June 3, 2026 • 51 mins
This week on In Service Of Alana Springsteen joins host Steve Baltin for an incredibly personal and powerful conversation about her brilliant new album, 'I Hope This Helps.' A deep, thought-provoking chat on everything from therapy to Sheryl Crow and Patsy Cline. This is a masterful album and you don't want to miss the story behind the record.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi, Steve Balton, Welcome to in Service aub This week,
I'm thrilled to be joined by Alana Springsteen. Her new
album I Hope This Helps is a stunning singer songwriter
collection that is honest, authentic, vulnerable, powerful, and having delivered
(00:31):
one of the best records of the verst half of
this year, she does not disappoint in this interview, being
just as honest, just as authentic, just as vulnerable as
she is in the brilliant collection. So I hope you
enjoyed this interview as much as I did. A huge
fan of this record, really love talking to her, and
(00:53):
she is an amazing talent to be on the lookout
for for a long time. To home, Yes, what makes
(01:13):
a perfect Nashville day? Since you said it is one?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Mm hmm, Well, first of all, the weather, no humidity,
the sun being out seventy degrees, no crazy pollen giving analogies,
seeing a bunch of friends connecting with people.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It's just been a really really great day overall.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Nice And that was not even close to what I
was going to start with. But then again, it makes
sense because there's so much to unpack with this album.
I was like, not even sure where the fuck to
start it is? H I was thinking about it now
and it just reminded me of John Lennon Plastic Go
No Vand, which is one of my favorite albums of
all time. And it's one of those albums that is
(01:58):
just like screams therapy in the best way possible.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Wow, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So it's an awakening for you.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Massively.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, the last two years have been the most transformative
of my life. I feel like I had to pull
myself apart and put myself back together to write this album,
and these songs have been my roadmap through all of it.
They've helped me understand myself and have healed me, have
(02:28):
shown me the sides of me that I'm insecure about
and allowed me to make peace with it. And I'm
walking out on the other side just a much better
version of myself.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah. Funny. I mean, I was looking at the title
I hope this helps and I'm like, wait, do you
mean this for other people or for yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I love that it's actually kind of both, which is
why I love the title. It's kind of it's simple,
but it really touches on all the parts of it.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I hope it helps me. I hope it helps me.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Make peace with my inner child and get to know
myself better and just be a better version of myself
for me and for the people around me.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But I also I hope it helps the people out
there that heal it, that hear it. Sorry, I writing.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
This record that is you can ever fucking make.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
There were so many times Deeve writing this record that
I truly didn't know if I could continue.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I mean, I was in the middle of therapy E MDR.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
On one of the biggest tours of my life with
Keith Urban, trying to be in the studio write this record,
just doing it all at once, and it almost broke
me many many times. And the thought that kept me
going and got me back in the studio was that
maybe the next song that I would write would help
someone out there feel less alone in what they were
(03:50):
going through and give them the courage they needed to
choose themselves and to ask life for more and to
do the hard work knowing that it's going to be
worth it.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
On the other side, wait, we're gonna go back and
talks about your inner child anyway, That's funny. I was
talking about this with someone the other day. The kind
of your great escape song, which I will ask you
in a second, but what were those songs for you that
when you were a kid? Were the ones that helped you?
And the way do you so help these songs help
somebody now?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Man?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I think Landslide is at the top of that list.
It was one of the first songs that I learned
how to play as a kid, and obviously, lyrically it
is so incredibly nuanced and deep and I didn't pick
up on all of the meeting at the time, but
I've always been a very melody sonic driven person. I
(04:46):
can feel melodies. There's certain chords that evoke certain emotions
for me, certain.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Melodies that make me feel a.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Certain way, and that song just always felt so incredibly
emotionally urged, and I felt the nuance and the conflict
and the depth of the lyric. And it's one of
those songs that's really grown with me over the years.
I kind of rediscovered it a couple of years ago,
and I feel like every time I come back to it,
it means something new to me.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I mean, it is, you know, it's funny in a way.
It's kind of become cliche at this point, but it
became cliche because it's probably one of the ten best
songs ever written.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
That's right, that's right. And she wrote it when she
was twenty five, which is crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
But you know what's interesting, and it's funny because the
times what I was going to ask you is you know,
you say she wrote it when she was twenty five,
that's crazy. Jackson Brown wrote These Days when he was sixteen,
and he talked about this, what the fuck do you
know when you're sixteen years old? About don't confront me
with my failures. I have not forgotten them. And then,
of course I saw Joni Mitchell at the Gorge a
(05:50):
few years ago, and Joni Mitchell singing both sides now
at eighty is one of the most beautiful things in
the history of the world. But Joni Mitchell wrote that
song when she was twenty two. What can anybody ever
understand about writing that song like that when you're in
your twenties.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Ah, I didn't realize she wrote that song when she
was so young. That's another one for me that I
heard again for the first time in a while a
few months ago, and I was just sobbing in my car,
like it's so.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
So emotionally deep. But I think I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
There's something about being young that allows you to get
out of your own way. You just don't know, you
don't know what you don't know, so you don't overthink
it and you're just feeling it. And I think that's
kind of what I've tried to focus on with this record,
is just getting out of my own way, not trying
to write a perfect song, but just write something honest.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You know, it's funny. What I was going to say
is that, and we are going to come back to
the great Escape song for you in a second. But
Nick cave who and I always preface things like this
by saying that I'm very lucky in that I talk
to people who are way smarter than me. But Nick
cave sets looks so interesting to me. He said that
as a writer, you always write what it is you're
longing for, so and that to me, that feels like
(07:07):
this screams this album. Do you feel like you were
writing for the stuff that you needed, the questions that
you needed answered.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yes, I think.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
My album twenty something, my debut record, asked a lot
of questions and started to I was just starting to
really get to know myself, and I wrote songs like
Chameleon about the way that I've always been a people pleaser,
just constantly shape shifting, but I didn't understand why until
I wrote this record. So in a lot of ways,
Twenty Something asked the questions, and this album helped me
(07:41):
find some more of the answers. And obviously we never
fully finished the journey of this. We're constantly asking questions,
but I think I started to get.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
To the root of a lot of these patterns in
my life.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And I had to go back a long way, you know,
to to that inner child, to sometimes four or five, six,
seven years old, to rewire the these truths that I believed.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So what was like? What were the questions and answers
that surprised you the most when you were writing this,
because I was thinking, ay, your Instagram, what you talked
about writing love me anyway? And it's funny. I also
it was interested in a song like no Man, which
it felt like it was very interesting to me because
you know, and I will not ask if I was
autobiographical or not, but I was thinking about it. And
(08:28):
sometimes it's probably easier to write autobiographically when it is
in third person.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Hmmm, that's true.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I do feel that I've you know, I've written a
couple songs autobiographically from third person, and that's really interesting theory.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I've never really dissected that much.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That song specifically isn't exactly to the t my story.
It's one of the few songs that I've written that
all the details aren't about me. But I kind of
pulled from several different people in my life and and
stories and created this character that I very much identify with,
and I was able to kind of get lost in
this person in the song in a way of just
(09:09):
you know, not feeling like you fit, wanting to escape,
wanting something more for yourself, wanting to get out and
not wanting to be tied down so badly, wanting love
and wanting connection, but never wanting to be limited by it.
And I think for a while, love always felt conditional
for me for most of my life, and I'm just
(09:31):
now getting to the place where I'm realizing that love
should never ask you to be something else, it should
never ask you to be small.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
It should just empower who you are.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And make you want to be better, and just chase
your dreams down and know that you've always got a
place to come back to, in a soft place to land.
But that song was, like, I've always loved country music
because of the storytelling, so I wanted to write a
song that was just incredibly just this beautiful story about
a girl, you know, choosing herself and refusing to stay small.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So, first off, who are the country storytellers that are
some of your favorites?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Oh my gosh, wow, what a what a question? I think.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Or country stories that are your favorites, And I mean Tory.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Taylor's is great too, I think. I mean Lou Harris
is at the top of that. For me, there's some
of her songs that are just hauntingly honest and like.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She just.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I think about her song Red Dirt Girl. It's one
of my favorite country songs, and it's just this beautiful
snapshot of what it's like to be from a small
town and maybe never get out and some of the
things you face and the you know, the people that
you meet along the way.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And you're like that that I see myself.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I see my family members in that song a little bit,
And I just I love when songwriters can just put
you in a place like that, and it just make you,
make you just relate, maybe to something you've never experienced,
but it's so emotional that you can't help but feel
(11:11):
yourself in it. And so she's up there for me.
Maybe you wouldn't consider her country, but Sheryl Crow is
one of my favorite artists, and to me, she's country.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I think.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I listen to those songs now, I listen to her
self titled record, and I'm like, that could be on
country radio right now. You know, it's just these it's
all about storytelling, it's all about I mean, she's an
incredible musician, she produced it all herself. She's just this outlaw.
I think in so many ways she paved her own
path and she has inspired me so much and continues
(11:44):
to do so. And also another songwriter that always inspires
me is Hailey Williams. Again, she's maybe not considered country,
but to me, she's done such a great job always
of not being afraid to write about these nuanced subjects
(12:06):
in these kind of just own her truth and stand
behind it and say things that a lot of people
are afraid to say sometimes, and to me, that is
the definition of an outlaw. So those are all people
that I'm inspired by and you know, I talk about
Cheryl all the time, like, would love to collaborate with
her and Haley and write.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Together and do something together maybe in the future. I'm
so inspired by him.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
See that's funny because you mentioned writing with Cheryl, and
you know, after the interview you did for me last
year with Floretta, I'm more interested in you interviewing.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Her incredibly.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Incredibly her managers a friend. I've known her for so
many years. But you know, it's interesting because you talk
about saying things that you people don't want to say,
you know so, and by the way, we'll have to
make that happen. But going back for a second too,
you know it's interesting. I mean, you look at this,
I'm like Selfish, which I love. And it's funny to
have a song that you feel like, you know, at
(13:05):
another point in your life you could have written or
if you had written it years ago, because again, sometimes
songs are so prophetic they you know, mean things that
you are like, what the hell does that mean? And
then Adie de Frank, who told me that's being twenty
years and I'll tell you, you know, so, do you feel
like that you could have put Selfish on a record.
If you had written it earlier, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I don't think I would have had the courage to
write that. And it sounds crazy, but I think, you know,
growing up a as a woman, as an eldest daughter,
you know, of four kids in the South, like you're
just raised with these expectations and these requirements and pressures
that are just put on you to act a certain way,
(13:49):
to present a certain way to you know, always be
kind and serving other people and gentle and not rock
the boat too much, and you know, just be kind
of quiet and.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Defer to other people, and on and on and on.
But I think.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
A lot of my life, you know, when I started
to learn to set boundaries and to choose myself, it
ruffles a lot of feathers early on, because you know,
that's just not what people expected from me. It's not
what they were used to getting from me. And so
I was called selfish a lot, and I wrote this
song is kind of like a reminder to myself that
(14:31):
it's not selfish to put yourself first. And you can't
take care of other people. You can't show up for
other people in your life until you know how to
show up for yourself, Until you meet your own needs.
And there's so many women in my family, like strong women,
my mom, my grandmother, people that I've looked up to
my whole life that I've watched like sacrifice so much
(14:55):
at the expense of themselves.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And so this song was.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Kind of like a reminder to me and reminder to
all the women out there and people in general, just
like it's not selfish to choose yourself and sometimes you
just need you need the reminder because it felt so
against my nature to write that song, but it's something
that I needed to hear in the moment for sure.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Well, again, that goes back to what Nikate was saying
about writing what it is that you're longing for. But
it's funny because you know what you say about helping
other women, and I mean, it's interesting. I can't tell
you how many female friends I've heard that exact story
from being raised being you know, kind and you know,
defer and to say yes and you know, like it
(15:42):
fucks a lot of people up, you know. So it's interesting,
I mean, is that one of the things that you
you know is very to be selfish kind of one
of the things where you had to unlearn that, you know, okay,
(16:05):
like sometimes you know, here's the thing right in this world.
Sometimes someone's just naps on. It's okay, it's all the
fuck off.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah yeah, right, Like boundaries felt. I didn't think I
was allowed to have boundaries. I didn't know how to
set them. I didn't see people in my life setting them,
so I never learned how.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
And that was.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Something that I really had to work on, was learning
to to honor my limits and to know what I
would accept and what I wouldn't and to not be
ashamed of that.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
And I think.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
A deeper level of that too, is when you don't
know how to set boundaries and when you don't know
how to show up for yourself, you end up like
abandoning yourself so much that it causes anger to build
up with you. And that was something that surprised me
because I think most of my life I've had a
very I wasn't comfortable with feeling anger at all.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
It was one of those emotions I was terrified of.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
But because I didn't know how to choose myself and
I didn't feel like I had agency, I felt a
lot of anger and just deep rage that manifested in
the form of health issues. And you know, chronic depression
and anxiety. And I'm so grateful that I've I've learned to.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Show up for me and to figure.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I figured out the root of where all that was
coming from through therapy, honestly, and that's changed my life.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Well, you know, it's funny because I'm friends with the
learners more said, I've nevered for twenty years, and we
always talk about being able to, you know, overcome their
initial success and going to have a successful career because
not many people have been able to have the kind
of meteoroc rise she did and going down career. And
then we joke about it, and I've asked her many
times like wasn't She's just like a lot of therapy. Hmmm.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So true.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
You know, it's fascinating because I haven't thought about this
until just now. But you know, the idea of being
a people pleaser and you know, not knowing our learning
boundaries is a fascinating thing when you mix it with fame,
because I think fame is the worst strug there is.
I think it kills people, you know, if you don't
(18:22):
know how to deal with it. And it's funny, So
did you find that as you start to become successful,
you it becomes more important to learn to set those
boundaries because people just want stuff from you all the time,
and they don't mean it in a bad way, like
you know, like you know, I've had friends tell me
about like it'll drive them. That's when people come up
(18:42):
to them to take a picture and they're like, they
don't even know who I am. It's just like I'm
a commodity to them.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I think my experience is that you know, hasn't gotten
so much into like the I can't go out and
like people are always some pictures and all. It's not
there yet. But my experience of that has shown up
more in like learning to trust my inner voice and
to know what I feel regardless of what other people
(19:13):
around me are saying and wanting and expecting from me.
You know, when you're a people pleaser and you're good
at being a chameleon, you you do that for long
enough and you don't ever learn how to know what
you actually feel and who you actually are underneath all
of that. When you set all of that aside, and
(19:33):
you know, when you start putting out music and you
start touring and being an artist, everyone's looking to you
going well, what do you want to say?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And I realized really quickly that I had a lot
of work to do to figure that out and to
answer that question. And it started with with with learning
to not care so much what people think, and to
stop seeking validation and just trust myself enough that yeah,
I might make am misas, but at least it'll be
(20:01):
It'll be mine, and I'll know that I did it
because I felt convicted about it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So there are artists that you look to. You mentioned
Emmy Lou, you mentioned Cheryl and it's funny I'm doing
an Alley Times story on Miles Davis for his centennial,
and you know, there's Jonie. You know those artists who
to me, what I've realized, you know, and then writing
about music for thirty years is every great artist what
they have in common is they eventually reached the point
where they just don't give a fuck. You have to
(20:29):
to be a great artist, you have to get to
the point where you just say, I'm gonna you know,
if I'm Neil Young, I'm gonna make a shitty synth
album in the eighties, but I'm still gonna be you know,
the god of grunge and I'm gonna, you know, do whatever.
So for you, who are those artists that you really
look to for the way they were able to kind
of break out of, you know, whatever shackles there are
(20:51):
for them and just be like, Okay, I'm gonna do
what I want.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Well, hmm man, you think about like throwing it back
a little bit like Patsy Klein. You know, when she
was releasing music, she was creating a type of music
that just wasn't quote unquote country at the time.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
She redefined country.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
In the perspective of like the way she used her voice,
the way it was a little bit more of a
soulful R and B flow, to the way she sang,
the way she had strings and orchestras in her in
her production.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
It was much more of a pop approach. But it
was the first time people had.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Heard anything like that, and she redefined the genre and
really opened up a whole new pathway. And that was
just from staying true to herself, like leaning into how
her voice sounded best in the music that she loved.
So I think that is a massive example for me
of like a woman going like, no, this is the
(21:53):
music I want to make. I don't care if if
people don't get it or if they do get it.
I'm just gonna pave my own path and and you know,
trust that the art I love is going to cut through.
I think about Miley Cyrus too, like I've always loved
her music and the way that she is constantly able
to redefine herself, like she's had so many different eras,
(22:15):
and this latest record.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
That she just put out just felt like pure art
to me.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
It felt like, you know, coming off of the previous record,
Endless Summer Vacation, like she was for like that was
full of hits, and this latest record just felt like
it was pure art, like she was making it for
her and sonically she made some choices that were just
so off the wall and unexpected. And I love artists
(22:42):
that are fearless that way, and a lot of times
they're ahead of their time, Like you'll listen to that
record in ten years and be like, WHOA, she was
really doing something with this, you know, But those are
the artists that inspire me.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And that's the kind of artist I want to be.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I want to constantly just push the boundaries and live
in that space where where it's like I like to
color outside the lines. I like to live on the fringes.
You know, I've never been a black and white person.
I'm more of a gray area person.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
And yeah, what's funny about that is in making a
record like this, do you feel like in a way
and I mean, I guess the sort of rebellion in it,
the outside the lines is the throwback nature of it,
Like it feels more like authentically country in a way
than most of the shit that comes out now that
(23:32):
you're like, what the fuck is that?
Speaker 4 (23:34):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
You know, when I approach the production of this song,
I'm a co producer on everything, and I love getting in,
getting to like dig into the sonic side of these
songs and bring them to life because when I'm writing,
like a lot of times i'm playing the parts in
the room that end up on the record, or I
(23:56):
hear this thing in my head and I want to
lay it down, or I'm thinking about oh when we
record drums, I wanted to do this specific thing. So
it's important to me to be able to add to
every piece of bringing a song to life. But with
this album, I went into it knowing that I wanted.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
It to be very vocal forward.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's such a songwriter's record. The lyric is everything more
and more important than anything. I wanted people to hear
the stories. So when you compare it to twenty something,
it's a lot more stripped, I would say, a lot
of a lot of doing more.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
With less, and that was really fun to explore.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And also just different parts of my voice.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I've been singing for so long, I think I kind
of got.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Stuck in these ruts of like, here's just what I
always do. I'm a technically good singer, but with this album,
I really pushed myself to find different textures and different
tones that I could tap into with certain songs like
Feels Good was a song that I love tracking vocals
to because my producer was like, Okay, that's a good vocal,
(25:04):
but now what if you sing it like you're a spider?
Speaker 3 (25:07):
What if you sing it like you're.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Like, you know, a thief in the night, like breaking
into the house, Like just these weird off the wall examples.
And he was able to really pull these different emotions
and textures out of me, and Uh, I'm excited to
keep like exploring all of that.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Okay, very obvious question. I usually hate to ask the
obvious but what the fuck does the singer spider sing like?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Well, for me, it was just like really quiet. It
was a lot more like sneaky, just kind of creeps
up on you slow, you know. I just envisioned it
and it just came out. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, it's funny that what you say about being a
typically good singer. I mean, yes, but it's like, I mean,
you know, my favorite songwriter of all time is Tom Waits,
and some people hate his voice, and yes, to me,
his like hissinging on Ruby's arms, for example, is as
good as anything in the world. So are there artists
that you've looked to and it's like or are that
(26:08):
you realize like sometimes stepping out of character and you know, again,
like Daniel Lenoire referred to these things as like happy accidents,
you know, the best moments.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, so true.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
It's funny because I think most of the artists that
inspired me, especially early on, were these like incredible vocalists
like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, just like these big,
undeniable voices. But I think as I've gotten older and
explored my music, I've kind of fallen in love with
(26:43):
like you're saying, the people that it's less about how
good they are and it's more about how much emotion
they're able to pack into the lyric and the performance
of it. Trying to have some examples for me, I mean, honestly,
Stevie Nix is that for me, Like, I think she's
(27:05):
a great vocalist, maybe wouldn't be listed in one of
the best of all time, but to me, emotionally, she's
just so resonant, Like there's just so much there in
the texture for voice. I mean, I'd have to think
about it. There's probably so many that I'm not thinking
of in the moment.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
But that's allry. It's funny because since you say Steve Nicks,
I think about Christine mcbehan, I'm like, you know, probably
was probably a better singer.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Technically, yeah, for sure, But it's almost like you've got
to get out of your own way. It's at a
certain point like being good can almost work against you, you.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
It's like you got to learn how to be a
beginner again and just all feel like, turn the technical
side of your brain off and just emote.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
No. Absolutely, It's funny from writing standpoint, what I've noticed
of late is like, like, you know, like working with
established writers, I have to get them too. I was
talking about this Stanley Clark the other day in All
Times interview, and you have to get them to like
unlearned stuff because they've learned so many to these shads.
It's like everything is just like boring as fuck.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yep, you know true.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I feel like some of my best songs and some
on this record have been written like That's why I
love writing.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Camp so much.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I've really started to write in like you know, four
or five day increments instead of like the you know,
ten to five Nashville style, because I find that after
that first song, second song gets out of the way,
then you really tap into just flow state and just
like showing up for whatever energy is in the room
(28:50):
and not overthinking it.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And you know, like.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
That third song of the day when it's you're starting
at ten pm and you've got you're a bottle of
wine in you know, and it's like you're all just
vibing out.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That's kind of the magic spot for me.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I wrote Fight like this in that space. I wrote
I Loved You then in that space. Several of those
songs that made it onto this record are are songs
that came from that energy?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
All right? Wait? I did an AOS session with a
Dell when she did twenty one, and she told me
she wrote a lot of that album drinking Jack Daniels
and journals. So how much of this album was written
off wine? And was a red wine white wine? And
what were the best wine songs?
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Man, A lot of this record actually was written off
red wine, many many red wine nights. I actually, I
Loved You Then is one of my favorite songs on
this album, and it was I Honestly, I've felt pretty
unqualified for most of my life to write love songs
because my history with love is very tumultuous, and I am,
(29:54):
by no means the expert. I am very hesitant to
give advice and perspective on really relationships. But I feel
like as I've done a lot of this healing, it's
also trickled into the way I show up in my relationships.
And I'm happy, the happiest I've ever been, and I've
healed a lot of those attachment issues, and I wanted
to write a song that was just kind of like
(30:15):
these snapshots, these very autobiographical snapshots of moments in my
relationship where I felt so much, but I was terrified
to name it and to say it because I had
been hurt so badly by it in the past.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
And I had this idea, just.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I loved you then, you know that moment in a
relationship where you're finally being honest with each other and
you kind of look back through your history and you go, oh, yeah,
I remember that time where you know, we were out
with our friends and this is like two yours.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, I loved you then, or it's like you're thinking.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
About all the times that you felt it before you
said it, And so I made a list of all
those things and had this idea on my phone for
like four months, and it was that like third song
of the day, bottle of wine in we were all
tipsy red wine, and I finally worked up the nerve
to like play this idea for him and to go
there and like spill all these details. And it's one
(31:11):
of my favorite songs on the record, And actually the
vocal that is on the Master is the vocal I
sang that night, like two takes top to bottom, wine
drunk and you know, a little buzzed, and I think
it captured some of that magic.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
In the room.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But that's a fascinating theory, and I'm thinking about it
now and I'm like, wait, do you actually have to
be successful and love to write a good love song?
But then I think about, like, probably my favorite love
song is Taken with Me by Tom Waits, who wrote
that with his wife he's been married to for like
thirty something years, So there probably is. There may be
some treats, right, yeah, I mean if you look at
(32:02):
how fucked up so many artists talk. I mean, I'm
sure love songs have been written by people who you know,
have never even who couldn't even spell love.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yeah, right, one hundred percent. I mean I always find
myself writing even.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I loved you then is not like a fully happy
love song. It's got this tinge of longing and yearning
and like it's not quite mine. I don't have quite
a grasp on it. So I still think I've got
some room to grow there. But it's the closest I've
come to a love song.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I think, Well, you know, it's interesting because you talked
before about being, you know, understanding love unconditionally, And it's
funny because I mean it does seem like such an
obvious and this is kind of progressing into therapy session.
But you know, there was nowhere else. There was nowhere
else to go with this album and fun. Do you
feel like now you know that? Like what I'm just
(32:52):
thinking about, it maybe the best love song ever written
besides someways this stupor of Honey by Van Morrison. He's
one of the dudes on the planet. So I don't
know if your theory holds water. But going back to
what you're saying, do you feel like that? You know?
And very simply as you get older, you get more
comfortable with yourself, so you find like a place where
(33:13):
you're you know, I mean, it's silkliche it, but obviously
you have to love yourself before anybody else can love you.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, so true. I was just talking about this earlier today.
I think.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
That really was the root of a lot of the
side effects that were popping up in my life. And
what I realized is that I didn't feel worthy of
love just for being me, just for existing. I felt
like I had to earn it and I was constantly
That's where the validation seeking came from. That's where the
people pleasing came from, That's where the anxious avoidant attachment
(33:48):
came from of like I'll pull you close, but then
when it's too close, I'll run the other direction because
I don't want to I don't really want to be known.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
I'm terrified to be known, because what if you don't
like what you see?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
And it really it's like you said, it's cliche, but truly,
I think you can't.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
You can't fully love anybody else. You can't. No amount
of validation, no amount.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Of love is ever going to make up for the
love that you're withholding from yourself. So a lot of
my work in therapy was just getting to the point
where I could look at myself in the mirror and go,
You're You're worthy of love for just existing, for just
for just being you. You don't have to do a
damn thing to be loved, and when you show up
(34:37):
from that place, everything is just so much more fulfilling
and beautiful.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
So all theast question, what's your best love song of
all time?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
My favorite?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Oh it's I mean, it's cliche, but okay, I have
a couple of favorites.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Damn it's cliche. I think one of my favorite love songs.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Is Someday when I'm off a little and the world
is cool.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
I will feel the close just thinking up in a
way to night. I mean, come on, it's so pure,
it's so just like I'm not asking anything of you.
I'm not like, it's not lustful. It's just like the
most pure. Like someday when I'm really sad and.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
When I'm feeling depressed, I'm gonna think of this moment
right here, and I'm gonna feel just alive and in
love and like, hold on to that to me, like
that's the that's just the most beautiful, selfless expression of love.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Every time I hear that song, I just I get chills.
But also I love.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I love Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight. How was My Mom
and Dad's one of their songs growing up, My dad
and loved that song. I had it on a couple
of his mixtapes, and it's just there's something about it
that just feels so.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Sexy and vulnerable and intimate.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
What about you, I told you, I mean, I gotta
go take it with me too. Wonderful that it's funny
because I mean, you know, I'm a huge Cropton fan.
Always happened, but I mean, you know, I read is
autobiography all that. I mean, you want to talk about
a dude who went through hell? Yeah right, yeah, addiction,
(36:41):
his best friends what I mean? You know? But now
it's funny too, because on a lighter, much more fun out,
you know, as you're learning about love. Is that where
Sammy comes in?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Sammy you saw that? Huh?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I mean I have a tattoo of my dog on
my arm.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yes, oh my heart. Yeah, she's my the new love
of my life for sure. She's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I've always loved animals, and I will probably get a
dog one day, but I'm just I travel so much.
I would feel horrible about leaving a dog home. Cats
are like a little more independent, so uh. And I
also my mom is totally down to watch her while
I'm gone.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
So she's perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
And I just think everybody should get an emotional support animal.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
They make life so much better.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well yeah, I mean, you know, and especially there are
so many animals that need help.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
You so true, got you gotta adopt them.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So much too. I mean it's funny every wordy being
Dave Bailey Glass animals great dude, and he would like
tell me when he got a dog, he literally would
sing God only nose to his dog.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Oh my star, I love that.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
I agree. I mean because I'm an animal lover, So
you know, is it teach you about that? And what
song would you sing to your cat?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Okay, well I've only had her for a week, so
we're still very much bonding. But I think there is
definitely something in caring for something.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I feel like when you're the most when.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
I've been at my lowest, when I've been at my
most depressed, Like having something that you're taking care of
that's depending on you is kind of like the ultimate medicine.
And I think I've learned a lot about selfless love
from animals, Like to me, that's kind of the most
pure expression of love is like they just they just
(38:43):
love from a pure place, like they don't know anything else.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
And I think for Sammy, what would I sing to her?
I might have to write her a song. I don't
know if I have.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Anything good enough yet, but I mean, you know, I
actually did interview someone. It might have been Dave, and
it might have been someone else who wrote songs for
their dog.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Oh see, probably great songs too, probably like the ultimate
love song.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, all right, well we'll write up on the album
for you, What were some of the lyrics on this
record that really surprised you the most. With the idea
of writing being sub conscious, you know that it comes
out on you, just like as I saw what you
wrote on Instagram too about love me anyway, and it's
just like I love how you put it blacked out
on the floor. You know. Well, it's funny because Jimmie
(39:33):
Cliff told me he wrote the harder they come in
ten minutes on the way to the studio. That's often
how the best songs come.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, so true, so true.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Gosh.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
I think writing Note to Self was really powerful.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
That idea started after a really intense therapy session and
I got back home and was trying to pull myself
together enough to write, and then realized that I actually
just needed to let myself fall apart and pulling myself
together was actually getting in the way.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
So on the drive over.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
To the studio, like you just said, I got this
chorus idea for a Note to Self, got the melody
and some of the lyrics in the title, and I
brought that in with Tranny and.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Mark Trussell and we just we started writing the verses first, I.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Think, and just very much told my story top to
bottom very autobiographically. One of my favorite, well favorite is
I Guess a stretch, But one of the most honest
lyrics and one that cut really deep for me, was
in the second verse. It's the line you tried to
(40:48):
keep between the lines from the backseat of your life,
couldn't control anything but the size of eugenes. And that
was the first time I'd really written about my struggle
with like my eating discord. I struggled a lot with
that when I was like sixteen to twenty probably, and
I've realized through therapy too that that was it was
(41:09):
from a lack. I felt so out of control in
my life, Like the song says, I felt like I.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Had no agency in my life.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Going back to what we were talking about earlier, I
didn't know how to set boundaries. I didn't know how
to speak up for myself and choose me. So the
only thing I could control was my weight and the
way I looked, And so putting that in the song
was incredibly healing. And now when I sing it live,
when I share it with people, there's something really therapeutic
about being able to say that out loud and not
(41:38):
be ashamed of it anymore, but own that part of
my story and connect with people through it. Another line
that's that surprised me a lot.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Maybe was.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
In how to Swim in the second verse, there's this
line that I.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Felt was really powerful. It was.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Tell me it gets better, that eventually I'll find me again,
or at least I want to know that the new
me and the old me can stay friends.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
And I remember having this.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Strong feeling that like, to step into this next chapter
of my life to grow to heal, I was gonna
have to like lose parts of myself and almost like
trim away, cut away these this old version of me
and leave her behind. And something that was really helpful
(42:42):
for me that I realized through therapy and through conversations
was just like all of these parts of you stay
with you.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
You know what I mean. It's you can be all
of these things at once.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
I can be, you know, the the good girl, the
daughter that that you know was like the family therapist.
And I can also be the girl who is standing
up for herself and setting boundaries and choosing herself.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
And you can hold all of these things at once, Like.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Stepping into this new path doesn't mean forgetting what's behind you.
And I think that line, to me, really holds a
lot of weight for that reason.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
That's interesting because it's also a really good metaphor for
being an artist, where you you know, because you learn
so many things along the way, of course, you become
this different person all the time.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, so true. And I think the culture and society
is so obsessed with labels and like putting people in
boxes to like organize and make sense of things. It's like, oh, well.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
You know you're this, so you can't be this. You're
a business woman, so you can't be a creative, you're this.
Like it's obsessed with defining you, and to me, I
just I reject that wholeheartedly. I think human as humans
were so nuanced and a lot of times people try
(44:07):
to find you out of out of fear and just
trying to make sense and organized life. But to me,
the most incredible people I know are contradictions, and they're
they're full of all of these opposing ideas and opposing
traits and somehow it just it all works together.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
So I think I think allowing yourself to.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
To change and to evolve and to still be all
of these things at once is a beautiful act of
self love.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
I agree to last questions and we're gonna wrap up.
But one once you've you know, kind of you know,
tapped into this idea of like letting go and cutting
loosed a little bit. What was the most rebellious thing
that you wanted to do?
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Oh? Man, what a question.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
We gotta wrap up with a fund out.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
I love it so oh recently I went on a
girls trip to Miami and we we were.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Out all night long.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
We went to a strip club, which I never would
have imagined is a younger version of myself, like growing
up in church and all of that, but we did it.
We went to a script club and we had a
big old night and it was a.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Well, you know, it doesn't surprise me. Everything crazy after
Florida and then two for you? What is your vienna?
And when did you realize it waits for you?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
What is my vienna?
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Woof?
Speaker 1 (45:37):
And when did you realize it waits for you?
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Oh my gosh, you gotta leave me with a question
like that.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Well, I mean you wrap the album look that way,
and it's so beautiful and I fucking love Billy Joel
so much. One of my favorite writers of all time,
very underrated artists too, you know.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
It's it's incredible.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I think that song is so nuanced and I'm going
to try to talk my way through this and maybe
stumble a bit along the way.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
But to me, that idea represents.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
This tension I feel between being so dedicated and consumed
in a way and by this career of you know,
being a songwriter, being an artist. It's a it's not
something that you clock in and clock out of.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
It is a consuming it's it's a way of being.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
It's a way of life, and maybe it's the way
I was raised. But a lot of times I feel
this tension between fully leaning into that person but also
prioritizing the right things, you know. I feel a lot
of pressure from my family of like, well, you need
to go to church, are you going to start a family,
are you going to settle down? Are you going to
(46:56):
all of these other things that you're taught to want?
And I think, in a way, maybe that's my vienna,
is like the idea of living this fulfilled, well rounded,
well balanced life. I believe that that is always going
to be there for me, and if I pour myself
(47:18):
into my purpose and I chase down this thing that
I believe I was put on earth to do. Then
I think all of that is going to work itself out,
and if it's meant for me, it'll find me, and
it's going to be there waiting, you know, for me
when I get there.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I like that. I mean, there's no reason you can
be able to go to church and go to the
strip club in Miami and you know.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
That's great. I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Cool. What are you going to add that we didn't
talk about? Although I think we talked about freaking everything.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
We talked about everything, But can we talk about interviewing
Cheryl Crowe? Because that would make my dreams come true?
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Sure? Her friend Skater is her manager's friend of mine,
ede I will text Scooter and be like, dude, yes,
we need to make this happens person she see.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
I mean, I think we're going to be kindred spirits.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Honestly, I think there's so much we have in common
that I didn't even realize And I just cannot wait
to pick her brain and just like learn from her.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Would she be your number one interview with.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Probably? Yeah, I think she'd be number one for me. Yeah,
But I can keep thinking, don't worry. I can keep
adding to that list. I can keep dreaming.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Well, we talked about it the last time and you
were like, now I have time to do interviews, but
you were so natural at it.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Thank you, thank you. I really enjoyed that combo with Crystal.
I've seen her since and she's just a sweetheart. I
love her so much.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
So well, it's like again, I mean, we said it's
an interview because I talk granmy camp from any just
to ask a questions you're interested in as a fan,
So why would you know, why wouldn't you want to
pick the brain of you know, Crystal Gale?
Speaker 3 (48:59):
Exactly? Yup.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Well, this is a blast and it was about what
I expected because the album is just brilliant. It's so good,
you know, and I like that level of I mean,
for lack of a better with selfishness, but I think
again that makes great art is you know what people
like have to you know, I think the best albums
are like self therapy, and what happens is everybody else
(49:23):
that turns around is like, wait, I love this because
I understand this one hundred percent. Wow.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Thank you for saying that. That truly is so validating.
To hear, and that's.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
That's my hope for it. I did worry, like in
the midst of making it. It felt selfish to make.
But like you said, I think when when you're able
to like write the music that you want to hear,
write the music that you.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Need, that's the stuff that speaks to fans the most.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
When you can like separate yourself from like the marketing,
like commerce side, and just pure art creation. I tried
to give myself fully to just creating and then only
when it was done think about like what people were
going to say and what opinions were going to be.
So it means a lot that you picked up on
that and that you loved it.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Well, you know here, I'm really go I want to
say it. This is fascinating and I learned this. I
did a book a few years ago called The Anthems
We Love and I talked to like, you know you
two Tom Waite's Sheet and Nile Rogers, you know, like
the biggest songwriters of all time. But was really fascinating,
and what I learned about it was, you know, his
best songs that evolved it became anthems, you know, and
(50:30):
two that really stuck out to me where Darryl Hoffs
theyre Smile and Graham Nash our house. And what was
fascinating was how those songs are so beloved by millions
of people and we're literally written about one person. And
it was like, wait, why is this song that you know?
Because I mean, you take a song at our house,
no one in the world fuckings when it's like slip
(50:50):
Joni Mitchell besides the Graham Nash, he loves that song.
And what I realized is because people want the feeling.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Yes, yes, I want the.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Feeling of songs and what that is, you know, in
their life. So you know, there is like there's a
lot of truth that like, the more you write for yourself,
the more people you know will understand and identify with it.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Yeah, I believe that too. Thank you so much for
this conversation. It was so good to chat with you always.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
You two all right, go, It's easy, got relationship with everything.
Hi, Steve Balton, Welcome to in Service aub This week,
I'm thrilled to be joined by Alana Springsteen. Her new
album I Hope This Helps is a stunning singer songwriter
collection that is honest, authentic, vulnerable, powerful, and having delivered
(00:31):
one of the best records of the verst half of
this year, she does not disappoint in this interview, being
just as honest, just as authentic, just as vulnerable as
she is in the brilliant collection. So I hope you
enjoyed this interview as much as I did. A huge
fan of this record, really love talking to her, and
(00:53):
she is an amazing talent to be on the lookout
for for a long time. To home, Yes, what makes
(01:13):
a perfect Nashville day? Since you said it is one?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Mm hmm, Well, first of all, the weather, no humidity,
the sun being out seventy degrees, no crazy pollen giving analogies,
seeing a bunch of friends connecting with people.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It's just been a really really great day overall.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Nice And that was not even close to what I
was going to start with. But then again, it makes
sense because there's so much to unpack with this album.
I was like, not even sure where the fuck to
start it is? H I was thinking about it now
and it just reminded me of John Lennon Plastic Go
No Vand, which is one of my favorite albums of
all time. And it's one of those albums that is
(01:58):
just like screams therapy in the best way possible.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Wow, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So it's an awakening for you.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Massively.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, the last two years have been the most transformative
of my life. I feel like I had to pull
myself apart and put myself back together to write this album,
and these songs have been my roadmap through all of it.
They've helped me understand myself and have healed me, have
(02:28):
shown me the sides of me that I'm insecure about
and allowed me to make peace with it. And I'm
walking out on the other side just a much better
version of myself.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah. Funny. I mean, I was looking at the title
I hope this helps and I'm like, wait, do you
mean this for other people or for yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I love that it's actually kind of both, which is
why I love the title. It's kind of it's simple,
but it really touches on all the parts of it.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I hope it helps me. I hope it helps me.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Make peace with my inner child and get to know
myself better and just be a better version of myself
for me and for the people around me.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But I also I hope it helps the people out
there that heal it, that hear it. Sorry, I writing.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
This record that is you can ever fucking make.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
There were so many times Deeve writing this record that
I truly didn't know if I could continue.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I mean, I was in the middle of therapy E MDR.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
On one of the biggest tours of my life with
Keith Urban, trying to be in the studio write this record,
just doing it all at once, and it almost broke
me many many times. And the thought that kept me
going and got me back in the studio was that
maybe the next song that I would write would help
someone out there feel less alone in what they were
(03:50):
going through and give them the courage they needed to
choose themselves and to ask life for more and to
do the hard work knowing that it's going to be
worth it.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
On the other side, wait, we're gonna go back and
talks about your inner child anyway, That's funny. I was
talking about this with someone the other day. The kind
of your great escape song, which I will ask you
in a second, but what were those songs for you that
when you were a kid? Were the ones that helped you?
And the way do you so help these songs help
somebody now?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Man?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I think Landslide is at the top of that list.
It was one of the first songs that I learned
how to play as a kid, and obviously, lyrically it
is so incredibly nuanced and deep and I didn't pick
up on all of the meeting at the time, but
I've always been a very melody sonic driven person. I
(04:46):
can feel melodies. There's certain chords that evoke certain emotions
for me, certain.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Melodies that make me feel a.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Certain way, and that song just always felt so incredibly
emotionally urged, and I felt the nuance and the conflict
and the depth of the lyric. And it's one of
those songs that's really grown with me over the years.
I kind of rediscovered it a couple of years ago,
and I feel like every time I come back to it,
it means something new to me.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I mean, it is, you know, it's funny in a way.
It's kind of become cliche at this point, but it
became cliche because it's probably one of the ten best
songs ever written.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
That's right, that's right. And she wrote it when she
was twenty five, which is crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
But you know what's interesting, and it's funny because the
times what I was going to ask you is you know,
you say she wrote it when she was twenty five,
that's crazy. Jackson Brown wrote These Days when he was sixteen,
and he talked about this, what the fuck do you
know when you're sixteen years old? About don't confront me
with my failures. I have not forgotten them. And then,
of course I saw Joni Mitchell at the Gorge a
(05:50):
few years ago, and Joni Mitchell singing both sides now
at eighty is one of the most beautiful things in
the history of the world. But Joni Mitchell wrote that
song when she was twenty two. What can anybody ever
understand about writing that song like that when you're in
your twenties.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Ah, I didn't realize she wrote that song when she
was so young. That's another one for me that I
heard again for the first time in a while a
few months ago, and I was just sobbing in my car,
like it's so.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
So emotionally deep. But I think I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
There's something about being young that allows you to get
out of your own way. You just don't know, you
don't know what you don't know, so you don't overthink
it and you're just feeling it. And I think that's
kind of what I've tried to focus on with this record,
is just getting out of my own way, not trying
to write a perfect song, but just write something honest.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You know, it's funny. What I was going to say
is that, and we are going to come back to
the great Escape song for you in a second. But
Nick cave who and I always preface things like this
by saying that I'm very lucky in that I talk
to people who are way smarter than me. But Nick
cave sets looks so interesting to me. He said that
as a writer, you always write what it is you're
longing for, so and that to me, that feels like
(07:07):
this screams this album. Do you feel like you were
writing for the stuff that you needed, the questions that
you needed answered.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yes, I think.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
My album twenty something, my debut record, asked a lot
of questions and started to I was just starting to
really get to know myself, and I wrote songs like
Chameleon about the way that I've always been a people pleaser,
just constantly shape shifting, but I didn't understand why until
I wrote this record. So in a lot of ways,
Twenty Something asked the questions, and this album helped me
(07:41):
find some more of the answers. And obviously we never
fully finished the journey of this. We're constantly asking questions,
but I think I started to get.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
To the root of a lot of these patterns in
my life.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And I had to go back a long way, you know,
to to that inner child, to sometimes four or five, six,
seven years old, to rewire the these truths that I believed.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So what was like? What were the questions and answers
that surprised you the most when you were writing this,
because I was thinking, ay, your Instagram, what you talked
about writing love me anyway? And it's funny. I also
it was interested in a song like no Man, which
it felt like it was very interesting to me because
you know, and I will not ask if I was
autobiographical or not, but I was thinking about it. And
(08:28):
sometimes it's probably easier to write autobiographically when it is
in third person.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Hmmm, that's true.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I do feel that I've you know, I've written a
couple songs autobiographically from third person, and that's really interesting theory.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I've never really dissected that much.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That song specifically isn't exactly to the t my story.
It's one of the few songs that I've written that
all the details aren't about me. But I kind of
pulled from several different people in my life and and
stories and created this character that I very much identify with,
and I was able to kind of get lost in
this person in the song in a way of just
(09:09):
you know, not feeling like you fit, wanting to escape,
wanting something more for yourself, wanting to get out and
not wanting to be tied down so badly, wanting love
and wanting connection, but never wanting to be limited by it.
And I think for a while, love always felt conditional
for me for most of my life, and I'm just
(09:31):
now getting to the place where I'm realizing that love
should never ask you to be something else, it should
never ask you to be small.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
It should just empower who you are.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And make you want to be better, and just chase
your dreams down and know that you've always got a
place to come back to, in a soft place to land.
But that song was, like, I've always loved country music
because of the storytelling, so I wanted to write a
song that was just incredibly just this beautiful story about
a girl, you know, choosing herself and refusing to stay small.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So, first off, who are the country storytellers that are
some of your favorites?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Oh my gosh, wow, what a what a question? I think.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Or country stories that are your favorites, And I mean Tory.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Taylor's is great too, I think. I mean Lou Harris
is at the top of that. For me, there's some
of her songs that are just hauntingly honest and like.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She just.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I think about her song Red Dirt Girl. It's one
of my favorite country songs, and it's just this beautiful
snapshot of what it's like to be from a small
town and maybe never get out and some of the
things you face and the you know, the people that
you meet along the way.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And you're like that that I see myself.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I see my family members in that song a little bit,
And I just I love when songwriters can just put
you in a place like that, and it just make you,
make you just relate, maybe to something you've never experienced,
but it's so emotional that you can't help but feel
(11:11):
yourself in it. And so she's up there for me.
Maybe you wouldn't consider her country, but Sheryl Crow is
one of my favorite artists, and to me, she's country.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I think.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I listen to those songs now, I listen to her
self titled record, and I'm like, that could be on
country radio right now. You know, it's just these it's
all about storytelling, it's all about I mean, she's an
incredible musician, she produced it all herself. She's just this outlaw.
I think in so many ways she paved her own
path and she has inspired me so much and continues
(11:44):
to do so. And also another songwriter that always inspires
me is Hailey Williams. Again, she's maybe not considered country,
but to me, she's done such a great job always
of not being afraid to write about these nuanced subjects
(12:06):
in these kind of just own her truth and stand
behind it and say things that a lot of people
are afraid to say sometimes, and to me, that is
the definition of an outlaw. So those are all people
that I'm inspired by and you know, I talk about
Cheryl all the time, like, would love to collaborate with
her and Haley and write.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Together and do something together maybe in the future. I'm
so inspired by him.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
See that's funny because you mentioned writing with Cheryl, and
you know, after the interview you did for me last
year with Floretta, I'm more interested in you interviewing.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Her incredibly.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Incredibly her managers a friend. I've known her for so
many years. But you know, it's interesting because you talk
about saying things that you people don't want to say,
you know so, and by the way, we'll have to
make that happen. But going back for a second too,
you know it's interesting. I mean, you look at this,
I'm like Selfish, which I love. And it's funny to
have a song that you feel like, you know, at
(13:05):
another point in your life you could have written or
if you had written it years ago, because again, sometimes
songs are so prophetic they you know, mean things that
you are like, what the hell does that mean? And
then Adie de Frank, who told me that's being twenty
years and I'll tell you, you know, so, do you feel
like that you could have put Selfish on a record.
If you had written it earlier, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I don't think I would have had the courage to
write that. And it sounds crazy, but I think, you know,
growing up a as a woman, as an eldest daughter,
you know, of four kids in the South, like you're
just raised with these expectations and these requirements and pressures
that are just put on you to act a certain way,
(13:49):
to present a certain way to you know, always be
kind and serving other people and gentle and not rock
the boat too much, and you know, just be kind
of quiet and.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Defer to other people, and on and on and on.
But I think.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
A lot of my life, you know, when I started
to learn to set boundaries and to choose myself, it
ruffles a lot of feathers early on, because you know,
that's just not what people expected from me. It's not
what they were used to getting from me. And so
I was called selfish a lot, and I wrote this
song is kind of like a reminder to myself that
(14:31):
it's not selfish to put yourself first. And you can't
take care of other people. You can't show up for
other people in your life until you know how to
show up for yourself, Until you meet your own needs.
And there's so many women in my family, like strong women,
my mom, my grandmother, people that I've looked up to
my whole life that I've watched like sacrifice so much
(14:55):
at the expense of themselves.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And so this song was.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Kind of like a reminder to me and reminder to
all the women out there and people in general, just
like it's not selfish to choose yourself and sometimes you
just need you need the reminder because it felt so
against my nature to write that song, but it's something
that I needed to hear in the moment for sure.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Well, again, that goes back to what Nikate was saying
about writing what it is that you're longing for. But
it's funny because you know what you say about helping
other women, and I mean, it's interesting. I can't tell
you how many female friends I've heard that exact story
from being raised being you know, kind and you know,
defer and to say yes and you know, like it
(15:42):
fucks a lot of people up, you know. So it's interesting,
I mean, is that one of the things that you
you know is very to be selfish kind of one
of the things where you had to unlearn that, you know, okay,
(16:05):
like sometimes you know, here's the thing right in this world.
Sometimes someone's just naps on. It's okay, it's all the
fuck off.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah yeah, right, Like boundaries felt. I didn't think I
was allowed to have boundaries. I didn't know how to
set them. I didn't see people in my life setting them,
so I never learned how.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
And that was.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Something that I really had to work on, was learning
to to honor my limits and to know what I
would accept and what I wouldn't and to not be
ashamed of that.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
And I think.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
A deeper level of that too, is when you don't
know how to set boundaries and when you don't know
how to show up for yourself, you end up like
abandoning yourself so much that it causes anger to build
up with you. And that was something that surprised me
because I think most of my life I've had a
very I wasn't comfortable with feeling anger at all.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
It was one of those emotions I was terrified of.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
But because I didn't know how to choose myself and
I didn't feel like I had agency, I felt a
lot of anger and just deep rage that manifested in
the form of health issues. And you know, chronic depression
and anxiety. And I'm so grateful that I've I've learned to.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Show up for me and to figure.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I figured out the root of where all that was
coming from through therapy, honestly, and that's changed my life.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Well, you know, it's funny because I'm friends with the
learners more said, I've nevered for twenty years, and we
always talk about being able to, you know, overcome their
initial success and going to have a successful career because
not many people have been able to have the kind
of meteoroc rise she did and going down career. And
then we joke about it, and I've asked her many
times like wasn't She's just like a lot of therapy. Hmmm.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So true.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
You know, it's fascinating because I haven't thought about this
until just now. But you know, the idea of being
a people pleaser and you know, not knowing our learning
boundaries is a fascinating thing when you mix it with fame,
because I think fame is the worst strug there is.
I think it kills people, you know, if you don't
(18:22):
know how to deal with it. And it's funny, So
did you find that as you start to become successful,
you it becomes more important to learn to set those
boundaries because people just want stuff from you all the time,
and they don't mean it in a bad way, like
you know, like you know, I've had friends tell me
about like it'll drive them. That's when people come up
(18:42):
to them to take a picture and they're like, they
don't even know who I am. It's just like I'm
a commodity to them.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I think my experience is that you know, hasn't gotten
so much into like the I can't go out and
like people are always some pictures and all. It's not
there yet. But my experience of that has shown up
more in like learning to trust my inner voice and
to know what I feel regardless of what other people
(19:13):
around me are saying and wanting and expecting from me.
You know, when you're a people pleaser and you're good
at being a chameleon, you you do that for long
enough and you don't ever learn how to know what
you actually feel and who you actually are underneath all
of that. When you set all of that aside, and
(19:33):
you know, when you start putting out music and you
start touring and being an artist, everyone's looking to you
going well, what do you want to say?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And I realized really quickly that I had a lot
of work to do to figure that out and to
answer that question. And it started with with with learning
to not care so much what people think, and to
stop seeking validation and just trust myself enough that yeah,
I might make am misas, but at least it'll be
(20:01):
It'll be mine, and I'll know that I did it
because I felt convicted about it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
So there are artists that you look to. You mentioned
Emmy Lou, you mentioned Cheryl and it's funny I'm doing
an Alley Times story on Miles Davis for his centennial,
and you know, there's Jonie. You know those artists who
to me, what I've realized, you know, and then writing
about music for thirty years is every great artist what
they have in common is they eventually reached the point
where they just don't give a fuck. You have to
(20:29):
to be a great artist, you have to get to
the point where you just say, I'm gonna you know,
if I'm Neil Young, I'm gonna make a shitty synth
album in the eighties, but I'm still gonna be you know,
the god of grunge and I'm gonna, you know, do whatever.
So for you, who are those artists that you really
look to for the way they were able to kind
of break out of, you know, whatever shackles there are
(20:51):
for them and just be like, Okay, I'm gonna do
what I want.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Well, hmm man, you think about like throwing it back
a little bit like Patsy Klein. You know, when she
was releasing music, she was creating a type of music
that just wasn't quote unquote country at the time.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
She redefined country.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
In the perspective of like the way she used her voice,
the way it was a little bit more of a
soulful R and B flow, to the way she sang,
the way she had strings and orchestras in her in
her production.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
It was much more of a pop approach. But it
was the first time people had.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Heard anything like that, and she redefined the genre and
really opened up a whole new pathway. And that was
just from staying true to herself, like leaning into how
her voice sounded best in the music that she loved.
So I think that is a massive example for me
of like a woman going like, no, this is the
(21:53):
music I want to make. I don't care if if
people don't get it or if they do get it.
I'm just gonna pave my own path and and you know,
trust that the art I love is going to cut through.
I think about Miley Cyrus too, like I've always loved
her music and the way that she is constantly able
to redefine herself, like she's had so many different eras,
(22:15):
and this latest record.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
That she just put out just felt like pure art
to me.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
It felt like, you know, coming off of the previous record,
Endless Summer Vacation, like she was for like that was
full of hits, and this latest record just felt like
it was pure art, like she was making it for
her and sonically she made some choices that were just
so off the wall and unexpected. And I love artists
(22:42):
that are fearless that way, and a lot of times
they're ahead of their time, Like you'll listen to that
record in ten years and be like, WHOA, she was
really doing something with this, you know, But those are
the artists that inspire me.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And that's the kind of artist I want to be.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I want to constantly just push the boundaries and live
in that space where where it's like I like to
color outside the lines. I like to live on the fringes.
You know, I've never been a black and white person.
I'm more of a gray area person.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
And yeah, what's funny about that is in making a
record like this, do you feel like in a way
and I mean, I guess the sort of rebellion in it,
the outside the lines is the throwback nature of it,
Like it feels more like authentically country in a way
than most of the shit that comes out now that
(23:32):
you're like, what the fuck is that?
Speaker 4 (23:34):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
You know, when I approach the production of this song,
I'm a co producer on everything, and I love getting in,
getting to like dig into the sonic side of these
songs and bring them to life because when I'm writing,
like a lot of times i'm playing the parts in
the room that end up on the record, or I
(23:56):
hear this thing in my head and I want to
lay it down, or I'm thinking about oh when we
record drums, I wanted to do this specific thing. So
it's important to me to be able to add to
every piece of bringing a song to life. But with
this album, I went into it knowing that I wanted.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
It to be very vocal forward.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's such a songwriter's record. The lyric is everything more
and more important than anything. I wanted people to hear
the stories. So when you compare it to twenty something,
it's a lot more stripped, I would say, a lot
of a lot of doing more.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
With less, and that was really fun to explore.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And also just different parts of my voice.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I've been singing for so long, I think I kind
of got.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Stuck in these ruts of like, here's just what I
always do. I'm a technically good singer, but with this album,
I really pushed myself to find different textures and different
tones that I could tap into with certain songs like
Feels Good was a song that I love tracking vocals
to because my producer was like, Okay, that's a good vocal,
(25:04):
but now what if you sing it like you're a spider?
Speaker 3 (25:07):
What if you sing it like you're.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Like, you know, a thief in the night, like breaking
into the house, Like just these weird off the wall examples.
And he was able to really pull these different emotions
and textures out of me, and Uh, I'm excited to
keep like exploring all of that.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Okay, very obvious question. I usually hate to ask the
obvious but what the fuck does the singer spider sing like?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Well, for me, it was just like really quiet. It
was a lot more like sneaky, just kind of creeps
up on you slow, you know. I just envisioned it
and it just came out. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, it's funny that what you say about being a
typically good singer. I mean, yes, but it's like, I mean,
you know, my favorite songwriter of all time is Tom Waits,
and some people hate his voice, and yes, to me,
his like hissinging on Ruby's arms, for example, is as
good as anything in the world. So are there artists
that you've looked to and it's like or are that
(26:08):
you realize like sometimes stepping out of character and you know, again,
like Daniel Lenoire referred to these things as like happy accidents,
you know, the best moments.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, so true.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
It's funny because I think most of the artists that
inspired me, especially early on, were these like incredible vocalists
like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, just like these big,
undeniable voices. But I think as I've gotten older and
explored my music, I've kind of fallen in love with
(26:43):
like you're saying, the people that it's less about how
good they are and it's more about how much emotion
they're able to pack into the lyric and the performance
of it. Trying to have some examples for me, I mean, honestly,
Stevie Nix is that for me, Like, I think she's
(27:05):
a great vocalist, maybe wouldn't be listed in one of
the best of all time, but to me, emotionally, she's
just so resonant, Like there's just so much there in
the texture for voice. I mean, I'd have to think
about it. There's probably so many that I'm not thinking
of in the moment.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
But that's allry. It's funny because since you say Steve Nicks,
I think about Christine mcbehan, I'm like, you know, probably
was probably a better singer.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Technically, yeah, for sure, But it's almost like you've got
to get out of your own way. It's at a
certain point like being good can almost work against you, you.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
It's like you got to learn how to be a
beginner again and just all feel like, turn the technical
side of your brain off and just emote.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
No. Absolutely, It's funny from writing standpoint, what I've noticed
of late is like, like, you know, like working with
established writers, I have to get them too. I was
talking about this Stanley Clark the other day in All
Times interview, and you have to get them to like
unlearned stuff because they've learned so many to these shads.
It's like everything is just like boring as fuck.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yep, you know true.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I feel like some of my best songs and some
on this record have been written like That's why I
love writing.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Camp so much.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I've really started to write in like you know, four
or five day increments instead of like the you know,
ten to five Nashville style, because I find that after
that first song, second song gets out of the way,
then you really tap into just flow state and just
like showing up for whatever energy is in the room
(28:50):
and not overthinking it.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And you know, like.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
That third song of the day when it's you're starting
at ten pm and you've got you're a bottle of
wine in you know, and it's like you're all just
vibing out.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That's kind of the magic spot for me.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I wrote Fight like this in that space. I wrote
I Loved You then in that space. Several of those
songs that made it onto this record are are songs
that came from that energy?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
All right? Wait? I did an AOS session with a
Dell when she did twenty one, and she told me
she wrote a lot of that album drinking Jack Daniels
and journals. So how much of this album was written
off wine? And was a red wine white wine? And
what were the best wine songs?
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Man, A lot of this record actually was written off
red wine, many many red wine nights. I actually, I
Loved You Then is one of my favorite songs on
this album, and it was I Honestly, I've felt pretty
unqualified for most of my life to write love songs
because my history with love is very tumultuous, and I am,
(29:54):
by no means the expert. I am very hesitant to
give advice and perspective on really relationships. But I feel
like as I've done a lot of this healing, it's
also trickled into the way I show up in my relationships.
And I'm happy, the happiest I've ever been, and I've
healed a lot of those attachment issues, and I wanted
to write a song that was just kind of like
(30:15):
these snapshots, these very autobiographical snapshots of moments in my
relationship where I felt so much, but I was terrified
to name it and to say it because I had
been hurt so badly by it in the past.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
And I had this idea, just.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I loved you then, you know that moment in a
relationship where you're finally being honest with each other and
you kind of look back through your history and you go, oh, yeah,
I remember that time where you know, we were out
with our friends and this is like two yours.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, I loved you then, or it's like you're thinking.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
About all the times that you felt it before you
said it, And so I made a list of all
those things and had this idea on my phone for
like four months, and it was that like third song
of the day, bottle of wine in we were all
tipsy red wine, and I finally worked up the nerve
to like play this idea for him and to go
there and like spill all these details. And it's one
(31:11):
of my favorite songs on the record, And actually the
vocal that is on the Master is the vocal I
sang that night, like two takes top to bottom, wine
drunk and you know, a little buzzed, and I think
it captured some of that magic.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
In the room.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But that's a fascinating theory, and I'm thinking about it
now and I'm like, wait, do you actually have to
be successful and love to write a good love song?
But then I think about, like, probably my favorite love
song is Taken with Me by Tom Waits, who wrote
that with his wife he's been married to for like
thirty something years, So there probably is. There may be
some treats, right, yeah, I mean if you look at
(32:02):
how fucked up so many artists talk. I mean, I'm
sure love songs have been written by people who you know,
have never even who couldn't even spell love.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Yeah, right, one hundred percent. I mean I always find
myself writing even.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I loved you then is not like a fully happy
love song. It's got this tinge of longing and yearning
and like it's not quite mine. I don't have quite
a grasp on it. So I still think I've got
some room to grow there. But it's the closest I've
come to a love song.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I think, Well, you know, it's interesting because you talked
before about being, you know, understanding love unconditionally, And it's
funny because I mean it does seem like such an
obvious and this is kind of progressing into therapy session.
But you know, there was nowhere else. There was nowhere
else to go with this album and fun. Do you
feel like now you know that? Like what I'm just
(32:52):
thinking about, it maybe the best love song ever written
besides someways this stupor of Honey by Van Morrison. He's
one of the dudes on the planet. So I don't
know if your theory holds water. But going back to
what you're saying, do you feel like that? You know?
And very simply as you get older, you get more
comfortable with yourself, so you find like a place where
(33:13):
you're you know, I mean, it's silkliche it, but obviously
you have to love yourself before anybody else can love you.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, so true. I was just talking about this earlier today.
I think.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
That really was the root of a lot of the
side effects that were popping up in my life. And
what I realized is that I didn't feel worthy of
love just for being me, just for existing. I felt
like I had to earn it and I was constantly
That's where the validation seeking came from. That's where the
people pleasing came from, That's where the anxious avoidant attachment
(33:48):
came from of like I'll pull you close, but then
when it's too close, I'll run the other direction because
I don't want to I don't really want to be known.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
I'm terrified to be known, because what if you don't
like what you see?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
And it really it's like you said, it's cliche, but truly,
I think you can't.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
You can't fully love anybody else. You can't. No amount
of validation, no amount.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Of love is ever going to make up for the
love that you're withholding from yourself. So a lot of
my work in therapy was just getting to the point
where I could look at myself in the mirror and go,
You're You're worthy of love for just existing, for just
for just being you. You don't have to do a
damn thing to be loved, and when you show up
(34:37):
from that place, everything is just so much more fulfilling
and beautiful.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
So all theast question, what's your best love song of
all time?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
My favorite?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Oh it's I mean, it's cliche, but okay, I have
a couple of favorites.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Damn it's cliche. I think one of my favorite love songs.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Is Someday when I'm off a little and the world
is cool.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
I will feel the close just thinking up in a
way to night. I mean, come on, it's so pure,
it's so just like I'm not asking anything of you.
I'm not like, it's not lustful. It's just like the
most pure. Like someday when I'm really sad and.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
When I'm feeling depressed, I'm gonna think of this moment
right here, and I'm gonna feel just alive and in
love and like, hold on to that to me, like
that's the that's just the most beautiful, selfless expression of love.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Every time I hear that song, I just I get chills.
But also I love.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I love Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight. How was My Mom
and Dad's one of their songs growing up, My dad
and loved that song. I had it on a couple
of his mixtapes, and it's just there's something about it
that just feels so.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Sexy and vulnerable and intimate.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
What about you, I told you, I mean, I gotta
go take it with me too. Wonderful that it's funny
because I mean, you know, I'm a huge Cropton fan.
Always happened, but I mean, you know, I read is
autobiography all that. I mean, you want to talk about
a dude who went through hell? Yeah right, yeah, addiction,
(36:41):
his best friends what I mean? You know? But now
it's funny too, because on a lighter, much more fun out,
you know, as you're learning about love. Is that where
Sammy comes in?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Sammy you saw that? Huh?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I mean I have a tattoo of my dog on
my arm.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yes, oh my heart. Yeah, she's my the new love
of my life for sure. She's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I've always loved animals, and I will probably get a
dog one day, but I'm just I travel so much.
I would feel horrible about leaving a dog home. Cats
are like a little more independent, so uh. And I
also my mom is totally down to watch her while
I'm gone.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
So she's perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
And I just think everybody should get an emotional support animal.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
They make life so much better.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well yeah, I mean, you know, and especially there are
so many animals that need help.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
You so true, got you gotta adopt them.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So much too. I mean it's funny every wordy being
Dave Bailey Glass animals great dude, and he would like
tell me when he got a dog, he literally would
sing God only nose to his dog.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Oh my star, I love that.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
I agree. I mean because I'm an animal lover, So
you know, is it teach you about that? And what
song would you sing to your cat?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Okay, well I've only had her for a week, so
we're still very much bonding. But I think there is
definitely something in caring for something.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
I feel like when you're the most when.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
I've been at my lowest, when I've been at my
most depressed, Like having something that you're taking care of
that's depending on you is kind of like the ultimate medicine.
And I think I've learned a lot about selfless love
from animals, Like to me, that's kind of the most
pure expression of love is like they just they just
(38:43):
love from a pure place, like they don't know anything else.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
And I think for Sammy, what would I sing to her?
I might have to write her a song. I don't
know if I have.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Anything good enough yet, but I mean, you know, I
actually did interview someone. It might have been Dave, and
it might have been someone else who wrote songs for
their dog.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Oh see, probably great songs too, probably like the ultimate
love song.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, all right, well we'll write up on the album
for you, What were some of the lyrics on this
record that really surprised you the most. With the idea
of writing being sub conscious, you know that it comes
out on you, just like as I saw what you
wrote on Instagram too about love me anyway, and it's
just like I love how you put it blacked out
on the floor. You know. Well, it's funny because Jimmie
(39:33):
Cliff told me he wrote the harder they come in
ten minutes on the way to the studio. That's often
how the best songs come.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, so true, so true.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Gosh.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
I think writing Note to Self was really powerful.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
That idea started after a really intense therapy session and
I got back home and was trying to pull myself
together enough to write, and then realized that I actually
just needed to let myself fall apart and pulling myself
together was actually getting in the way.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
So on the drive over.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
To the studio, like you just said, I got this
chorus idea for a Note to Self, got the melody
and some of the lyrics in the title, and I
brought that in with Tranny and.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Mark Trussell and we just we started writing the verses first, I.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Think, and just very much told my story top to
bottom very autobiographically. One of my favorite, well favorite is
I Guess a stretch, But one of the most honest
lyrics and one that cut really deep for me, was
in the second verse. It's the line you tried to
(40:48):
keep between the lines from the backseat of your life,
couldn't control anything but the size of eugenes. And that
was the first time I'd really written about my struggle
with like my eating discord. I struggled a lot with
that when I was like sixteen to twenty probably, and
I've realized through therapy too that that was it was
(41:09):
from a lack. I felt so out of control in
my life, Like the song says, I felt like I.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Had no agency in my life.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Going back to what we were talking about earlier, I
didn't know how to set boundaries. I didn't know how
to speak up for myself and choose me. So the
only thing I could control was my weight and the
way I looked, And so putting that in the song
was incredibly healing. And now when I sing it live,
when I share it with people, there's something really therapeutic
about being able to say that out loud and not
(41:38):
be ashamed of it anymore, but own that part of
my story and connect with people through it. Another line
that's that surprised me a lot.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Maybe was.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
In how to Swim in the second verse, there's this
line that I.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Felt was really powerful. It was.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Tell me it gets better, that eventually I'll find me again,
or at least I want to know that the new
me and the old me can stay friends.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
And I remember having this.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Strong feeling that like, to step into this next chapter
of my life to grow to heal, I was gonna
have to like lose parts of myself and almost like
trim away, cut away these this old version of me
and leave her behind. And something that was really helpful
(42:42):
for me that I realized through therapy and through conversations
was just like all of these parts of you stay
with you.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
You know what I mean. It's you can be all
of these things at once.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
I can be, you know, the the good girl, the
daughter that that you know was like the family therapist.
And I can also be the girl who is standing
up for herself and setting boundaries and choosing herself.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
And you can hold all of these things at once, Like.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Stepping into this new path doesn't mean forgetting what's behind you.
And I think that line, to me, really holds a
lot of weight for that reason.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
That's interesting because it's also a really good metaphor for
being an artist, where you you know, because you learn
so many things along the way, of course, you become
this different person all the time.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, so true. And I think the culture and society
is so obsessed with labels and like putting people in
boxes to like organize and make sense of things. It's like, oh, well.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
You know you're this, so you can't be this. You're
a business woman, so you can't be a creative, you're this.
Like it's obsessed with defining you, and to me, I
just I reject that wholeheartedly. I think human as humans
were so nuanced and a lot of times people try
(44:07):
to find you out of out of fear and just
trying to make sense and organized life. But to me,
the most incredible people I know are contradictions, and they're
they're full of all of these opposing ideas and opposing
traits and somehow it just it all works together.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
So I think I think allowing yourself to.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
To change and to evolve and to still be all
of these things at once is a beautiful act of
self love.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
I agree to last questions and we're gonna wrap up.
But one once you've you know, kind of you know,
tapped into this idea of like letting go and cutting
loosed a little bit. What was the most rebellious thing
that you wanted to do?
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Oh? Man, what a question.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
We gotta wrap up with a fund out.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
I love it so oh recently I went on a
girls trip to Miami and we we were.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Out all night long.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
We went to a strip club, which I never would
have imagined is a younger version of myself, like growing
up in church and all of that, but we did it.
We went to a script club and we had a
big old night and it was a.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Well, you know, it doesn't surprise me. Everything crazy after
Florida and then two for you? What is your vienna?
And when did you realize it waits for you?
Speaker 3 (45:34):
What is my vienna?
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Woof?
Speaker 1 (45:37):
And when did you realize it waits for you?
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Oh my gosh, you gotta leave me with a question
like that.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Well, I mean you wrap the album look that way,
and it's so beautiful and I fucking love Billy Joel
so much. One of my favorite writers of all time,
very underrated artists too, you know.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
It's it's incredible.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I think that song is so nuanced and I'm going
to try to talk my way through this and maybe
stumble a bit along the way.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
But to me, that idea represents.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
This tension I feel between being so dedicated and consumed
in a way and by this career of you know,
being a songwriter, being an artist. It's a it's not
something that you clock in and clock out of.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
It is a consuming it's it's a way of being.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
It's a way of life, and maybe it's the way
I was raised. But a lot of times I feel
this tension between fully leaning into that person but also
prioritizing the right things, you know. I feel a lot
of pressure from my family of like, well, you need
to go to church, are you going to start a family,
are you going to settle down? Are you going to
(46:56):
all of these other things that you're taught to want?
And I think, in a way, maybe that's my vienna,
is like the idea of living this fulfilled, well rounded,
well balanced life. I believe that that is always going
to be there for me, and if I pour myself
(47:18):
into my purpose and I chase down this thing that
I believe I was put on earth to do. Then
I think all of that is going to work itself out,
and if it's meant for me, it'll find me, and
it's going to be there waiting, you know, for me
when I get there.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I like that. I mean, there's no reason you can
be able to go to church and go to the
strip club in Miami and you know.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
That's great. I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Cool. What are you going to add that we didn't
talk about? Although I think we talked about freaking everything.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
We talked about everything, But can we talk about interviewing
Cheryl Crowe? Because that would make my dreams come true?
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Sure? Her friend Skater is her manager's friend of mine,
ede I will text Scooter and be like, dude, yes,
we need to make this happens person she see.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
I mean, I think we're going to be kindred spirits.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Honestly, I think there's so much we have in common
that I didn't even realize And I just cannot wait
to pick her brain and just like learn from her.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Would she be your number one interview with.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Probably? Yeah, I think she'd be number one for me. Yeah,
But I can keep thinking, don't worry. I can keep
adding to that list. I can keep dreaming.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Well, we talked about it the last time and you
were like, now I have time to do interviews, but
you were so natural at it.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Thank you, thank you. I really enjoyed that combo with Crystal.
I've seen her since and she's just a sweetheart. I
love her so much.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
So well, it's like again, I mean, we said it's
an interview because I talk granmy camp from any just
to ask a questions you're interested in as a fan,
So why would you know, why wouldn't you want to
pick the brain of you know, Crystal Gale?
Speaker 3 (48:59):
Exactly? Yup.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Well, this is a blast and it was about what
I expected because the album is just brilliant. It's so good,
you know, and I like that level of I mean,
for lack of a better with selfishness, but I think
again that makes great art is you know what people
like have to you know, I think the best albums
are like self therapy, and what happens is everybody else
(49:23):
that turns around is like, wait, I love this because
I understand this one hundred percent. Wow.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Thank you for saying that. That truly is so validating.
To hear, and that's.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
That's my hope for it. I did worry, like in
the midst of making it. It felt selfish to make.
But like you said, I think when when you're able
to like write the music that you want to hear,
write the music that you.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Need, that's the stuff that speaks to fans the most.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
When you can like separate yourself from like the marketing,
like commerce side, and just pure art creation. I tried
to give myself fully to just creating and then only
when it was done think about like what people were
going to say and what opinions were going to be.
So it means a lot that you picked up on
that and that you loved it.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Well, you know here, I'm really go I want to
say it. This is fascinating and I learned this. I
did a book a few years ago called The Anthems
We Love and I talked to like, you know you
two Tom Waite's Sheet and Nile Rogers, you know, like
the biggest songwriters of all time. But was really fascinating,
and what I learned about it was, you know, his
best songs that evolved it became anthems, you know, and
(50:30):
two that really stuck out to me where Darryl Hoffs
theyre Smile and Graham Nash our house. And what was
fascinating was how those songs are so beloved by millions
of people and we're literally written about one person. And
it was like, wait, why is this song that you know?
Because I mean, you take a song at our house,
no one in the world fuckings when it's like slip
(50:50):
Joni Mitchell besides the Graham Nash, he loves that song.
And what I realized is because people want the feeling.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Yes, yes, I want the.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Feeling of songs and what that is, you know, in
their life. So you know, there is like there's a
lot of truth that like, the more you write for yourself,
the more people you know will understand and identify with it.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Yeah, I believe that too. Thank you so much for
this conversation. It was so good to chat with you always.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
You two all right, go, It's easy, got relationship with everything.
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