Aoife O'Donovan

Aoife O’Donovan, the GRAMMY-winning singer songwriter whose work spans an acclaimed solo career along with projects like Crooked Still and I’m With Her, talks with Norah about when she found the space to become the songwriter she is today and what she loves about life on the road. The episode features striking duets from across Aoife’s work, along with a cover of a revered artist who inspires them both. Recorded 11/25/24.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, I'm Norah Jones, and today I'm playing along with
Ifa O'Donovan.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm just playing.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Weey, I'm just playing a lone way.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm Norah Jones, and with me as always is Sarah Oda. Hello.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
I love how you always point to me when you
say that nobody can see you.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I know what I can there.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
You are our guest today is the wonderful, poignant storyteller, singer,
songwriter and guitar player Ifa O'Donovan. She's had a solo
career for quite some time, but you may know her
from her band's Crooked Still Sometimes Why and I'm with her.
She's collaborated with several artists including Ola Bell, Chris Theely

(00:49):
and the Punch Brothers, The Milk Carton Kids, Yoyom, Jerry Douglas,
several orchestras, and she's joined Garrison Keeler on his Prairie
Home Companion tours. And she is I.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Don't really know how to say it.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
You want to say bad a to the s asterisk,
don't you?

Speaker 4 (01:07):
But I'm not going to say it because we are
not explicit.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
We don't want to get explicit today.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
But I want to get explicited.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
She is really cool. She's a bad Mamma jamma.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
She'sama there.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, yeah, she is very cool, but that doesn't sound cool.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
So yeah, she's a bad bama jama. She's cooler than us.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Basically, she's an amazing musician and I had so much fun
getting it. Her music is hard af no, but her
her music was definitely hard, and so it was really
fun to get inside of it and challenging and just
so fun to play with her. I was I was
nervous because the music was a little bit more on

(01:51):
the like complicated side, but then you know, it always
just the chemistry happens and then it always comes together.
And she's just so great and I'm glad she's now
our friend.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Her solo album All My Friends came out in twenty
twenty four. You'll hear some songs from that in the episode,
and her latest album with I'm with Her, titled Wild
and Clear and Blue, came out in May of twenty
twenty five. In this episode, you're also going to hear
a new take on a familiar song, so stay tuned
for that.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Oh yeah, we bust out of cover. Hope you have
fun with us. Please enjoy ifa O'Donovan. Where did you
grow up?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. Oh I heard of it.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, I used to date a guy from air air
Mass air Mass.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
How close is that to Newton? Air's kind of like
in the sticks.

Speaker 5 (02:53):
Okay, it's like out routtoo, not that far, maybe like
forty five minutes, yeah, forty minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Newton is right just outside of Boston.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
Like on the tee, you don't have a Mass accent.
I don't because my dad was from Ireland.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
I was going to say, how Irish are you?

Speaker 5 (03:07):
Well, actually only fifty percent Irish, but.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
My dad was from Ireland.

Speaker 5 (03:13):
My mom is from Boston and has a really thick
Boston accent. But I kind of have the in between,
like not Boston. My mom is this, my dad was this.
And the kids are all kind of neutral.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
How many kids? Four kids? Okay, yeah, oldest of four. Oh,
you're the oldest.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's nice.

Speaker 5 (03:31):
And my sister is the youngest, and two brothers in between.
The boy Sandwich it is and there's a big gap.
My three of us are kind of all born almost
at once. My brother Kiiran is like twenty months younger
than me, and then my brother Aiden is two and
a half years younger than that, so the three of
us were like, you know, six, five and three. And
then my sister was born when I was ten and

(03:53):
a half. Wow, so she's like your little baby she was.
But we're and it's really funny because now we're we're
so close, like we're best best best friends, and we
talk on the phone like one hundred times a day
and we're just like it's great, Like we have such
a great relationship and it's funny now people like being
worried about the gaps of their kids and yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
And I always tell people like, I mean, people always
ask because my kids are close together, but yeah, I
don't think it matters.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
They're gonna figure it out.

Speaker 5 (04:20):
Or they're not why they're not exactly And you can't
really like you can't like, gee, you yeah, you can't
guarantee if people are gonna be closer or not.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
But I'm really close with all of my siblings.

Speaker 5 (04:29):
Great, and it's I mean, it's like a loud, crazy,
intense family people who like to shout at each other,
but it's like with a lot.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Of oh okay, it's like that kind of vibe, that
kind of vibe like a movie should be made.

Speaker 5 (04:41):
Yes, like not as crazy as the bear scene like
that that was that was too much like but it's.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Like it's like a more tempered, like positive version of that.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Okay, yeah, that's cool. You want to play guitar?

Speaker 6 (04:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:56):
I didn't know if I get out, what do you
want to play first? Galahad. I really haven't played this
song in like a long time.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Good because I've never played it right, Okay, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:25):
The piano part on this, like I'm playing piano on
the records, so funny. I was really trying to like
play sound like Bruce Hornsby.

Speaker 7 (05:32):
Oh that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
It's like, yeah, kind of I'm like trying to channel.

Speaker 5 (05:37):
Like my one of my goals in life is to
try to be more like Bruce Hornsby. He's awesome in general,
and Bruce Hornsby live is like the most risk taking guy.
Like I feel like his musicality is so off the cuff,
but it's so good and he's always going for it
and like always doing these like weird things and lands

(06:01):
them almost all the time, and then when he doesn't,
he's just like moves.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
On from it.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
It's just I just love saying that. Shows like that
where you feel like the performers.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Like, yeah, I don't know taking some risks. Well, it's alive.
It's exactly. It's a live it's a live.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Music that is not alive is not interesting to me.

Speaker 5 (06:18):
Same same and it's like, yeah, I want to get
a wwb h D bracelet.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
People will be like, what does that mean? What does
that mean?

Speaker 1 (06:25):
With Bruce WARN's thanks for explaining that you're getting one.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I'm going to get one here today. I'm going to
leave here and go to a bead store.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Noted, somebody's going to send you one after this.

Speaker 7 (06:47):
You weren't that. I'm a dark cosh.

Speaker 8 (06:52):
I want to be.

Speaker 7 (06:55):
How did you we be?

Speaker 9 (06:56):
Anyocks and shade, said Boone, mauning through my head. Somebody
that saw me a pure bud in oxygen. You can laugh,
can cut through benything. But I'm alive, alive, I'm alive.

Speaker 7 (07:15):
I'm alive.

Speaker 10 (07:16):
I'm alive.

Speaker 7 (07:21):
I'm alive.

Speaker 11 (07:22):
I'm alive and love, love love.

Speaker 12 (07:31):
You got a gold hat. I got a black one, baby.
I sting like a scorpier. So she I saw in
the old uc trees. An ancient voice him homing.

Speaker 7 (07:47):
It's me Boomer has a stronger than a hundred men.
But it's my word. I can say the sentence.

Speaker 11 (07:58):
I'm alive, I'm alive. I'm a love love love. I'm
a love love love love love.

Speaker 9 (08:31):
You muse on joy basis, use spaces.

Speaker 11 (08:38):
Gold, living dreams.

Speaker 7 (08:41):
And lii flease.

Speaker 13 (08:50):
Realise a tunal peace lili is these.

Speaker 9 (08:57):
I'll good it when good morning it comes, botting yelly,
sleetching twos, bab alone.

Speaker 7 (09:08):
The press name, it's singing bad. Be hold your singing
in you.

Speaker 11 (09:13):
Here still got out into si.

Speaker 7 (09:19):
See we're upple, bowl of girls like grails with feet.

Speaker 11 (09:24):
I'm alive, loud, I'm alive, I'm alive love, I'm alive
love love love.

Speaker 7 (09:43):
I'm alive love love.

Speaker 11 (09:46):
I'm alive love, I'm alive, I'm alive, alive.

Speaker 7 (09:56):
Alone you what, I'm a dark coursh oh dad, I

(10:18):
want to.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Be yay, I'm alive. That's right, that's rad. We're alive,
so fun, We're so alive. We're right here. I love
that song, thanks so much. I love saying that song
with you. You put that on the album from twenty
twenty two, Agibapathy, Yeah Okay was it an old song

(10:41):
or that all that did, all that album kind of
come together.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
It just right before that time, before the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
That was a pandemic album. So Pandemic started. What twenty
twenty was living in Brooklyn.

Speaker 5 (10:53):
Inside, you know, as we all were for many months,
and feeling like, all right, maybe this is like the.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
End of my music because I don't know. I just
felt so as everybody did.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
But does it even matter?

Speaker 2 (11:05):
It doesn't even matter, like what am I going to? Like?
What do I have to write about?

Speaker 5 (11:08):
Or like I just had no no I feel like
I really had no voice during those first six months
of the pandemic. And you had a two year old
two year old And it's funny because looking back on it,
it seems like she was already seven then, but she wasn't.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
When I watched videos, I'm like, oh, I had a
literal baby. Yeah, we were home.

Speaker 5 (11:25):
I just finished up two years touring with I'm with her,
this band that I have with Sarah Watkins and Sarah Drowse,
and I knew I wanted to make another solo album,
but I was just like, there's no way it's going
to happen. And then in September of that year, we
went down to Florida, where my husband has a job
with the orchestra in Orlando.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
We had a house there and we said.

Speaker 5 (11:43):
Let's go down for a couple of months because he
was able to do concerts outdoors and we had a
little bit more space when we got there, and I
set up a little office music room and I had
more time, more space, more sunlight, and the songs just
kind of started.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Coming the best.

Speaker 14 (12:00):
It really was.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
It was a real just like positive moment in my life.

Speaker 5 (12:04):
Also, as I feel in many ways like that's actually
the time period that I really became a songwriter. Weirdly,
like I really started to I just started to feel like, okay,
I can I like doing this and I.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Want to do this, and I have you felt like
you have something to say.

Speaker 5 (12:18):
Like that's to say I felt very authentic. Where in
the past, like I don't know, it always felt it
like a little bit of a I don't want to
say a slog because it's something that I that I
love to do. But I'm not one of those songwriters
who talks about like my process.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
And well I can relate to that.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Actually, I think I think for me, like in the beginning,
writing songs was something that I really wanted to prove
I could do, and I could do it, but they
didn't have the same feeling all the time. And then
when they did, when they were the quick ones that
just came and that were pure feeling, those were the
good ones exactly, and then the ones that I was

(12:54):
trying to write were not good.

Speaker 5 (12:57):
It was that something totally similar, and I think I
think also coming from like the music school background where
I knew I could you know I was a singer.
I was like, Okay, I'm a singer and this is
what I can do, and I'm confident that this is
my skill, but I can technically do it right. But
I never felt like, oh, I'm I don't know, and
I still feel like a little bit of a fraud
to say I'm a songwriter.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
I'm a singer songwriter, I mean I do I like less.

Speaker 5 (13:20):
So now after that this kind of batch of songs
and it was it was really a fun record to make,
remotely like it was the first time I'd really done
a project like that where I took my time, I.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Was totally remote. I worked with Joe Henry, this great producer.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Joe Henry, he's the greatest, and it was he was
just you worked with him remotely though he was afar.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
He was in Portland, Maine. All the tracks.

Speaker 5 (13:40):
I would make these tracks in Florida at Full Sale University,
which is this great recording school down the street from me,
and worked with this awesome producer named Darren Schneider.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
And I would just go in there like every day.

Speaker 5 (13:51):
Literally, I would sit in the live room with a
mask on, and he would be in the control room
with a mask on. I never saw this guy's face
until six months after I knew him, and then it
looked weird.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, no, it always looks weird.

Speaker 5 (14:03):
And we made this record and Joe sent the tracks
to you know, Jay Bellrose and and all these cool
people in La.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Anyway, I love I love that process.

Speaker 5 (14:14):
Yeah, it's a totally different way to do it, totally
different way to get and it was so fun than
to get to play the songs live and do the
whole I don't know, just it felt like a emerging
from COVID. These songs will always like feel special to
me because they were the first things that I played
live on stage after you know.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
With a full band, with the whole band after like
a year of that's not doing anything. I love it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
I also think there's something weirdly freeing about doing your
part and knowing that you just did it and it's
great and now it's done, and there's something really annoyingly weird.
Sometimes it's magical and sometimes it's weird when you go
into a studio with the song that you know and
you just are giving it over to people to make

(14:55):
into something and you have to really let go.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Of a lot totally.

Speaker 5 (14:59):
Completely that and I think that this process for this
record because every because it was just me and then
I would send them out and I wasn't I had
no idea what they were going to play on it.
Or you know, like you send a track, especially to
a drummer or bass player, and they do something and
you're like, that's totally not how I sounded.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
I really want to hear a backbeat now.

Speaker 5 (15:17):
But but like, because everything was so slow, there were
a couple of songs I remember when Jay would send
something back and I'm like, I was completely confused, But
then now it makes so much sense and that is
how the song was always supposed to be. But all
that said, playing songs I loved doing different versions of
songs that this wing I'd love to do in general,
just playing solo, were playing them slower, faster with a duo,

(15:39):
or keeping exactly giving them.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
A life, changing them up.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
It's fun to do things differently, though, and to just
mix it up.

Speaker 5 (15:45):
I think, yeah, and not be attached to the recorded
version of something that's really important to me.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
I'm me too.

Speaker 14 (15:50):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
And then you live in Florida still I.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Still have and you still live there.

Speaker 5 (15:55):
I still live there, and I'm like, I feel like
I should be present and of the tourism board.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Not that the Orlando tourism board needs literacy, that's true. Help.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Would you have a season pass to Disney World?

Speaker 2 (16:08):
I don't.

Speaker 5 (16:09):
I've only been to Disney World one time and it
was in twenty twenty one and went with okay, so
she was like, she had just turned four.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Four Okay, that's a good age to go.

Speaker 5 (16:18):
Well, we went to Animal Kingdom with my good friend
Chris Steely, who I know is a friend of yours
as well, and his family and it was a bit
of a hilarious day. It was still during COVID, it
was still you know, masked at Disney and my husband
the day before had stepped on a piece of glass
and had five stitches in the bottom of his foot.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Great day for a while.

Speaker 5 (16:36):
So he was literally in a rascal at disney World
and it was fun and we've not gone back.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
We went to Universal for my daughter's birthday last week.

Speaker 7 (16:46):
In La in.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
There's also there's one is there one in La Harry
Potter World? Yeah, okay, we went to the one in I.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Know, because we've gone the last few years with our kids,
because we were too lazy to go to Disneyland because
it's a little bit of a truck.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
It's too far. Yeah, so we we just did that.
But we're not I'm not really the in park person,
but I will say that if I go, I have
to call you and go with you. If you go
to Orlanda, you have to just again come to my house.

Speaker 7 (17:09):
And you're like, I'm not going to just.

Speaker 5 (17:10):
We can go kayaking, we can go biking, we can
do the things that people like don't think you can do.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
In Florida, but that you actually can. Like the outdoors.

Speaker 5 (17:18):
It's great. It's a great place to live. I do
miss New York though, being here today, I'm like, oh.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
It's also a beautiful fall day. I know park this morning,
I was like, oh, I do miss this if you'd come.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
A month and a half ago, when you can smell it,
still smell the garbage juice on the sidewalk.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
You no, no, thank you, No, we have garbage in
Florida too.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
But it's crazy how how you can miss the place.
And but nothing is perfect anywhere.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Nothing is perfect. And I think that that's the thing,
and just also embracing.

Speaker 5 (17:46):
I never ever thought I would live in the South
in general, and especially not Florida. I'm from Massachusetts, as
I said, And yeah, that's like the most opposite place
in many ways, I think that to where I live now.
But but there are things that are so and it's
a great community and you.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Make friends where you go and exactly, and it's home.

Speaker 7 (18:05):
Is where you are, exactly.

Speaker 6 (18:07):
Home is where you are.

Speaker 5 (18:07):
And I think that home is like it's being from
a social scene in New York and in Boston and
even in Nashville and going to music school and having
so many musician friends. It's it is nice actually to
have a social scene that's not comprised of musicians, just
like a variety of perspectives that I think has been
interesting in the last couple of years.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, people be like, wait, what what's your life, Like,
what do you do? And that's interesting.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
Yeah, and still be able to tease me about it,
and you know, yeah, it's like you have a double
life exactly, and you still travel a lot.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
And Orlando is a great airport. So that's the other
thing that's great. Yeah, you were telling me that there's
a flight to Europe and everything.

Speaker 5 (18:40):
There's multiple flights. There's flights because of Disney Worlds. There's
flights to quite literally every single random airport you've heard of.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
That's so huge when you're thinking about being a traveling
musician and moving out of the big city.

Speaker 5 (18:54):
It's it's honestly Orlando, Like you can go direct to Amsterdam,
direct to London, direct to Paris. They're starting a pair flight.
There's all these flights of South America. But then there's
also little flights to like Arkansas Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport
or Burlington, Vermont or like, you know, you have a
one off gig ye in like recently had one off
in Burlington and I was like, great, I can go
direct on this random breeze are it's.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
A little secret lucky.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, I mean like it's still crazy, it's still a
lot of travel, but it is convenient. That's great. Yeah,
and then are you here to do a show? Did
I miss a show? No shows?

Speaker 5 (19:29):
Just Thanksgiving my mom. That's right, I'm down with shows
for the year. Okay, I just had my last show.
Does it feel good to you to have like out
break or do you get antsy like me? I cann't
see when I'm not like doing stuff, But this time
of year is going to be nice to like I
it's really so busyaid. It's like there's new shit coming

(19:49):
and I just finished up a cycle and I'm like
ready to move on from it and get on to
the next thing because I'm really excited about the next thing.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
But you have stuff in the future plan and just
not right at this moment exactly, which is a nice
place to be because you can relax and know that
you're not done forever and you have something.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
To do exactly. It's very short. It's like in five
weeks it'll be starting up again. But to have the
holidays off, and also my husband travels as well a
ton for work, so we're kind of always juggling ships
the yeah, exactly, so like I'm home, he's gone, he
gets home, I go and it's it's a lot. And
December isn't going to be insane, like he's.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Going to be gone. Okay, a ton nice and then
we're we're going to be back up in massse it's nice.
Holiday time exactly. Holiday time.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Do you bring your daughter with you?

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Not often?

Speaker 5 (20:39):
She toured with us a ton when she was a
baby with us meaning my band with Sarah and Sarah
Sarah Watkinson, I had babies at the same time, So
do you have both babies, both babies on the tour bus?

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Great for like a year and a half and it
was I've done that really really special.

Speaker 5 (20:54):
It was amazing And yeah, like people are always like
that has been so hard, but honestly it was.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
It was really like easier in many ways. I think, yeah,
because well, it depends. It depends.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, it depends if you're getting up in the middle
of the night every night and at five in the morning,
or if you have a little help with that.

Speaker 5 (21:12):
It's like, I feel like we had a great nanny,
but we were getting up in the middle of the
night and early in the morning.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
But still doing that. But also it was because it
was always two of us.

Speaker 5 (21:22):
Yeah, so with the two moms, and you don't ever
feel that like lonely, like yeah, I'm by myself doing this,
Like I don't know that that made.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
A huge difference. Just like yeah, community, community exactly.

Speaker 5 (21:34):
Like walking out into the front lounge at five thirty
in the morning and like Sarah's Sarah with Sam and
like we're just like practically dead and the kids are
in their little clip on high chairs you know, goo
goo gaga, Yeah, eating oatmeal from the microwave, like you know,
it's so sweet.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
It was really sweet. And then other Sarah gets up
rolls out about it to in.

Speaker 7 (21:53):
The morning and.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
She got married this past year. I like, yeah, you know,
she's she's behind us for sure, but it was. I mean,
now though, with my daughter, who's in first grade, she
has too much stuff going on already, like in her
own life, and she does like to come and she
came with us last weekend to my last show, which
was in Virginia with my husband's orchestra, and it was
a really fun show.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
My daughter came. She was at the show.

Speaker 5 (22:16):
She didn't want to watch because she was like I've
already seen the show so many times. So she stayed
backstage with her friend, stayed up till eleven, passed out
on the couch like the guy at the venue gave
her an entire being size her. She's bar at like
ten fifty, passed out, get up at six in the morning,
fly home.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
She's been. She was a wreck for like a week
after that. Yeah, it's it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
I feel like now my favorite thing to do is
to take because my kids are eight intents, so they're
a little bit older, so they're a little bit more
self sufficient.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, way they don't need a full time nanny in
the road.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
No, And I've taken I've taken them individually on like
little one on one trips and left the other with
my husband. And those have been for me the most
special because also I don't get a lot of one
on one time with them. It's nice, but yeah, the
person left behind is always pretty bummed.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Do they like the bus to your kids?

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Like the twenties love the bus? I mean the bunk
beds are just like the best.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, it's the best.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
But I take them for a little bit in the
summers now, but not the whole time. And it's easier
to split it up and have some time where it's
just me doing it and then sometime where they're there
but not all right, because.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
That's too much.

Speaker 5 (23:23):
One of the nice things I think about, and people
always like love to talk about juggling, like being a
mom on the road, and it was like, which to me,
like is not. I don't know if that's not something
I really talk about that much because me neither that
interesting to me. But I feel when I'm on tour,
like I love in general. I love hanging out like
I love that. That's that's one of the reasons that
it's so funny.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
It's like a little like it's like a working vacation exactly.
It's like you want to stay up late.

Speaker 5 (23:45):
And late and have a drink with your friends, like
and just hang with the band and and everybody's in
their pajamas and you like have a beer and some
smart food from the vending machine.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Like that's those are the most fun parts of tour
for me. Sometimes me too.

Speaker 5 (23:57):
And if I don't have that, like I wouldn't want
to have my family out with me all the time,
because then it can tells me that autonomy of like totally,
you know what I mean, if it's just going back
to my youth or something. But I still I still
love that aspect of the road.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Well, I mean it's half of being there of course. Yeah,
and it's all the fun half, right, it's like all
the connect.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
You can do it without overdoing it. It's the best, exactly.
It's definitely part of the appeal.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
For sure, and for going on the road and for
being a way. You have to have that all that
fun stuff to.

Speaker 5 (24:23):
Make it worth Otherwise it's too sad, right because you're
missing other stuff. Yeah, agreed, And I've heard that it's
harder as your kids get older to leave because you're
missing more stuff.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
But I think it's mostly harder because they tell you
they're mad instead of just not really understanding what's happening.

Speaker 15 (24:37):
We go by.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, I don't know, and it's probably the same for you.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
But when it's been constant, like I feel like for
my child, it's her whole life is this, So it's
not like weird to her necessarily that we're gone, or
that my husband's gone, or that we're going to switch off.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
No, it's great and everybody gets their time.

Speaker 5 (24:55):
Yeah, yeah, and we do end up getting a lot
of that sort of special like mom daughter time or dad.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
That's nice, it's good.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
The thing that was fun this last summer for the
first time, they wanted to watch the show. Like actually,
I mean, growing up, they've always come to sound check
and they.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Kind of know some song they play.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
They play, but you know, ish they're taking piano. They
hate it, they complain, but then they love it, right,
you know, they complain about everything and then they love it.
And I'm like, you have no idea what you are
to have any opportunities, right, you know? But yeah, they
started watching the shows and they stayed and watched like
a good string of maybe a week and a half of.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Shows every night, every night. That's so sweet. I was like,
you guys are so sweet.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
You don't have to be like no, I want to.
And then at one point my son said, yeah, I'm
not going to watch the night I've already seen it.
You're like now, but it was nice. That was really fun.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
That's so sweet, feeling like they really got it. Do
they ever want to be on stage with you? Like,
is that a thing that they want to do?

Speaker 16 (25:56):
Not?

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Really?

Speaker 1 (25:56):
I think when they were little we used to have
them come up for soundcheck and like try to and
then we realized that was breeding obnoxiousness.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yes completely, so we stop that.

Speaker 9 (26:07):
Ye.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Like, you don't get to think that you could come
on stage and play without practice.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
So that's over. I'm in that exact song right now.
I'm like, yeah, off the stage.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
It's cute when they were one and once they're like
they're they're like doing their sassy thing.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
You're like, no, no, no more from okay, go practice right, yeah,
get good. Do you want to do another song? Let's
see it. I was wondering if you wanted to do
Crisis next. Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, is like this from your new album?

Speaker 2 (26:36):
From my new album All My Friends, where's my pick?
Let's try the song and then I want you to
tell me about it. I might eat a couple of
runs on this one.

Speaker 7 (26:52):
Yeah, gethers.

Speaker 6 (26:56):
Let me tell you about the Christmas that is here.

Speaker 7 (27:00):
At the end of see.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
I final victory.

Speaker 7 (27:10):
I know the weeds don't I'll believe.

Speaker 6 (27:12):
But it'll be good.

Speaker 7 (27:13):
It'll be but a christis tears.

Speaker 17 (27:17):
Indeed, like boulder given speed, you've failed to act upon it.

Speaker 6 (27:29):
I mean the chance has been lost and we will
have to be too.

Speaker 18 (27:35):
Bill it's nineteen sixty were talking warm battle Christ.

Speaker 7 (27:45):
All the man travels. You gotta rise up your flight.

Speaker 17 (27:55):
You may be troubled and bewildered and stricken with grief,
but you can solve it.

Speaker 7 (28:03):
Fix these lot of problems where you try to breathe.

Speaker 17 (28:11):
You've failed to act upon it. I mean, the chance
has been lost and we will have to wait to
be over America look up, but that north start we

(28:35):
did come down.

Speaker 7 (28:38):
The child has gone to shout.

Speaker 11 (28:41):
Loud, and every city in belge in town.

Speaker 8 (28:45):
The woman's eyes struck, the woman's alvest.

Speaker 6 (29:30):
If we fail to act upon it, let me the
chance has been lost.

Speaker 7 (29:40):
Who was a man in mess Virginia? And someone asks
thembody thought.

Speaker 17 (29:49):
He say, we have been keeping women down so long
they would feel so quet to not.

Speaker 14 (29:58):
If someone has his wife the same question, here's what
she says. We've been down so long.

Speaker 16 (30:10):
We've gotta stay this way. There letters the movement of
those saying America starts getting me.

Speaker 7 (30:29):
It's time to shine. Let to and everybody looking hear us.

Speaker 11 (30:35):
Woman's arm shot, woman's ears Now the woman's ear.

Speaker 16 (30:43):
Is he.

Speaker 10 (30:48):
It's he?

Speaker 6 (30:58):
That was cool?

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, that was great, that's cool.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
This sign is great. It's so intense, it's it's your
whole whole album is sort of inspired by the suffrage movement.

Speaker 5 (31:11):
Yes, it's it's my concept album that I never thought
I would ever do something like this, but I did
toward it for a year, which was obviously a kind
of crazy time to be doing an album about suffrage.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
And but is the time the reason that you thought
of it?

Speaker 7 (31:28):
Like? Not spirally?

Speaker 2 (31:29):
So it's this.

Speaker 5 (31:31):
It kind of goes back to what we were talking
about a minute ago. When I moved to Orlando in
twenty twenty, my husband's orchestra had commissioned me to write
a twenty minute piece for orchestra and meet me an
orchestra inspired by the Nineteenth Amendment.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
A lot of orchestras were doing that. Oh, they had
already asked you to do this, you alread asked me.

Speaker 5 (31:49):
So it was going to be in the twenty twenty
twenty one season in Orlando, and you were opening their
new hall and it was going to be this big
thing before COVID. They asked me to do it, and
I was like, great, I'll do It's a twenty minute,
you know, between twenty and thirty minute piece of music.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
And it seemed like a heavy lift, but I.

Speaker 5 (32:05):
Was excited to have the challenge and to write some
sort of conceptual piece. It had no parameter other than
it had to be inspired by suffrage. Anyway, fast forward,
COVID happened. Told my husband I was like, there's no
way I'm going to do this, Like I don't have time,
I don't.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Even seems like a huge undertaking.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
It was a huge undertaking.

Speaker 5 (32:23):
But I somehow, like again, got to Orlando, got inspired,
had all the space, and was like, fine, I can
I can do this.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Also, my husband was like, you said you were doing it,
You're jump back up. You can't back up.

Speaker 5 (32:34):
And I'd gotten this book called The Woman's Hour by
this writer named Blaine Weiss, and I'm really not a
big nonfiction person, but this book is really sort of
reads like a novel cool and kind of latched on
to this one character, in particular, Carry Chapman Kat and
a lot of these pieces are kind of inspired by
some speeches and letters that she gave and it's I've

(32:56):
been very careful to say like this is not a
historical album. I mean, this is not like I'm not
presenting this as like a thesis academic. It's like a
focusing version of you know, this moment in history. And
it's a mild because some people have been like, well,
why did you choose her.

Speaker 6 (33:11):
And not this and not this?

Speaker 5 (33:12):
Okay, back off, Like this is just my take on
this one thing, and it's also my own experience as
a woman and mother and voter, and you know, it's
like a pretty loose concept. But this song Crisis that
we just played was taken from a speech that she
gave in nineteen sixteen where she's talking about the crisis,
like the crisis of women not having the right to

(33:34):
vote and the movement of people who were against it.
And I just found so much of what she said,
and of course I obviously changed it and made it
into this kind of ballad, folks singing type of thing
where I kind of imagined her gathering the suffragists around
the fireplace with the guitar and saying, like, you know,
let's get to the bottom of this. But when she
the end of the song, she's talking about interviewing a

(33:56):
man in West Virginia and saying, you know, what do
you think about suffrage and women?

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Should women be enfranchised and given the right to vote?

Speaker 5 (34:04):
And he says, well, no, we've been keeping women down
so long, like we're not gonna it would just be
weird if.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
We stop that, and what a weird take on it, right,
And then his wife is asked.

Speaker 5 (34:13):
She's standing right next to him, and she basically says,
we've been down so long, we got to stay this way.
And it's and that really crazy hit me just as
a person living in the modern age, And funnily enough,
writing this in twenty twenty one, it's like it's almost
gotten worse, and the three years that have passed since
then that there are still so many women who do feel.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Like, Okay, we've been down, we have to stay down.

Speaker 5 (34:37):
And I think that that's been you know, it was
wild doing the song night after night, and there was
a shift over the summer when the you know, the
candidates changed and we all of a sudden had a
woman to you know on what Kamala Harris to vote
for and to be excited about. And when I got
to the end of that song over the summer, right
after she announced for candidacy, and.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
It was like the woman's hours jo.

Speaker 5 (35:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, it really felt like it gave it, gave it
new life. Yeah, it was really exciting.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
I like that about songs as Yeah, they sort of
cycle in and out of new life because of the circumstance.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
They do, and they really have.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
We've done it twice since the election, and that that
also was I was really nervous about that.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
It was about doing it after the election at.

Speaker 5 (35:20):
All, just just to do a piece like this, which
is very Yeah, I mean it is obviously like it's nonpartisan.
The piece itself and the concept of suffrage is not
affiliated necessarily with the political party. But it almost felt
more important to sing it after after the fact.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
But when you get to that part, even now, it's
probably still it still feels important exactly. Yeah, Like those
words still mean a lot, They have a lot of weight.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, they're not ever gone.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
They're not going to go away, exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
That's amazing. Yeah, I love this one.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
So when you did the piece for the orchestra that
started all this was it? Which song was it?

Speaker 5 (35:59):
It was the five songs from the record, So the
first one all my Friends, Crisis Daughters, and then war
Measure and America.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Come Okay, and then you filled it out with and
I found it out with a bunch more songs. Okay,
so you did a lot of it for that? Is
that why there's so many orchestrations on the right exactly?

Speaker 5 (36:18):
So is that the orchestra the Knights played my husband's orchestra,
a New York chamber group called the Knights, okay on
the record, and then an amazing brass quartet called the Westerlies.
So I don't know if you know those guys, but
you should use they're incredible. They're New York based. They
rewrote the brass parts for themselves, and then some woodwind

(36:38):
players down in Orlando, and I worked with an orchestrator,
a young woman named Tanner Porter, and it was a
really cool process to create these songs. And I would
make demos of them with like piano and guitars and
electric guitars, and then she would take those like melody
lines and she orchestrated it beautifully and really it's really playable.

(36:59):
The charts are great. We've done it with tons of
orchestras now and I feel so cool. Yeah, she's incredible
and I'm so glad that I got to work with
her on this.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
What's it like to play with an orchestra? It's is
this something you've done a lot now.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
I've done it a lot now, and every experience is different.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah, it often like playing with people in general, everyone's different, that's.

Speaker 5 (37:19):
True, but it's we've done it in a variety of
different contexts like big orchestra, small orchestra, lots of rehearsal,
no rehearsal. We were at the Kennedy Center a couple
of weeks ago. It was doing a double bill with
Bonny Light Horsemen, and it my rehearsal. The show was
at eight, and my rehearsal it was I have a
fifty minute set and I had a sixty minute rehearsal

(37:42):
at five o'clock.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
I wish I was at eight, So she was like
five to six. Oh my gosh, show at eight, like
it was.

Speaker 5 (37:49):
It's crazy, Like you just you basically just run through
everything and hope that you can hear and hope that well.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
It's funny because I'm so used to being like, well
they'll just follow me if I but with an orchestra,
is that able.

Speaker 5 (38:01):
I think it's been really crucial to for me to
be super confident on the parts and I know that
I can lead it. And but see this is also
a funny dynamic between my husband and me because of
course he's a conductor and the whole and so we
both think we're the leader of the group. And when
we've we've done it together three times, this piece four times,

(38:23):
I think, and there's there's like a funny you know.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
He's like, I have to lead, and I'm like, no,
I have to leave.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
How I want to. I want to go to dinner
with you guys so bad.

Speaker 14 (38:31):
Now.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
It's that's that's kind of like our relationship in a nutshell.
That's great, that's the best. That's fine.

Speaker 6 (38:39):
It is what it is.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, but no, but it's really fun.

Speaker 5 (38:42):
And actually he, my husband, Derek, was a huge part
of the making of the record and helped him produce
it and I definitely could not have done any of
it without him. So yeah, it's a nice collaboration, you know,
and we don't work together that often, so okay, so
it's nice.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, it was really nice and and nice, No, mostly
almost it was. It really was mostly awesome.

Speaker 5 (39:02):
I love doing this piece with him because he knows
it really well as a conductor, which is always it's hard.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
I mean, I was trying to learn a few of
the songs and I was like, this is not easy
music to learn. I want to try Daughters, but I
have to warn you I'm the least confident on it.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
We can try it and then learn. We could try
and try Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I learned it.
I just I don't even know what some of the
chords are. But I also don't really know what any
of the chords are.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah. Song it's kind of abstract, which is also why
it might be totally fine.

Speaker 5 (39:34):
The only parts of this that I feel like is
weird is that the first time into the chorus it's seven,
the second time it's six.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
I'm just going to follow you saw me. It's pretty
I'm not going to count. You don't count.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
But I asked Brian Blade, my drummer, who's one of
the best drummers do you know? Yeah, he's amazing.

Speaker 5 (39:53):
I've only played with him once actually an orchestral Yeah,
and at the Kennedy Center.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
It's awesome. But he's like, I mean, he's god.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
He's like the best in the world to me and
to many. And I asked him one I was like,
what are you counting this? As He's like, oh, I
don't count.

Speaker 7 (40:09):
I was like, Okay, cool. I'm good. Yeah, we'll find it.

Speaker 5 (40:13):
I also don't do it in this one, because if
I tried, if I try to count, it stops to
make sense to me.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
I don't even know what cord this says. I really
don't even know what that me neither.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
I'm just gonna play the one note. I don't.

Speaker 8 (40:31):
He and the dog.

Speaker 9 (40:36):
Everything once becomes a tiny spoke looking back from the
next century.

Speaker 19 (40:46):
What do they see? The names, the girls away, the stones,
names love for God, if a schiggl and the tongs.

Speaker 8 (40:59):
But Da was dragging, indestructible.

Speaker 6 (41:04):
The arts are food.

Speaker 8 (41:08):
Now, the unifice events Libty.

Speaker 9 (41:13):
It is almost complete, protective answering the rich manstone, a
hole in.

Speaker 7 (41:26):
A little and Skille growing boarder.

Speaker 6 (41:29):
In the treachery.

Speaker 7 (41:33):
Selpi free, the Asmali fire.

Speaker 9 (41:40):
The sister's crossed the land to declare them click to
bry seeing, don't trust.

Speaker 13 (41:46):
To make the privilege, don't even traver be ready for
the victory?

Speaker 7 (42:00):
What the country as bees?

Speaker 11 (42:03):
The endmies.

Speaker 17 (42:07):
Overcause chastupus. But before the food is warm, can't be
the fat to the.

Speaker 7 (42:16):
Dorties of the dots.

Speaker 17 (42:20):
So we'll go into the frame shot his back, fear,
the fires, little bear.

Speaker 20 (42:39):
Women in schools of counting house, as the shops and
all the farms are all around us. They are babies
created the best.

Speaker 7 (42:54):
Son six in the west. The veins of these women,
I'm not fell of the milk and water.

Speaker 18 (43:02):
These are mothers bore American daughters, but they are.

Speaker 7 (43:08):
Not faith They any wait.

Speaker 18 (43:16):
Listing for the bill of the constend them is so
fres the oddes.

Speaker 7 (43:28):
Of the cold strass.

Speaker 6 (43:33):
But before the food is warm, gat the sight to.

Speaker 11 (43:38):
The dot of the dots.

Speaker 17 (43:42):
So going to the free shoulders back, take the punches
to our feet, says.

Speaker 7 (43:52):
Fast and the Bones to the movie The Red Fuck
Victory Victor.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
I had some really dope magical ethereal it's weird.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
I was like, yeah, I don't know if I can
do this with And that was like the most fun.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
That was so cool. I was so free. Yeah, it
was really like that was his zone. I loved it.
I love doing that. God, you're so such a great
panel player.

Speaker 7 (44:56):
You are.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
I love jamming.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
This is I mean, I have no Bruce Hornsby, but
w w nje if.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
I was producing, no, no, this is this is more
fun to do it with you.

Speaker 6 (45:06):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
That was fun. It was so fun and also just
like the whole.

Speaker 5 (45:12):
This whole approach to like doing a podcast and making music,
like is it's my dream?

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Like you're I love this.

Speaker 16 (45:20):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
I really I'm not a big podcast person. Oh yeah, totally.

Speaker 5 (45:23):
And the podcasts that I like are like music podcasts
that are weird and cool and interesting and.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
You're ten out of ten.

Speaker 21 (45:31):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Well.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
I think that it's interesting because I found that it's
a little bit hard to get people to agree to
do this because not everybody is comfortable doing it like this.
But those who are, and I'm talking to you, are
down for it, you know, like Chris Theely this is
his bread and butter, of course, but like like certain

(45:55):
people are just so into doing it this way and
not precious about things, and that's when like the really
magic stuff of course.

Speaker 5 (46:02):
I mean, yes, this is like I I'm also I
feel like in another life I should have been in
a jam band to yeah just say have like I
love live recordings, like I'm happy to have every night
we recorded and put out because.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
It's like it's just a moment. Yeah, it's got It's
just a moment.

Speaker 5 (46:16):
It's like everything is just an experience of what's happening
in the room with people, and whether it's just you
and somebody else or an audience or like, I don't know,
I just feel like there's there's.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Something so cool about that.

Speaker 5 (46:27):
And I love the studio and I love making records,
but I'm definitely much more of a live like I much,
I don't know, I'm more into the live experience.

Speaker 15 (46:36):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
The studio can be tricky.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
Yeah, because I feel like you then can get so
like this is not in tune, or this has to
be perfect, or I want.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
To do this again.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
We're trying to get the ultimate version of this, right.
That's what's kind of fun about this podcast is that
we're You've already got your ultimate versions, right, multiple versions
of whatever.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
So we're just doing like a.

Speaker 5 (46:53):
Whole sad thing exactly and it can exist in this
cool little yeahphere.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
How did you get the idea to do this podcast?
And then this is use supposed to be interviewing me?

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Yeah, no, go ahead, I'm dead for it. I feel
like it was before it was only before the pandemic started.
And I think me and Sarah Oda have my my
butt in there, my butt in there, my buddy in there,
and I feel like we were talking about it. She
might have a totally different story. It might be completely
her idea. I can't remember. I thought it was an idea.

(47:22):
I had to sit with people and do it because
for a while I was doing.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Songs with people.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
I'm releasing singles instead of doing albums, and like I
did a session with Jeff Tweety for a few days
and we did like three or four songs, and I
did some stuff with Tanking the Banga Tank from.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Tanking the Bengas. She was on Life from Here once
when I was, yeah.

Speaker 5 (47:42):
She's amazing, she's so Carryana And actually it had heard
a thing that you did with her from Thomas Thomas's
studio that's like mutual Army and mutual.

Speaker 7 (47:51):
Oh yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
And I did something with Thomas and I was like
releasing these and it was really fun. But then I thought, well,
what if I did it something like this. I was
also of a way, of course, with small kids too.
That's kind of why I started releasing singles, so I
could have a like I could still tour a little bit,
but not to these big album cycle tours and still
have like some new material to play. Yeah, So that's

(48:13):
what the sort of thinking was. And then this is
just another way to meet people and collaborate and be
at home.

Speaker 5 (48:20):
Yeah, be home, and then you still get to make
music and be in a community, and yeah, people can
come to you.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
It's pretty great because I've connected with a lot of
people who I already knew but have made deeper connections
with or met people that I've never played with.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Yeah, so fun it's awesome.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Yeah, we're all just one big, happy family.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
So there's many little connections. It's very cool. Yeah, but
it's funny.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
There's certain people that I'm like, oh, I would love
to do this with them, but some people just don't
get it.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
They're like, well, we can do it remotely. I was like, no,
that's not going to be possible. How would you do
this remotely?

Speaker 8 (48:52):
You can't.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
That's why I was like, you don't get it, or
you're not down for it.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
That's fine. It's a jam. It's just just a jam. Yeah,
playing a lot wrap theme song.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Ever, I also wanted to try Phoenix.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Let's try I feel like it. I would love to
this one. I will do this all fast, we can
do a little slower.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't slow down
for me.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Did you ever watch A New Girl? Yeah? I love it.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
I also love it, and it's one of my husband
Eric's favorite shows. He's watched the entire that's adorable. He's
watched the entire series three times.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
I mean Winston.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
I would watch it all for Winston.

Speaker 5 (49:33):
He would watch it all for Schmidt because there's this
there's this thing that one one episode where Schmid does
this thing is like this whole thing, and like.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
Eric, we just say that all the time. That's great.
I love New Girl. That's good.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
No, I can't watch that with the kids.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
I watched way too much inappropriate stuff with my kids.

Speaker 5 (49:52):
But I just I was just telling we just watched
them Herald in the Purple Crayon with and Zoe the movie. Yeah, yeah,
And I was telling Ivy Joe. I was like, she's
an show that daddy likes. And I was like, maybe
when you're thirteen.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
They talk about sex a lot a New Girl. I've
watched a couple episodes of Friends with the kids, and
even that is like, all right, we're still on like Bluey.
So yeah, I feel like we watched like Rabbits. We
watched abbot elementary. That's a good middle ground.

Speaker 7 (50:36):
Times not the villain coming up behind it.

Speaker 18 (50:40):
It's American, son of if you will come in on time,
I smell fid it's.

Speaker 10 (50:49):
Coming from the flames and dancing all my wings on
the booth.

Speaker 7 (50:53):
Don't know why, Kim tuck, you just have a shaken
right sings up like a road to me, let me flee.

Speaker 8 (51:03):
He's got the queer collect sending j AsSalt.

Speaker 10 (51:08):
Four o'clock is my brow. I saw like a phoenix
from the ashes, go to brit and pack it down.

Speaker 7 (51:15):
I'm running out.

Speaker 17 (51:30):
And looking for a forgiveness, looking on every covering, every room.

Speaker 8 (51:36):
I bearing witness to the person time.

Speaker 7 (51:41):
On the clocks again like an no man singing at
the top of this long and the line its flicker in.
We're running out, We're running out feet. Ha's gotta shaken.
It rises up like a road to me, let me flee.

Speaker 8 (51:58):
It's got a queer collect sinning dressed it.

Speaker 7 (52:04):
Good across my brow. I saw lak.

Speaker 8 (52:07):
Fiend expunged the ashes, put a bit of licking down.

Speaker 7 (52:11):
I'm ready Now.

Speaker 8 (52:36):
Everybody's looking for somebody to blame. The stages of Satis
a many again.

Speaker 7 (52:41):
You need stopped at anger. I never felt the same.

Speaker 10 (52:47):
They see the feed my scars, not tears of dry
of lions in size.

Speaker 7 (52:53):
Again and now I don't wonder to where you are.
Where you are, where Lena's gotta shake it ras is
black road to me. They see it's gotta be quick

(53:16):
and let sandres salt blood gloves to my brown.

Speaker 10 (53:23):
I saw black phoenix from the ashes, but a reading
back it down.

Speaker 7 (53:27):
I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Now wait back to Irish for one second. Yes, did

(53:53):
you play Irish music?

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Not so much?

Speaker 5 (53:57):
I mean, like my dad, I grew up around a
lot of Irish folk music and I like sing, you know,
a bunch of Irish folks songs, but I never like
played like real track music.

Speaker 14 (54:06):
But I do.

Speaker 5 (54:07):
I like I'm from that world. From that for a
lot of bluegrass. Like my first band was a like
old timey and bluegrass band. It still did a ton
of traditional music in that world and some old Irish songs,
but not in the like real it didn't.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
I don't like play trad guitar any Okay, But you
went to fiddle camp. I taught at fiddle camp. Okay, wait, wait,
hold the fun I didn't.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
Like to go to fiddle camp as a as a youth,
I know, like singing and for a second, is like
a whole it's a thing.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
It's a whole world. Is it like a ren Fair world?
Except it's different.

Speaker 5 (54:42):
It's more like a lot of people eating tempe and
like playing fiddle tunes like old time fiddle. It's not
really ren Fairy. It's it's hard to explain exactly. There
are many different types of fiddle camp also, but in
like the folk world, there's always like then a singing
feature done.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
A bunch of faces, just fiddle players.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
No, okay, that's so fun, singing and guitar and all that.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
It's really fun. It's really fun for kids. I want
to go to fiddle camp. You should go to fiddle camp.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
What if I just went with all the kids? I'm
not I'm not afraid.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
I mean you should. You should do that. Very Do
you have a fiddle?

Speaker 15 (55:15):
Do you like?

Speaker 2 (55:16):
I don't like tempe? I do I do, just not tempe,
But I have a fiddle do it?

Speaker 6 (55:21):
Do you come in?

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Do you play anything?

Speaker 1 (55:23):
I tried when I was pregnant. The first time I
took up the fiddle. Somebody gave me this violin and
I wanted to play it. I took from Charlie Burnham
for a minute. He's a fiddle player in New York.
In New York, I mean he plays violin. He's in
the sort of jazz scene.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Okay, but where where do we meet? Eleventh Street?

Speaker 5 (55:40):
It was like at a thing like the Sam was there, Tom,
I like Sam and Madan like that, like that adjacent world.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Okay.

Speaker 10 (55:46):
It was like.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Somebody's It was like a fiddle birthday.

Speaker 5 (55:49):
It was like a Sunday night at eleven Street and
you were there, Okay, Kessy Jenkins was there.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
It was a jam though, like I think it was
like the Irish Jam, the Irish I remember that. That
was a long time ago, long.

Speaker 5 (56:00):
Long, long, long time ago, likely many many years ago,
at least fifteen.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Yeah, like before anybody had kids. And it was like
probably two in the morning or something. Maybe three.

Speaker 5 (56:08):
Yeah, maybe later that bar Kenny, yeah, yes exactly. I
love k that's the bartender, right.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Maybe he has like a sister named Epha or something.
Oh there's a bartunder that would make sense. Okay, Yeah,
it's an Irish bar. It's an Irish bar, yes, exactly.
I love that place. I love it too. I wish,
see this is what i've that's what I really missed.

Speaker 5 (56:29):
When I think about like what I miss about New York,
it's not just it's also the fact that I'm not
like twenty two anymore. So I associate all of the things,
like even if I still lived here, I would not
be doing the things that I miss.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Can I attest to that, Yes, I will be here
living testimony to being uh, you know, in your forties
with two kids, you do not do all those.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
Things that you do even if you're right in the city.

Speaker 5 (56:53):
Right, Yes, okay, so fair enough. I should just be
happy that I don't have to have a tempt me.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Every once in a while you'll get out and do
something you maybe wouldn't have done, but usually it's something
you would have come to town to do.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Right, and you would have done it right exactly.

Speaker 5 (57:10):
Like, yeah, like I'm going to do next year. Yeah,
see Miranda July do a speaking engagement again.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Well, if you if you go see Miranda July, text thing,
I will come with you. I'll even fly.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
And then we'll have a date that will make direct anyway,
even if she's in Arkansas.

Speaker 7 (57:24):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
You can fly directly anywhere, so it's just a date.
It's a date no matter where. This was so fun,
this is the best. You're thank you, thank you so much.
Do you want to try that last tune or sure?
It's up to you and we're kind of good either way,
but why not, let's do it? I love it?

Speaker 7 (57:41):
Did I send you?

Speaker 2 (57:41):
The recording is in dear Eat, I can't remember it's indeed,
please don't do it and Eat, I won't know. He
is so high? Oh I know, but I love this song.

Speaker 6 (57:51):
Do you do you like?

Speaker 1 (57:52):
I love this song. I've always loved this song. This
is but I don't know if I can do the Shubert.
Let's let's forget about this.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
So who did you do this with? This is the
Bob Dylan song Not Dark Yet?

Speaker 5 (58:05):
I recorded this so during COVID, my husband and brother
in law, who were cello and violin, we just made
a ton of music together in our house.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
That's amazing.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
And we got this mobile recording rig from our friend
Jody elf up in New Palts. We drove up to
his house in April of twenty twenty. He gave us
all these mics, We set up this rig and then
he had it like wired where he could live mix
us from his place in New Paltz, and that's so great.
We did live streams with like live audio from his

(58:36):
It was very weird. But this recording is from our
living room.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
It's a beautiful recording. And you throw in Schubert in the.

Speaker 5 (58:45):
Yes, and it was Eric said, you got to do
a little Schubert one music and yes, very very classical
of him.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
But we'll just do a normal Bob Dylan, so you
tuned down. What kind of guitar do you have for
the nerds out there? I have This is a Callings,
a single Callings that I got in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 5 (59:05):
I borrowed it from Callings. Actually I was doing a
tour with Glen Hansard and they mailed it to me
to borrow it.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
And then I bought it. It's beautiful. It's small. It's
a small body guitar. I really, I'm so used to
like it's a little buddy bar.

Speaker 5 (59:15):
Yeah, play the guitars. And I have a Martin also
that's the same size, but I don't travel with that
as much.

Speaker 7 (59:21):
Nice I might let me.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Can I grab a lyric sheep for this one? Just
in case, just enough on the floor.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
I know it, but there's I might just your vision
is it's pretty small.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
I think that's my because I pretty much know it.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
I might just need like a okay, thanks for the
first line kind of thing?

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Do you want to sing a verse?

Speaker 7 (59:40):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Which one? I'll do the second one? That sounds great.

Speaker 7 (01:00:00):
Shadows are fun.

Speaker 15 (01:00:02):
And I've been here all day. It's too hard to sleep.
Time and slipping away.

Speaker 21 (01:00:17):
I feel like what's some worse turned to steal. I
still got the scars.

Speaker 7 (01:00:28):
That the sun didn't heal.

Speaker 8 (01:00:35):
There's not even a room enough to be anywhere.

Speaker 7 (01:00:42):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 8 (01:00:44):
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

Speaker 11 (01:00:52):
M m hmmmmmm.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Where my sense of humanity it's gone down.

Speaker 6 (01:01:02):
The drain.

Speaker 7 (01:01:07):
Hind every beautiful thing.

Speaker 8 (01:01:10):
There's some kind of pain.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
She wrote me a letter, and she wrote it so kind.
She put down and writing.

Speaker 7 (01:01:29):
What was on now? Mindy, I just don't see why
I should he even care.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

Speaker 8 (01:01:58):
Love built lounder and I bound.

Speaker 7 (01:02:01):
To gay Berry. I followed the reboot until I got
to the sea. I've been down on the battle word
for the last him, looking for nothing.

Speaker 9 (01:02:29):
Anyone's else, but sometimes my budins, But then I can't.

Speaker 7 (01:02:44):
Snapped acket. Let's kissing there.

Speaker 6 (01:03:33):
I was born here, and I'll die here.

Speaker 7 (01:03:37):
Against smile.

Speaker 8 (01:03:42):
I don't know what looks like I move him, but
I'll standing still.

Speaker 7 (01:03:52):
Ever live in my body so soul.

Speaker 8 (01:04:00):
I can't even remember what it was. I can't to
get away from.

Speaker 22 (01:04:10):
I don't even around a prayer. It's not dark again,
but what he's getting there? It's not dat, but let's

(01:04:33):
get in there. It's not dark get.

Speaker 7 (01:04:43):
Let's get there.

Speaker 5 (01:04:55):
We did it, We did it, always worth doing a
little Bob Dylan at the end, It's like, why not,
There's there's no reason not to.

Speaker 7 (01:05:01):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
That was so fun, so fun.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
I forgot how much I love this song and how
much I love how he says, well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
It's getting there. It's not docky, but it's getting there.

Speaker 5 (01:05:12):
Mind is so good, just such a good record it is.
And this song is like it fucking kills me. The
lyrics of this song. It's a deep song, like I
can't even remember what it was I came here to
get away from Like that line, I'm just like god.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
I know it's so like extension.

Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
It really is like I was wondering and I'll die
here against the whole thing is just like, yeah, god tears.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Yeah, it's so good.

Speaker 7 (01:05:33):
Good call.

Speaker 5 (01:05:34):
Thanks Forest, so fun, so fun to play with you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Thanks so much, Thank you for having me. Yay friends forever.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Oh that was great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Great.

Speaker 4 (01:05:52):
So the takeaways are what would Bruce hornsby do huh?
And read All four Us by Miranda July.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Oh yeah, I've already like told all my friends to
read it. It's so popular that there's a backlash, which
is stupid.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
I think she really sold me on Orlando.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
Yeah, and fiddle Camp.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
Fiddle Camp, Yes, definitely fiddle Camp.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
She's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Let's hang out with her again? Yes, tonight?

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Should we call her?

Speaker 6 (01:06:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Okay, all right, but do the credits first. Oh okay.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
The songs we played in this episode where Galahad from
her album Age of Apathy, which came out in twenty
twenty two. The second song was Crisis from All My Friends,
which came out in twenty twenty four. The third song
was Daughters, also from All My Friends. The fourth song
we played was Phoenix from Age of Apathy twenty twenty two,

(01:06:43):
and the last song we played was the classic Bob
Dylan song from Time out of Mind, which came out
in nineteen ninety seven, called Not Dark Yet Special. Thanks
to Ifa O'Donovan for joining us today. We'll be back
next week with Nathaniel Rails. Norga Jones is Playing Along.
Is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm Your Host Nora Jones.

(01:07:05):
Today's show was recorded by Matt Marinelli, mixed by Jamie Landry,
edited by Sarah Oda, Audio post production and mastering by
Greg Tobler. Additional recording by Jamie Landry, artwork by Eliza Frye,
photography by Shervin Linez, and produced by Norah Jones and
Sarah Oda. Executive producers Aaron wan Kaufman and Jordan Runtogg.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Marketing Lead, Queen and Akey. Thanks for listening.