about a year later I got into jazz
[10:05] Speaker 1: and that that worked with my brain.
[10:08] Speaker 2: Could you do?
[10:08] Speaker 10: Were you reading? Were you how were you ingesting it?
[10:12] Speaker 1: I was just listening to it. And then I had
[10:13] Speaker 1: this great teacher. I started playing saxophone, and then my
[10:16] Speaker 1: saxophone teacher turned me on to this great teacher in
[10:19] Speaker 1: Dallas named Julie Bonc who taught me how to read
[10:23] Speaker 1: chord changes and she encouraged me to write, even though
[10:26] Speaker 1: I was a little shy with that, but she taught
[10:29] Speaker 1: me how to outline chords instead of reading like staff paper,
[10:33] Speaker 1: you know, write just chords.
[10:34] Speaker 10: She was like teaching you the sketches of learning how
[10:38] Speaker 10: to write songs.
[10:39] Speaker 1: She really was, And yeah she was school. I mean
[10:42] Speaker 1: she still is, she's still around. But yeah, sometimes you
[10:48] Speaker 1: just need another way in, you know.
[10:51] Speaker 10: Yeah, right, Like the I was actually homeschool, and I
[10:56] Speaker 10: feel like I used this paraly like the whole way through,
[10:59] Speaker 10: never ever went, never stepped foot in the classroom.
[11:02] Speaker 1: But I have so many questions.
[11:04] Speaker 10: Man, I'm opening it was you know, it's all I know,
[11:10] Speaker 10: and so I don't have a lot to compare it to.
[11:12] Speaker 10: But like I feel like every kid is like needs
[11:20] Speaker 10: to learn differently. And the beauty of being homeschool was
[11:23] Speaker 10: I think my mom was my teacher. She was able
[11:26] Speaker 10: to kind of curate the curriculum for what worked with
[11:29] Speaker 10: my brain. And I think that's how music's always been too.
[11:32] Speaker 10: Like I grew up kind of thinking like I was
[11:35] Speaker 10: like slow or something. Not because my family made me
[11:39] Speaker 10: feel that way, but because I was like, oh, the
[11:41] Speaker 10: way that people learn, I'm not learning that way.
[11:43] Speaker 1: It's different.
[11:44] Speaker 10: Yeah, it's different. And you realize that, realized it later. Yeah,
[11:48] Speaker 10: in the moment, I don't think I had language for
[11:49] Speaker 10: I just was like, I just I just know that
[11:52] Speaker 10: I enjoy this and I want to throw out all
[11:55] Speaker 10: of the rule books that come with it, and yeah,
[12:00] Speaker 10: I think I love that music is that it's like
[12:04] Speaker 10: any one of us can find our own entry point
[12:07] Speaker 10: into it, and it's almost it's the most necessary. Also,
[12:10] Speaker 10: if you're writing songs to find your throw the rule
[12:14] Speaker 10: book out, throw the Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's almost
[12:16] Speaker 10: not worth learning the rules.
[12:20] Speaker 1: Yeah it's not. Well, it's not because you don't want
[12:23] Speaker 1: to follow a formula. Yeah, because what what's so magical
[12:27] Speaker 1: in your music is that it's I felt kind of
[12:30] Speaker 1: transformed when I was listening to all these songs. I mean,
[12:35] Speaker 1: it's just your way of writing. It does. I was
[12:39] Speaker 1: going to ask you how you how you got so
[12:42] Speaker 1: good with lyrics, you know, like are you into poetry
[12:47] Speaker 1: or maybe it's just the way things form in your
[12:50] Speaker 1: brain with your background, and like it's just so beautiful,
[12:54] Speaker 1: these words everything. Yeah, your writing is amazing.
[12:58] Speaker 10: That's so fun. Lyrics are the thing I'm the most
[13:00] Speaker 10: insecure about.
[13:01] Speaker 1: Really, do you work a lot at them?
[13:04] Speaker 10: I work very hard at them. This last record was
[13:08] Speaker 10: such a weird. It was kind of the exception to
[13:12] Speaker 10: the rule. Like usually I take a year to write
[13:16] Speaker 10: a record, and this one was written basically and within
[13:20] Speaker 10: the lifespan of like two months, and it was just
[13:25] Speaker 10: I think it was the first time I'd ever really
[13:27] Speaker 10: experienced heartbreak, and so everything was really.
[13:31] Speaker 1: Clarified hard in fact, right, yeah, exactly.
[13:35] Speaker 10: And what was so scary was leading up to that,
[13:38] Speaker 10: I was feeling all of it and had no way
[13:42] Speaker 10: to articulate myself, and it felt like a trap and
[13:45] Speaker 10: I like lost the power of language, and I felt
[13:50] Speaker 10: really distant from music and just distant for myself the
[13:52] Speaker 10: whole thing, you know. But these lyrics were like I
[13:56] Speaker 10: definitely edited them, and I'm really really cared about it,
[13:59] Speaker 10: but I just I felt like it was the more
[14:01] Speaker 10: that I messed with it, the more it put up
[14:05] Speaker 10: a fight with being messed with. And usually I've found
[14:10] Speaker 10: that it's like, uh, for the better when I've really
[14:15] Speaker 10: sat and toiled with lyrics and editing. And it also
[14:19] Speaker 10: almost come from like because I was homeschooled to have
[14:22] Speaker 10: a stigma about just naturally not being good with words.
[14:26] Speaker 1: Really it's very silly, but it's you're so good with words.
[14:29] Speaker 10: Maybe it's just a way. Maybe it's been my way
[14:31] Speaker 10: out or my way of like finding my my footage
[14:36] Speaker 10: or value and myself. And I'm always, like again, very
[14:40] Speaker 10: unsure that I'm being understood or that really they're good
[14:46] Speaker 10: or it's an interesting thing.
[14:48] Speaker 1: I think we all kind of feel like that. Yeah,
[14:50] Speaker 1: but that's interesting because your lyrics are pretty jaw dropping
[14:56] Speaker 1: to me. I just find them really they're so that
[15:01] Speaker 1: you think or I think coming from this as a
[15:04] Speaker 1: as a listener, I think, wow, she must really like
[15:09] Speaker 1: work at these. But at the same time, they're so
[15:11] Speaker 1: heartfelt and it doesn't feel like you're they're overworked. Does
[15:14] Speaker 1: that make sense?
[15:15] Speaker 10: That makes that which is a really nice place to be.
[15:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, because when things just come out, I feel like
[15:22] Speaker 1: it's the most emotional. You really just want to capture
[15:24] Speaker 1: the emotion, right right.
[15:25] Speaker 10: There's like so there's such a fine line between it
[15:28] Speaker 10: like coming out as your first attempt at a thought,
[15:32] Speaker 10: forming a thought and then and then you and then
[15:34] Speaker 10: the like you know, you don't want it to ever
[15:38] Speaker 10: feel like you're being a scholar.
[15:40] Speaker 1: Someone exactly, You don't want to feel like you've made
[15:42] Speaker 1: it perfect, but there's no emotion in it.
[15:45] Speaker 10: Like yes, exactly, someone, I bet you get this. This
[15:49] Speaker 10: asked this question a lot, but someone recently was like,
[15:51] Speaker 10: how do you know when a song is finished? And
[15:54] Speaker 10: I've always just had the worst answers for that, and
[15:57] Speaker 10: just recently I feel like the answer that I actually
[16:00] Speaker 10: get behind, and it is the most true for me,
[16:03] Speaker 10: is like, I don't know when a song is finished.
[16:06] Speaker 10: I just know if it's alive or is like has
[16:10] Speaker 10: something that will continue to percolate and need to be
[16:13] Speaker 10: said as the years go on. Beautiful, And that's the thing.
[16:18] Speaker 10: It's like, as long as the conversation feels like it's
[16:21] Speaker 10: fluid and alive, even if it's like a little bit clumsy,
[16:24] Speaker 10: and even if it's a little bit like elementary, it's
[16:29] Speaker 10: worth saying.
[16:29] Speaker 1: And it's a sketch that you can tell what it is,
[16:32] Speaker 1: and yes, you can show it to people.
[16:34] Speaker 10: That's it's language. It's like the thing that communicates what
[16:37] Speaker 10: is happening in your heart space to like you know,
[16:41] Speaker 10: strangers and to people that you love, and like it's
[16:43] Speaker 10: the most that's all we got.
[16:45] Speaker 1: That's it's beautiful. You're coming at it from the right place.
[16:49] Speaker 10: Try and the motives get skewed, but try.
[16:52] Speaker 1: I know it's beautiful.
[16:53] Speaker 10: And you're still good with lyrics too.
[16:55] Speaker 1: Oh, I appreciate that things. I came to it much later,
[16:59] Speaker 1: and I've alway always felt kind of not good at
[17:01] Speaker 1: it as well. But the last five or ten years,
[17:04] Speaker 1: I feel like I've kind of hit a stride where
[17:07] Speaker 1: I I'm proud of the songs from the last like
[17:10] Speaker 1: ten years from a songwriting perspective, and I'm happy about that.
[17:14] Speaker 1: But I also feel like I'm a little bit opposite
[17:17] Speaker 1: where I I'm really excited when I feel like a
[17:20] Speaker 1: song is done, and I just like I don't want
[17:22] Speaker 1: to mess with it anymore.
[17:24] Speaker 10: Totally. Yeah, there's no yeah, you know when it's like
[17:28] Speaker 10: But also, do you ever rewrite songs from stage? And
[17:34] Speaker 10: by that, I mean like after they recorded and you
[17:37] Speaker 10: get to two of them, do you ever go, oh,
[17:38] Speaker 10: that was the lyric I really wish I would have done.
[17:40] Speaker 10: Why don't I just correct it?
[17:41] Speaker 1: Now? There's a few lyrics that I have done that too.
[17:44] Speaker 10: Yeah.
[17:45] Speaker 1: I think it's maybe one or two where I just
[17:48] Speaker 1: the old lyrics make me cringe. Yes, And then there's
[17:51] Speaker 1: one or two where the situation was very specific and
[17:54] Speaker 1: I just want to rewrite that story a little, yes.
[17:57] Speaker 11: You know.
[17:58] Speaker 12: Yeah.
[17:59] Speaker 10: Is it usually in this the ones that make you cringe?
[18:01] Speaker 10: Is it usually the songs that people really want to hear?
[18:05] Speaker 1: No, luckily, but it is. It's just older songs that
[18:09] Speaker 1: I think were written before I really found my stride
[18:12] Speaker 1: as a songwriter, before I learned that putting my heart
[18:15] Speaker 1: out is okay, and I would try to take all
[18:19] Speaker 1: the US and me's out and like clean it up
[18:21] Speaker 1: from the casual thing. But really the you and me
[18:25] Speaker 1: is what it's about. So when I would clean it up,
[18:28] Speaker 1: it would just kind of fall flat.
[18:30] Speaker 10: You know, what did you think wasn't okay or acceptable?
[18:34] Speaker 10: And just to put in a song like what felt
[18:37] Speaker 10: to bear to you? Was it just that use and me's.
[18:41] Speaker 1: Or was it I think it was more like just cliches. Yeah,
[18:45] Speaker 1: And now I realized that cliches, if you mean him
[18:48] Speaker 1: are they go right to people's hearts, and it's like,
[18:52] Speaker 1: that's what it's about.
[18:53] Speaker 10: It's the same reason that like, I will want a
[18:56] Speaker 10: steak for the rest of my life.
[18:58] Speaker 1: A steak, A steak.
[18:59] Speaker 10: It's a classic, exact cliche. But it's like it is
[19:04] Speaker 10: for a reason. It is exactly and like cliches are
[19:08] Speaker 10: so important, and I think the best songwriters are the
[19:11] Speaker 10: ones who recognize that and get how do I just
[19:14] Speaker 10: reframe it? How do I redish it, replait it?
[19:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I'm never looking for a cliche, but if
[19:20] Speaker 1: something comes out and it happens to be pretty simple
[19:23] Speaker 1: and like universal and maybe used before, maybe in a
[19:26] Speaker 1: different way, but I'm like, I'm fine with it.
[19:28] Speaker 10: Are you a Friends fan?
[19:30] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[19:31] Speaker 10: The classic sitcom do you remember the episode where oh
[19:35] Speaker 10: my god, I'm forgetting his name. He's like, he's like
[19:37] Speaker 10: the dumb one, Joe Joey. He writes this letter of
[19:41] Speaker 10: recommendation or something, but he's or like a birthday car.
[19:43] Speaker 10: It was something. He's like tasked with writing this letter,
[19:46] Speaker 10: and he goes to the thesaurus and punches in every
[19:50] Speaker 10: single word and it's just like this unreadable letter with
[19:53] Speaker 10: the same words. I feel like, the more profound that
[19:59] Speaker 10: we try to be, we sound like that, Yeah, and
[20:02] Speaker 10: totally the less that we try it's all about just
[20:05] Speaker 10: making the veil as thin as possible. Yeah, and that's
[20:10] Speaker 10: that's the key to I think relatability obviously, but also
[20:16] Speaker 10: like true poetry.
[20:17] Speaker 1: Connection and connection. Yeah.
[20:19] Speaker 10: Yeah, It's just funny that we always think that we
[20:22] Speaker 10: have to find the craziest ingredients, you know, to make
[20:26] Speaker 10: it worth somebody's time. And that's usually the thing that
[20:29] Speaker 10: people they don't really have time to listen to. It's
[20:33] Speaker 10: too rich.
[20:33] Speaker 1: I see if they can see through it, I think
[20:35] Speaker 1: I give them. You got to give them a lot
[20:37] Speaker 1: more credit.
[20:37] Speaker 2: We have to.
[20:38] Speaker 10: Yeah, I know, why do we Why do we make
[20:40] Speaker 10: our audiences so dumb in our minds? But we do.
[20:43] Speaker 1: I think we're I think we I think we're doing
[20:46] Speaker 1: it the right way. I think we're just trying to
[20:49] Speaker 1: be you just try to be vulnerable and hope that
[20:52] Speaker 1: people can latch onto something.
[20:53] Speaker 10: Maybe it's like the people around the people who like
[20:56] Speaker 10: talk about music so much like people in the industry
[20:59] Speaker 10: that go like, let's dumb it down. Let's yeah, let's
[21:02] Speaker 10: prepare a meal, a happy meal for the people, and
[21:05] Speaker 10: a stake. And I want a fucking steak, and I
[21:08] Speaker 10: want you to make it really well.
[21:10] Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't want a happy meal, but.
[21:12] Speaker 10: No shade, I want a burger? Are you kidding?
[21:15] Speaker 1: Yeah?
[21:15] Speaker 10: With the toy exactly, absolutely not above anything.
[21:19] Speaker 1: This is already so fun.
[21:22] Speaker 10: This is the best day I've had in a long time.
[21:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, where do you live?
[21:26] Speaker 10: I live in Frogtown? What is that?
[21:31] Speaker 11: Is that here?
[21:32] Speaker 2: It's so fair?
[21:32] Speaker 10: Yeah, it's here, Okay, backed up to the Los Angeles
[21:36] Speaker 10: River and on the bike path. Actually, most people in
[21:41] Speaker 10: LA when I when I say that name, like, I
[21:43] Speaker 10: don't know what you're talking about.
[21:45] Speaker 1: Is it an old Did you grow up here?
[21:46] Speaker 10: I grew up in Orange County, which is, you know,
[21:49] Speaker 10: forty five minutes south from here. But we it's such
[21:52] Speaker 10: to such different worlds and cultures.
[21:54] Speaker 1: That's not that close.
[21:56] Speaker 10: I have to clarify. Yeah, I would love to claim
[21:58] Speaker 10: Los Angeles, but it's yeah, it's Orange County. And so
[22:02] Speaker 10: frog Town is like this little island of Silver Lake,
[22:05] Speaker 10: I would describe it. And it used to be back
[22:08] Speaker 10: in the forties fifties infested with frogs, so it got
[22:12] Speaker 10: dubbed that name. And the frogs are no longer there,
[22:16] Speaker 10: which is kind of sad.
[22:17] Speaker 1: Oh, I know they got magnolia.
[22:19] Speaker 10: Yeah, because they migrated they croaked, so speak.
[22:24] Speaker 1: Boy, well, do you want to do another song from
[22:28] Speaker 1: your new record which is so beautiful? Thank you? I
[22:32] Speaker 1: really love it. Thank you so many congratulations. It's it
[22:35] Speaker 1: just came out a few days.
[22:36] Speaker 10: Ago, right, yeah it did, it did.
[22:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's really beautiful and you play a lot
[22:41] Speaker 1: of piano on it. Yeah, and I love your piano playing.
[22:45] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[22:45] Speaker 10: That means a lot coming from me. I I kind
[22:49] Speaker 10: of just it was just out of interest and love.
[22:52] Speaker 10: It wasn't meant to be like a a statement. Really,
[22:56] Speaker 10: it just felt like it was the right uh sound
[23:00] Speaker 10: and shape for the music, and is how you wrote
[23:02] Speaker 10: the song some of them, I mean some of them
[23:05] Speaker 10: my full name, the one we're about to play was
[23:07] Speaker 10: written on guitar first and interesting.
[23:11] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well what.
[23:13] Speaker 10: I was doing when writing those songs, there was a
[23:16] Speaker 10: lot of just like me testing the strength of the song,
[23:20] Speaker 10: and I'd feel like kind of switching instruments is really
[23:24] Speaker 10: helpful to be like, oh yeah this this still stands
[23:28] Speaker 10: without like the branding of an instrument or that, because
[23:31] Speaker 10: that has been the trap I think I've I've found
[23:35] Speaker 10: myself in, which is being like, oh I'm a I'm
[23:38] Speaker 10: a guitar player, So I write riffs right, and I
[23:41] Speaker 10: very quickly like this record was never going to be
[23:44] Speaker 10: a riffs record. There was no there was no room
[23:48] Speaker 10: for it. But I was also growing out of the
[23:51] Speaker 10: I was changing anyway. So but piano felt like this interesting,
[23:56] Speaker 10: like way forward and it's still it's just it's fun
[24:01] Speaker 10: to me. That's like one of the first instruments I
[24:03] Speaker 10: started on, and it's just you know what it's like.
[24:07] Speaker 10: It's just a beautiful, fluid instrument that has everything's laid
[24:11] Speaker 10: out for you. Yeah, just so nice.
[24:13] Speaker 1: But I think it's fun to switch and it's important.
[24:15] Speaker 1: It's really fun. I love playing guitar. I'm not great,
[24:19] Speaker 1: but it's it's like I didn't know you played, Yeah,
[24:22] Speaker 1: I mean I write more on guitar. I feel like
[24:25] Speaker 1: it opened up writing for me. In my early twenties,
[24:28] Speaker 1: I had a hard time writing songs on piano because
[24:32] Speaker 1: I was used to jazz chords and then when I
[24:35] Speaker 1: stripped back the sevenths and stuff, it just sounded like
[24:38] Speaker 1: a square piano chord and I didn't know how to
[24:41] Speaker 1: make it sing yet, right, So I when I started
[24:44] Speaker 1: playing guitar, I would write. It opened up songwriting for me.
[24:48] Speaker 10: Who are the people that made songwriting makes sense to you, Like,
[24:52] Speaker 10: who are the north Stars that made you go? Could
[24:55] Speaker 10: I try and write a song like that?
[24:58] Speaker 1: I mean all the probably the ones, all the one. Yeah,
[25:04] Speaker 1: probably Willie Nelson because his songs are deceptively they sound simple,
[25:08] Speaker 1: but then they always have like a little twist. Oh
[25:11] Speaker 1: you know, it's absolute perfection. It's pretty great.
[25:15] Speaker 10: Yeah, it doesn't get better.
[25:16] Speaker 1: Dolly doesn't hurt.
[25:18] Speaker 10: Dolly doesn't hurt. I was just thinking about her today, Yeah,
[25:21] Speaker 10: as I always am.
[25:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
[25:23] Speaker 10: That song, Uh here you come again? Oh god, it's
[25:27] Speaker 10: it's so good, all the twists and that. I mean,
[25:30] Speaker 10: there's some really bold key changes, but you don't feel it.
[25:34] Speaker 1: That's that's the thing, that's the mastery part.
[25:37] Speaker 10: Yes, it's the slight of hand.
[25:39] Speaker 1: What about you when you grow up loving?
[25:42] Speaker 10: I grew up with nothing. I mean I was like
[25:45] Speaker 10: me and my parents laugh about this now because they're
[25:47] Speaker 10: they're such different like music consumers now, But at the
[25:52] Speaker 10: time they were they were really young, and they were
[25:55] Speaker 10: just really worried about what we were listening to. And
[25:58] Speaker 10: there was just a lot of rules.
[26:00] Speaker 2: Were listening to.
[26:01] Speaker 1: Was it a lot of religious music?
[26:02] Speaker 10: Yeah? It was, I mean, and there was, there was
[26:04] Speaker 10: some there're some bands I still really get behind. A
[26:08] Speaker 10: band called Isley. Uh, it's these sisters and I met
[26:14] Speaker 10: them recently, and I just I think they still had
[26:16] Speaker 10: such wonderful music ideas, musical ideas even though they're not
[26:20] Speaker 10: a band anymore. In a band called Mute Math I
[26:22] Speaker 10: loved and like that was kind of still within I
[26:26] Speaker 10: don't know if they would align as like Christian bands
[26:29] Speaker 10: with the adjacent to that world and so acceptable. Yeah,
[26:33] Speaker 10: and those are those are the things that I was
[26:35] Speaker 10: like into as a teenager. But I didn't hear the
[26:38] Speaker 10: Beatles till the day I like the actual day I
[26:41] Speaker 10: graduated high school. Really didn't. Yeah, didn't grow up with it.
[26:45] Speaker 10: Didn't grow up I mean really with a lot of
[26:48] Speaker 10: the people who are like who changed music for me
[26:51] Speaker 10: and changed the way that I related to it. And
[26:54] Speaker 10: it's all about permission too, you know. It's all about
[26:57] Speaker 10: like finding the artists that allow you to be yourself
[27:02] Speaker 10: and to like give way to your strangest impulses, like
[27:07] Speaker 10: and I Think or Bravest or whatever it is. Like Joni,
[27:12] Speaker 10: I had a real obviously I mean everybody has, but
[27:17] Speaker 10: had an awakening with her when I was eighteen years old.
[27:21] Speaker 10: Was like I ended up in Portland. It's a really
[27:23] Speaker 10: long story, but I just someone let me their car
[27:25] Speaker 10: and I'm just driving across all this the bridges and
[27:29] Speaker 10: listen to New Court and Spark and I just was like,
[27:32] Speaker 10: this is what it means to be a woman. She's
[27:35] Speaker 10: singing about who I want to become.
[27:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good moment when you can just you
[27:44] Speaker 1: can remember that moment.
[27:45] Speaker 10: I can still smell it, like I remember what the
[27:48] Speaker 10: car looked like, it felt like, and just how it
[27:50] Speaker 10: came through the speakers. And I ended up at this
[27:53] Speaker 10: like mansion with all of these roses, and I just
[27:57] Speaker 10: just think, Okay, it was insane. It was psychedelic experience. Truly.
[28:02] Speaker 1: That is another story.
[28:03] Speaker 10: Yeah, that's another lifetime. We were about to jump into
[28:06] Speaker 10: a song. But anyway, probably our heroes are probably similar.
[28:11] Speaker 10: It's like just the the grandmothers and grandfathers of everybody.
[28:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a good thing to have that moment
[28:21] Speaker 1: with the record.
[28:22] Speaker 10: Yeah, I know, like especially in.
[28:24] Speaker 1: The car, it's a real special place to have a
[28:27] Speaker 1: listening experience.
[28:28] Speaker 10: Yeah, you don't do you have a car?
[28:30] Speaker 9: Do you do?
[28:31] Speaker 1: You drive into very little but I had I had
[28:35] Speaker 1: a seventy one Cadillac Sa Dan Deville when I was
[28:37] Speaker 1: in high school in Texas and it had no a
[28:41] Speaker 1: C one summer, which sucked. Yeah, yeah, in Texas and
[28:45] Speaker 1: I but I still just wanted to get out of
[28:47] Speaker 1: my house and drive around at night. And I just
[28:51] Speaker 1: remember listening to Otis Redding in the car damn over
[28:54] Speaker 1: and over on my and this cassette, and it was
[28:57] Speaker 1: the best thing ever. That's my my moment in a car. Car.
[29:01] Speaker 10: Yeah, there's always going to be one, especially given that
[29:04] Speaker 10: like you tour and I tour. It's like are it
[29:08] Speaker 10: was always in our bingo cards. Yeah, do you want
[29:12] Speaker 10: to try my whole name switch? Okay? Can we do?
[29:18] Speaker 10: You just keep going all right? This is the easiest thing.
[29:23] Speaker 10: This is so wonderful.
[29:44] Speaker 6: I love it when you say the full name and
[29:49] Speaker 6: the way always speak your mind, when the needle fisly
[29:56] Speaker 6: fast the vein and all you little sayings become mine.
[30:03] Speaker 10: Your brother only shared a family shame, but he doesn't
[30:09] Speaker 10: really know you.
[30:12] Speaker 5: I've been spitting out on too many big woods.
[30:17] Speaker 10: He could do with that.
[30:20] Speaker 6: And everything we dare not say along are written on all.
[30:28] Speaker 2: Faces.
[30:37] Speaker 6: There's water like the side of Burlin coming from this
[30:44] Speaker 6: vessel that we're in, running from my.
[30:49] Speaker 2: Eyes to your chair. There's a kind of sorrow save
[30:56] Speaker 2: when a part of me and the saying the case
[31:02] Speaker 2: has never opened.
[31:05] Speaker 13: I've been keeping gown of all the wildflowers where the
[31:11] Speaker 13: plane went down, in every living soul that I've found
[31:18] Speaker 13: written in these.
[31:19] Speaker 7: Words persons, I'm fine enough that I am allergic to.
[31:45] Speaker 2: Every living thing that.
[31:48] Speaker 11: Is on you has a saying now I noise true
[31:58] Speaker 11: who I don't want leave this town, but you know
[32:13] Speaker 11: very well I can't wait around.
[32:17] Speaker 2: But since it's getting too light, the change.
[32:21] Speaker 9: Less might as well em pray.
[32:30] Speaker 1: Said.
[32:41] Speaker 2: I love it when you say my fall name.
[32:51] Speaker 10: Amazing.
[32:53] Speaker 1: That's a beautiful song.
[32:54] Speaker 10: Thank you, Sorry, yeah, I appreciate it.
[32:58] Speaker 1: Start crying, man.
[33:00] Speaker 10: I hear you play. Whirly reminds me of this record
[33:04] Speaker 10: that I love so much by you, And I'm forgetting
[33:07] Speaker 10: the title of the record. But it has that song
[33:09] Speaker 10: Goodbye on it.
[33:10] Speaker 1: Oh say goodbye?
[33:11] Speaker 10: Yeah.
[33:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's got wirly I forgot.
[33:14] Speaker 14: Yeah, yeah, do.
[33:19] Speaker 3: Do do do.
[33:20] Speaker 12: It's got weird chords, yeah, is it not the same, Yeah,
[33:33] Speaker 12: it's got a weird chord structure, you know.
[33:35] Speaker 5: Days.
[33:38] Speaker 2: Will you let me miss behave nice.
[33:44] Speaker 1: Always did and less blood if.
[33:47] Speaker 2: You stand again?
[33:51] Speaker 11: Yeah?
[33:54] Speaker 2: Do that?
[33:55] Speaker 6: Yeah?
[34:06] Speaker 1: I mean it's all right and it's okay, that's not right,
[34:12] Speaker 1: leg it's.
[34:13] Speaker 3: Not is it?
[34:16] Speaker 10: Is it a different key?
[34:19] Speaker 1: No?
[34:19] Speaker 8: No, no, it is right?
[34:24] Speaker 10: Whoa well it.
[34:25] Speaker 14: Ay if you can't, but I'll just don't have to.
[34:37] Speaker 2: Say say good.
[34:54] Speaker 10: Yeah case, I love that. I fucking look. I when
[34:59] Speaker 10: I made my first that was it is that madding myself?
[35:02] Speaker 10: But that was like a big reference track for me.
[35:04] Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that's cool.
[35:05] Speaker 2: Do we make it sound like this?
[35:07] Speaker 1: That album sounds so specific because I made it danger
[35:11] Speaker 1: Mouse and those chords specifically on that song. I mean
[35:16] Speaker 1: those were his chords.
[35:17] Speaker 10: Okay, he wrote that together.
[35:18] Speaker 1: We wrote all the songs on that record together. And
[35:20] Speaker 1: he's an amazing songwriter. And I had never written with
[35:24] Speaker 1: someone in the studio before.
[35:25] Speaker 10: Really you would you were doing it on your own.
[35:27] Speaker 10: And then bring would well or.
[35:29] Speaker 1: I also sang a lot of songs up to that
[35:31] Speaker 1: point by band members and did covers the album before that,
[35:35] Speaker 1: I did write all the songs kind of. And then
[35:38] Speaker 1: but yeah, I brought him in. I didn't write him
[35:41] Speaker 1: in the studio.
[35:42] Speaker 10: Did you feel scared to write in a studio or yeah?
[35:48] Speaker 10: Was it liberating?
[35:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, Brian and I were friends at that point, so
[35:52] Speaker 1: that was good. But I was still kind of freaked out,
[35:54] Speaker 1: like what if I can't come up with anything?
[35:57] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[35:57] Speaker 10: And it was a huge.
[36:00] Speaker 1: It was like one of the turning points in my songwriting,
[36:02] Speaker 1: I think, because I realized he said the best thing.
[36:04] Speaker 1: One day we were kind of tooling around with something
[36:07] Speaker 1: and I couldn't figure out a bridge and we didn't
[36:10] Speaker 1: have any ideas. He's like, it's fine, we'll figure it
[36:12] Speaker 1: out and maybe tomorrow or the next day or the
[36:14] Speaker 1: next day whoa. And I was like, oh, you can
[36:16] Speaker 1: do that. I mean, I don't have to worry about it.
[36:19] Speaker 1: He like took that off my plate and we did.
[36:23] Speaker 10: That's actually that's so magical because that is how the
[36:27] Speaker 10: creative process should be, is that you're taking things off
[36:30] Speaker 10: of your own plate and trusting that that it will
[36:34] Speaker 10: roll out when it's ready. Yeah, when it's ready, and
[36:36] Speaker 10: then and it will be the thing that you want
[36:39] Speaker 10: to say.
[36:40] Speaker 1: That was the biggest lesson and ever since then, I
[36:43] Speaker 1: don't force anything.
[36:44] Speaker 10: Yeah, And so I know it's easy and it's.
[36:48] Speaker 1: Not that it's easy. It's that I'm not. I'm not
[36:51] Speaker 1: trying to pull something out that's not there.
[36:53] Speaker 10: Well, right, it's never easy, but you're not deliberately getting
[36:58] Speaker 10: in your own way or making it sad.
[37:00] Speaker 1: Thing it has to be comes when it comes.
[37:02] Speaker 10: It's so sad. So it's so like, there's so much
[37:07] Speaker 10: surrender in it, and I love it so much. It's
[37:09] Speaker 10: probably the thing I'm the most like I'm learning to
[37:13] Speaker 10: be more loose with because it's true I have I've
[37:18] Speaker 10: had the same experiences with people. I've been lucky enough
[37:21] Speaker 10: to be around musicians who are so good at that
[37:24] Speaker 10: and they know time management and they know that morale
[37:28] Speaker 10: is the biggest thing. It's like the you know, it's
[37:33] Speaker 10: the thing like my my dearest friend Mike Viola, like
[37:37] Speaker 10: his whole thing when we've recorded together is very much like,
[37:42] Speaker 10: are we not feeling it, then let's walk away.
[37:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
[37:46] Speaker 10: It's not because of apathetic. He is not apathetic. He
[37:49] Speaker 10: is not. He just knows when it's gonna like soil
[37:53] Speaker 10: and idea for good.
[37:55] Speaker 1: Yeah. That's also anytime I've recorded something and it's not
[37:59] Speaker 1: feeling right, but we still finish it, that's bad juju.
[38:02] Speaker 10: It's bad it's bad. It's mistrust. Sorry that.
[38:08] Speaker 1: I'm like, what is in my throat? Yeah, the throat
[38:11] Speaker 1: coat is loosening, portraying you.
[38:13] Speaker 10: It's me.
[38:14] Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah it's a rural thing.
[38:16] Speaker 10: Yeah, that's a yeah, that's a good that's a good
[38:18] Speaker 10: way to put it. Like, if it don't strangle something
[38:22] Speaker 10: into existence, that's not gonna I won't do it.
[38:25] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[38:26] Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, we've put in
[38:28] Speaker 1: the work and we know we know the language. Yeah,
[38:32] Speaker 1: and that's that is work. It's not like, you know,
[38:35] Speaker 1: it's so easy. It's just we've already done that part.
[38:37] Speaker 1: You know, we've learned the language so that we can
[38:40] Speaker 1: shake it all up and then like let it just
[38:43] Speaker 1: come out.
[38:43] Speaker 10: Yeah, learn unlearned kind and learn it a little. So
[38:47] Speaker 10: I guess maybe I'll take back my previous statement where
[38:49] Speaker 10: I said, like the rules aren't worth learning. I think
[38:51] Speaker 10: they actually are. But so is flexibility, and so it
[38:55] Speaker 10: is like you have to do it all at once,
[38:59] Speaker 10: Yeah I used to. I mean I think I'm a
[39:02] Speaker 10: recovering perfectionist for sure. Yeah, that's yeah. I wonder if
[39:08] Speaker 10: you have a similar thing just because of coming from
[39:11] Speaker 10: the classical world, like that must have been. You don't know,
[39:13] Speaker 10: I'm lazy.
[39:15] Speaker 1: I'm the laziest.
[39:17] Speaker 10: Ever know that.
[39:18] Speaker 1: Okay, I work. I work hard because I'm always working,
[39:22] Speaker 1: but I don't practice well, Like I won't sit at
[39:25] Speaker 1: home and work. Yeah, unless I have.
[39:27] Speaker 10: Something to work for. I think that's good.
[39:29] Speaker 1: So that's kind of why I like to stay busy. Yeah, yeah, busy.
[39:32] Speaker 10: Enough to keep yourself sharp.
[39:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why classical music didn't work for me, because
[39:38] Speaker 1: I I was too lazy. Yes, it's yeah, it's hard.
[39:44] Speaker 10: And I mean also like you must have had back
[39:49] Speaker 10: issues from practicing for that many hours.
[39:51] Speaker 1: Like I know, I didn't practice.
[39:53] Speaker 10: I see, you didn't even go through face.
[39:55] Speaker 1: I didn't. I never went through a face. I failed
[39:57] Speaker 1: my college piano jury because oh I know, I'm getting
[40:02] Speaker 1: the sweats just because I didn't practice because it was
[40:05] Speaker 1: classical because I was in jazz school and that was
[40:08] Speaker 1: great with the classical part that you had to do.
[40:11] Speaker 1: I failed and then I dropped out.
[40:14] Speaker 10: I mean that's badass. I don't do that.
[40:18] Speaker 1: Kids at home. Did you go to music school or
[40:21] Speaker 1: anything like as a as a after homeschool.
[40:28] Speaker 10: I really thought about it and and I had a
[40:33] Speaker 10: few months in my senior year of high school of
[40:35] Speaker 10: stress because I just was, like, I have not been
[40:36] Speaker 10: planning for where I'm going to go or I you know,
[40:41] Speaker 10: always knew that I wanted to do music, but like
[40:43] Speaker 10: I didn't know that you could actually, you know, very
[40:46] Speaker 10: possibly make a career out of it till I was sixteen.
[40:49] Speaker 10: So I don't know. I'm still trying to even figure
[40:54] Speaker 10: out what it means to make a career out of music.
[40:56] Speaker 10: It's very strange.
[40:57] Speaker 1: Well it's a lot harder now than it.
[40:59] Speaker 10: Yes, yeah, in a way, it's harder, and it's stranger.
[41:03] Speaker 10: It's getting weirder.
[41:04] Speaker 1: It's weird, and in a lot of ways it's easier
[41:07] Speaker 1: if you're good at social media.
[41:09] Speaker 10: Yes, which I am not. Most artists are. It's not
[41:13] Speaker 10: my time, yeah, yeah, most arts aren't. Like it just
[41:16] Speaker 10: feels like this this secondary job obviously that nobody wants
[41:21] Speaker 10: to do it, almost to do it. No one is
[41:24] Speaker 10: killed at it. Yeah, and that's probably why like the
[41:27] Speaker 10: younger generation of artists are doing very well or like
[41:30] Speaker 10: selling out tours.
[41:31] Speaker 1: And thirty geconds, because yeah, they've figured out they know
[41:34] Speaker 1: how to be themselves on it too.
[41:36] Speaker 10: You know that that's what it is.
[41:38] Speaker 1: It's not that we can't do it that. We have
[41:40] Speaker 1: to find a way to just be true to ourselves
[41:43] Speaker 1: and do it. Yeah, that's the only way to do it.
[41:45] Speaker 10: And people don't always like there's not a lot of
[41:48] Speaker 10: it's not immediate to people. If you're like, well, this
[41:51] Speaker 10: is how I relate to it, like the platform, or
[41:55] Speaker 10: this is how I want to use it's like it's
[41:56] Speaker 10: not never going to be probably or most likely won't
[41:59] Speaker 10: be in fase of metrics. Yeah, metrics, metrics?
[42:03] Speaker 1: Where do we go? Where do we just go?
[42:05] Speaker 10: I don't know. Have you use that word before metrics? Yeah,
[42:10] Speaker 10: I've never.
[42:11] Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever used that word.
[42:12] Speaker 2: It's because I.
[42:16] Speaker 10: Like when you when it's time to release an album,
[42:20] Speaker 10: all this stuff gets tossed around, all this language, and
[42:22] Speaker 10: you're like, huh that word and then then I just
[42:27] Speaker 10: said it.
[42:28] Speaker 1: Then it's in your heads in my head.
[42:29] Speaker 10: I I'm actually not going to tell the story. I
[42:33] Speaker 10: was going to tell a story that I'll just tell
[42:36] Speaker 10: you off air.
[42:36] Speaker 1: Someday tell I told a story about depends in the
[42:41] Speaker 1: last podcast, so so permission. Yeah, we're going to delete it.
[42:44] Speaker 10: Though I love it. I love it very much. Yeah, basically,
[42:50] Speaker 10: moral of the story is I just I don't social
[42:53] Speaker 10: media hurts my feelings?
[42:54] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you read it, you read it?
[42:56] Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess. I mean that in
[42:58] Speaker 10: less of like a like a actually hurts my feelings.
[43:01] Speaker 10: It's more just like the idea of like technology and
[43:04] Speaker 10: trying to get good at it, that kind of technology.
[43:07] Speaker 10: I'm just like, that's not my bag and I will
[43:10] Speaker 10: get left behind. That's fine. I don't want to. I
[43:13] Speaker 10: don't want to like try and compete and on TikTok.
[43:17] Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it until you want to sell
[43:20] Speaker 1: a tour. Yeah right, that's when that it's like there's
[43:25] Speaker 1: all these if thens, so don't count it out.
[43:28] Speaker 10: Yeah no, I know it's it's toxic and I'm gonna
[43:31] Speaker 10: talk the talk the tick.
[43:35] Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I don't even know.
[43:38] Speaker 1: I do videos and sometimes my manager posts them and
[43:42] Speaker 1: it's great because I don't know how. Yeah, I love
[43:45] Speaker 1: that I don't have my login info.
[43:48] Speaker 10: When did when did it become a parent that you
[43:50] Speaker 10: were like, oh shit, that Instagram and everything is a
[43:54] Speaker 10: I have to like play this game.
[43:57] Speaker 1: I'm still pretty I still come from the four times,
[44:01] Speaker 1: so you know, I had like a built in audience
[44:05] Speaker 1: in a lucky way. But I think I you know,
[44:09] Speaker 1: I think during the pandemic, I started doing these live
[44:11] Speaker 1: streams and those were fun, Yeah, because I was just
[44:15] Speaker 1: playing interactive Yeah, and I was just playing Yeah. So
[44:20] Speaker 1: that was cool.
[44:21] Speaker 10: That was my way. I love that.
[44:23] Speaker 1: But I don't do that anymore. Yeah, I probably should.
[44:27] Speaker 10: No, you should, like I don't believe it should. If
[44:30] Speaker 10: you want, you.
[44:30] Speaker 1: Can do it exactly. It's hard.
[44:33] Speaker 10: Yeah.
[44:33] Speaker 1: At the time, it was good for me because it
[44:35] Speaker 1: was the only time I played music all week.
[44:37] Speaker 10: Yeah.
[44:38] Speaker 1: I would do once a week, and it was the
[44:39] Speaker 1: only time I touched any music.
[44:42] Speaker 10: Did you have a kid at that point?
[44:45] Speaker 1: I had two little kids?
[44:46] Speaker 10: Wow? So you have two more than that? Oh? God, more?
[44:50] Speaker 1: That would be hard.
[44:51] Speaker 10: No, you're done.
[44:53] Speaker 1: I'm done.
[44:54] Speaker 10: Let everyone know you're done. So done.
[44:56] Speaker 1: Did you grow up with siblings?
[44:58] Speaker 10: I'm the oldest of five girls?
[45:02] Speaker 1: What?
[45:02] Speaker 10: Yeah, which is wild?
[45:04] Speaker 1: Excuse me? I know, all homeschool all homeschooled.
[45:09] Speaker 10: My mom is in the last year of she's still
[45:12] Speaker 10: doing it. Yeah, she's in her senior year.
[45:14] Speaker 1: Hats off. Well. Interesting.
[45:16] Speaker 10: Megan's a badass, she really is. She's and like has
[45:20] Speaker 10: remained kind of in love with it, and it's it's
[45:24] Speaker 10: it's really cool. All my sisters are awesome. Like in
[45:28] Speaker 10: a big family, there's usually room for someone to get
[45:31] Speaker 10: lost in translation, or for there to be one kid
[45:33] Speaker 10: that you're like, I'm worried about. Yeah, and all of
[45:36] Speaker 10: them are just like they're so intelligent and funny and beautiful.
[45:41] Speaker 10: They're like the people that I would probably want to
[45:43] Speaker 10: be friends with if we weren't related, which is really like,
[45:46] Speaker 10: that's that's great, not a given, that's really sweet.
[45:50] Speaker 1: That's amazing.
[45:51] Speaker 10: Yeah, it's it's a fun. It's a It was a
[45:53] Speaker 10: crazy household to grow up, and as you can imagine,
[45:55] Speaker 10: it was a little crazy. There was a lot of
[45:58] Speaker 10: like fights over clothes. That was the only tension that
[46:03] Speaker 10: we had among us as well, at least like the
[46:07] Speaker 10: three oldest, because we started to like, I have the
[46:10] Speaker 10: same shoes side, oh yeah, point, and.
[46:13] Speaker 1: I can't relate. I grew up and only yeah, yeah,
[46:17] Speaker 1: did you want siblings or were you like I did? No,
[46:20] Speaker 1: I did, and I grew up an only child with
[46:22] Speaker 1: a single mom. Okay, but then I have a half
[46:25] Speaker 1: sister and we met when we were grown pretty much
[46:28] Speaker 1: and we both wanted that, so it was good. Now
[46:31] Speaker 1: I have like a grown up sister and we're pretty
[46:33] Speaker 1: close because we met when I was eighteen, So at
[46:35] Speaker 1: this point we've won each other a pretty long time. Yeah,
[46:39] Speaker 1: and that's like for those are such formative years, Yeah
[46:42] Speaker 1: to me, I mean we missed the main formative years,
[46:45] Speaker 1: but yeah, still had some.
[46:47] Speaker 10: That's so sweet.
[46:48] Speaker 1: Yeah you want to switch back more? Yeah, just do
[46:52] Speaker 1: one more song, so you use a lot of different tunings, right,
[46:58] Speaker 1: a lot.
[46:59] Speaker 10: Of different tunings. I was in this like strange suspended
[47:06] Speaker 10: tuning for the first song we did Wake. It's cg DFAC,
[47:13] Speaker 10: and I like found it online and wanted to, like
[47:18] Speaker 10: at the beginning of the new year of twenty twenty four,
[47:20] Speaker 10: I wanted to do something that felt like I was
[47:23] Speaker 10: stretching myself, and I was at war with it for
[47:28] Speaker 10: like a week straight, just kind of like almost like
[47:31] Speaker 10: bang my backets all going like I don't understand how
[47:35] Speaker 10: this works. And I love songs for this reason because
[47:39] Speaker 10: you can find like a tiny little pattern of chords
[47:42] Speaker 10: and then just or like a thing that works you
[47:45] Speaker 10: and you go, I think I understand where to put
[47:50] Speaker 10: my fingers, and you understand, like you figure out where
[47:52] Speaker 10: else on the neck or in the tuning, there's there's
[47:55] Speaker 10: more possible. It's just it's so it's really fun. But
[47:58] Speaker 10: this song is an open d oh, it's pretty that's
[48:03] Speaker 10: just a classic. This is a steak of a steak
[48:06] Speaker 10: of ak Okay, the open.
[48:12] Speaker 1: And you always play an acoustic through an amp.
[48:15] Speaker 10: If I'm playing right now, I am, yeah.
[48:17] Speaker 1: But do you usually on stage?
[48:19] Speaker 10: Yes?
[48:20] Speaker 1: I didn't know you could do that until I realized
[48:22] Speaker 1: that Willie Nelson plays his acoustic through his nylon triggered
[48:26] Speaker 1: does he plays it through an amp? That's why it
[48:29] Speaker 1: sounds so specific.
[48:30] Speaker 10: Have you ever sung with Willie?
[48:32] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[48:33] Speaker 10: Oh, I would love to hear that.
[48:34] Speaker 1: He's so fun to sing with because he phrases weird.
[48:38] Speaker 1: But then when you're singing with him, he's kind of
[48:41] Speaker 1: following you, but you're also following him.
[48:43] Speaker 11: Wow.
[48:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a fun chase, a wormhole, but a
[48:49] Speaker 1: good one.
[48:50] Speaker 10: Spiral staircase exactly, Uh, Tom and Jerry episode exactly. Okay, h.
[49:04] Speaker 1: M hm m hm hm h m hmm.
[49:20] Speaker 6: Once you girl, I'm always your girl when I'm here,
[49:29] Speaker 6: when I'm there on a plane headed somewhere, you were
[49:37] Speaker 6: staring down the car.
[49:39] Speaker 1: Was hoping it would be one of ours.
[49:44] Speaker 6: Children and grandchildren riding your cars.
[49:50] Speaker 10: But how you way in for me.
[49:58] Speaker 2: To make a left down on your street? M m,
[50:09] Speaker 2: it's not.
[50:11] Speaker 11: Iftns win.
[50:17] Speaker 6: There's a way something lift said, were your high screen?
[50:30] Speaker 2: Were they blue? Wosy that I forgot to adsscue busy
[50:44] Speaker 2: hand said all to see I.
[50:52] Speaker 11: Love you, lu.
[50:57] Speaker 2: Oh, but you're.
[51:00] Speaker 6: Making heaven laugh. But it feels like cheers and memories
[51:09] Speaker 6: are all.
[51:13] Speaker 10: We have.
[51:22] Speaker 2: One son knew it. I was always an it all
[51:30] Speaker 2: too busy to stress, die to take the call. Dollar
[51:37] Speaker 2: would always find me there sitting in your TV chair.
[51:45] Speaker 2: Well time is it a bar having a laugh somewhere?
[51:52] Speaker 2: Then less.
[51:55] Speaker 10: Than for me?
[51:58] Speaker 2: Mm hmm two, I go.
[52:06] Speaker 1: To let it be.
[52:09] Speaker 2: It's not.
[52:11] Speaker 1: It not.
[52:13] Speaker 8: In sway there's away something left time say.
[52:25] Speaker 10: W your.
[52:27] Speaker 2: Squeen?
[52:29] Speaker 5: Were they?
[52:33] Speaker 2: What was it that I forgot to excu busy hands
[52:43] Speaker 2: up sidon.
[52:49] Speaker 10: To say, of you here?
[52:57] Speaker 2: Did God need a nws in hiss been? When this word?
[53:06] Speaker 2: It's people all.
[53:12] Speaker 10: We had.
[53:30] Speaker 2: Once you girl, I'm always.
[53:37] Speaker 1: Girl.
[54:08] Speaker 10: That's perfect.
[54:10] Speaker 1: That song makes me cry. Thank you, it's so beautiful.
[54:14] Speaker 10: Thank you the man I just got lost playing with you.
[54:19] Speaker 10: It's you. It's funny that you just said about yourself
[54:23] Speaker 10: that you're like, I'm so lazy, like everything, everything about
[54:27] Speaker 10: the way you just played is like proof of someone
[54:30] Speaker 10: who's put in so much work and also to be free. Yeah,
[54:33] Speaker 10: and everything you've played just works. It plays around and
[54:39] Speaker 10: within the rhythm so beautifully that I feel overwhelmed. Thank
[54:44] Speaker 10: you me too.
[54:45] Speaker 1: I'm glad you changed a key because you were also
[54:48] Speaker 1: very free with the song. You must have played it
[54:50] Speaker 1: for a long time. Yeah, yeah, yes, it's much different
[54:53] Speaker 1: from the recording, So I'm glad I got to throw
[54:55] Speaker 1: my notes out and we just got to play. It's
[54:59] Speaker 1: always better that way.
[55:00] Speaker 10: It's always better to just, yeah, play music. That's what
[55:03] Speaker 10: it's for.
[55:04] Speaker 1: It was beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me.
[55:07] Speaker 10: Thank you so much for having me today. This made
[55:10] Speaker 10: my whole week more. Please let's hang, Let's hey, I'll
[55:13] Speaker 10: see you in New York.
[55:14] Speaker 1: Cool. Yeah, yay. I knew we'd be friends.
[55:17] Speaker 10: I knew it. I've belt it in my bones.
[55:22] Speaker 1: Incredible. I loved playing with her.
[55:24] Speaker 3: Those songs are so just use the perfect word arresting.
[55:29] Speaker 1: They aren't those three songs we did specifically are. They're
[55:32] Speaker 1: all good though. Everything I've listened to of hers, I'm
[55:35] Speaker 1: always like, what is that? I hope we could do
[55:38] Speaker 1: more together because she's so good.
[55:41] Speaker 15: If you want to know which songs we played in
[55:43] Speaker 15: this episode, the first song was Wake from the album Ace,
[55:46] Speaker 15: which is from twenty twenty five. The second song we
[55:49] Speaker 15: played was My Full Name, also from the twenty twenty
[55:52] Speaker 15: five album Ace, and the third song was called Life
[55:55] Speaker 15: according to Rachel from her album Revealer recorded in twenty
[55:58] Speaker 15: twenty two. Links to Madison Cunningham for joining us today
[56:02] Speaker 15: and we'll be back next week with Jason Moran.
[56:05] Speaker 1: Nora Jones is playing along as a production of iHeart Podcasts.
[56:08] Speaker 1: Visit Norah Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while
[56:11] Speaker 1: you're there, I'm your host, Norah Jones. This episode was
[56:14] Speaker 1: recorded at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles, California, by Thomas Warren.
[56:19] Speaker 1: Assistant engineer was Danforth, Webster backline tech Jason Moser, mixed
[56:24] Speaker 1: by Jamie Landry, Audio post production and mastering by Greg Tobler.
[56:28] Speaker 1: Additional recording by Matt Marinelli. Creative consulting by First Three,
[56:33] Speaker 1: artwork by Eliza Fry, Photography by Shervin Lenez. Produced by
[56:37] Speaker 1: Nora Jones and Sarah Oda. Executive producers Aaron wan Kaufman
[56:40] Speaker 1: and Jordan Runtogg. Marketing lead Alison Kanter Graber, thanks for
[56:44] Speaker 1: listening watching, and tell your friends. I don't know why
[56:50] Speaker 1: I said that. I don't know.
[56:51] Speaker 2: We're keeping it.
[56:52] Speaker 10: Tell your friends, all right,

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