June 27, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode, Lo Carmen converses with songwriter and artist Will Oldham, aka Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, about how music can help us process and explore death and remember loved ones, dementia, funeral songs, tribute albums, recording with Johnny Cash, David Ferguson and Cowboy Jack Clement, strange dreams, parties in the graveyard and more.
The title of this episode is a lyric from Bonnie 'Prince' Billy song 'Missing One'.
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy Bandcamp here.
David Ferguson Bandcamp here.
Thank you to Will Oldham for permission to play excerpts from the below songs:
'My Home Is The Sea' (Sweeney/Oldham) from the album Superwolf by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney
'Hall of Death' (Madassane/Sweeney/Oldham) & 'Resist The Urge' (Sweeney/Oldham) from the album Superwolves by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney
'Cycles' (Judith Caldwell) from the album Ask Forgiveness by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
'Missing One' (Oldham) from the album Lie Down In The Light
'Death To Everyone' - (Oldham) from the album I See A Darkness
Thanks to David Ferguson for permission to play 'Boats To Build' from his album Nashville No More, written by Guy Clark & Verlon Thompson.
Thanks to Robyn Adele Anderson for permission to use an excerpt from her version of 'If I Die Young' (Perry) originally performed by The Band Perry
'Black Tambourine' (Carmen) from the album Everyone You Ever Knew Is Coming Back To Haunt You by Lo Carmen
Thanks to Lolo Lovina for permission to use their live porch recording of 'Bubamara' (Bajramovic)
Cover versions of 'Suzanne' (Cohen), 'My Way' (Anka), 'Aloha Oe' (Queen), 'When The Saints Go Marching In' (Traditional) performed & recorded by Peter Head.
Original 'Death is Not the End' theme and incidental music composed, performed & recorded by Peter Head.
'Death Is Not The End' sting, composed by Bob Dylan, performed & recorded by Peter Head
Répertoire licensed by APRA AMCOS.
Thank you to Craig Waddell for permission to feature his artwork '. Surrounded By Your Beauty' for 'Death Is Not The End'. See more of his work here.
'Death Is Not The End' created, recorded & edited by Lo Carmen
Black Tambourine Productions ©2025
©Black Tambourine Productions 2025 ...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The human race has become prettyadept at finding solutions for
(00:21):
our problems.
When our bodies break down, wego to a doctor.
We turn to plumbers when wewant to fix leaky taps and
mechanics when something goeswrong with our cars.
But when something goes wrongwith our hearts or we're
grieving or lost or feel alone,we tend to turn to more
(00:42):
mysterious places like songs.
Lyrics and melodies thatresonate can provide comfort and
lift us up when nothing elseworks.
Countless, timeless songs ofWill Oldham, who also represents
Bonnie Prince Billy, havehelped many of us make some kind
(01:05):
of sense of life, love, deathand other swirling matters of
the soul and the universe, whileholding out a metaphysical hand
along the way.
So I reached out to the manbehind the songs to see if we
could have a conversationinvestigating life and death and
the power of music to helpprocess it all, At the time of
(01:27):
our talk, Will had just releasedthe 2021 Superwolves album,
made with Matt Sweeney.
He has released a bunch ofother music since then,
including his magnificent latestalbum, The Purple Bird, that
definitely has a few songs wecould have discussed here if we
(01:49):
could have skated through timeand into the future.
Lo Carmen (02:04):
I feel like you've written lots of songs that have
touched on death in one way oranother.
Will Oldham (02:10):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (02:11):
It's funny, it seems to keep popping up, doesn't it?
Will Oldham (02:14):
It's just some place that we can naturally go
because music immediately pullsus out of certain spaces and
into an abstraction.
And once you're in the abstractspace, you come face to face
with...
The denizens of those spaces.
Lo Carmen (02:31):
All the big stuff.
Will Oldham (02:32):
Just hanging around drinking, smoking cigarettes,
death.
Lo Carmen (02:34):
Smoking cigarettes in the cosmos.
I was listening to Hall ofDeath before, off your latest.
That's a great one.
Will Oldham (02:43):
Thank you.
Lo Carmen (02:45):
Where did that come from?
Will Oldham (02:47):
It may be the least worked on lyric that I can
think of of any song because itwas...
We were gathering for arecording session in New York,
and I got to town.
I think we went over to theapartment of Mikey Colton, who's
(03:10):
going to be playing bass, andwe all got together.
Instruments got plugged in, andpeople started playing, and
then I just sat in the cornerwith my notebook while a song
was taking form and put wordsdown, and then we went into the
recording studio the next dayand recorded it.
So I don't usually work likethat.
Lo Carmen (03:30):
Yeah, that's great.
Fresh out of the box.
Will Oldham (03:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Lo Carmen (03:35):
It kind of reminds me of that great Brenda Lee song
My Whole World is Falling Down.
Will Oldham (03:41):
I don't know it.
Lo Carmen (03:43):
It's just, it's a really kind of jaunty feeling
song, but with a lyric that'skind of tragic.
It's a wonderful oppositionthat brings it to a kind of
really vibrant, strange, greatplace.
Will Oldham (04:01):
Yeah, the song is addressing, I guess at the time
my mother was still alive andshe was, I didn't know, but she
was coming to the end of a long13 or 14 year relationship with
(04:21):
dementia and Alzheimer's.
And there was a period of timewhere I had found good
caregivers who could stay in herhouse with her.
And then maybe about five yearsago, one of them, I was in
(04:42):
Nashville working on some music,thought, you know, I could get
away for a couple of days.
And I got a call from, we havehere, you probably have hospice
there, right?
Hospice care.
Yeah.
So we had a relationship withhospice care.
And there was a woman who wouldcome in addition to the
(05:03):
caregivers that I had hired.
There was a woman who wouldcome and just spend an hour on
Tuesday mornings with my mom andread.
Lo Carmen (05:11):
Just as a friendly
Will Oldham (05:13):
person.
Yeah.
And so I got a call fromhospice and they said, and I was
in Nashville, and they said,we've just got a message from
your mom's house and yourcaregiver has died.
And I was like, I don't know.
No, there's a message that'snot been communicated properly.
(05:34):
So what are you saying?
And they're like, yeah, that'sour message is that your
caregiver has died.
I was like, no, I don't thinkso.
But actually, that is what hadhappened.
We don't know exactly whathappened, but somehow she fell
on– maybe she had a stroke,maybe she fainted, but for some
reason she fell for, fell, fellbackwards off some like three,
(05:56):
three steps in the back porchand crushed her skull.
And so then I tried and she wasgreat.
She was like,
Lo Carmen (06:05):
was she a family friend?
She
Will Oldham (06:06):
had become one.
She had become kind of one ofmy closest friends.
Like whenever I, every time wejust, we were close and, and
she, so then I needed to, fillin some, you know, I needed to
get somebody to help take care.
And I found somebody who spenta year at my mom's house and was
(06:28):
ultimately just chaotic andterrible.
And so then I did what I didn'twant to do, which was take my
mom to a, you know, assistedliving facility is what they
call it, but it's really, youknow, an assisted dying
facility.
Lo Carmen (06:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Will Oldham (06:46):
And it was one that was just a couple of blocks
from her house.
I could, I wheeled her overthere.
And, and by that point,apparently
Lo Carmen (06:53):
she was aware.
Will Oldham (06:54):
No, I don't think so.
I don't think she was aware atall, but, but it is, you know,
it's the last place.
A lot of us want to see anyonethat we know or love.
Lo Carmen (07:04):
Yeah.
It's tough stuff.
Will Oldham (07:07):
And so that was kind of the, and, and then, and
then, you know, didn't know, youknow, part of me had the, the
dark wish that she would besomewhat aware and would hate it
so much that she would give upthe ghost at some point.
But it took a few years still.
And, yeah, it was like going tovisit her was very...
Lo Carmen (07:33):
Confronting?
Will Oldham (07:36):
Yeah, it was confronting and demoralizing
and...
Lo Carmen (07:42):
Not what you want for your mom anymore.
Will Oldham (07:45):
Yeah, and just trying to, you know, like we're,
if you're spending time withsomebody who's in late stages
dementia, you don't know who isthere.
You just kind of work on faith.
Lo Carmen (08:05):
Was she distressed in her dementia?
Will Oldham (08:08):
At that point, no.
She had gone through a state, Imean, at that point she was, I
mean, she hadn't, I'm not sureif she'd said an intelligible
word in a few years.
So it was impossible to know ifthere was something that we
could call emotion or recognizeas emotion that she was
experiencing.
But she's still my mother'sbody, right?
(08:31):
Yeah.
And maybe my mother's soul.
I'm not sure I will know.
So it's going...
know again and again and againand again and again and again
and again to see her or to seeher physical body and to
communicate with the staff andand just to whatever sit there
(08:54):
and read a book or watch a moviewith her do a crossword puzzle
you know in her room or and thenit
Lo Carmen (09:00):
Just to be physically present.
Yeah, and then
Will Oldham (09:02):
ultimately to like, you know, her granddaughter is
born, to bring the granddaughterthere, because do you not bring
her there or do you bring herthere?
I choose to bring her there,but I don't know if that, you
know, is that a good decision ora bad decision?
She didn't react.
No.
And so anyway, those lyricscame out because they're going
(09:24):
over that kind of thing.
And then when we went in torecord it, the Mdu Mokhtar, who
played some lead guitar on it,you know.
Or Matt Sweeney said, tell Mduwhat it's about.
So I told him what it wasabout.
I just said, it's about, youknow, somebody in a nursing
(09:45):
home.
It's just a living facility.
And he was like...
That's the worst.
Americans are the worst becausethey do that.
They have no respect and nolove for their loved ones.
Because he's from Niger andhe's like, we don't do that in
Niger.
And, you know, I didn'tdisagree with it.
But in addition to being one ofthe quickest lyrics I've ever
(10:11):
written, it was one of the, youknow, it was the most
distressing and painful, youknow, recording sessions because
because it ultimately and it'sso it's it's interesting when
people react to the song andtalk about its its jauntiness
and its liveliness because it'syeah you know it's just it's
(10:32):
always like yeah there's alwaysjust i mean people don't really
listen to lyrics i think uh youknow kind of people don't listen
lyrics that's just people don'tlisten lyrics yeah Yeah.
So you can write anything youwant.
You can write anything you wantin a lyric and you can get away
with
Lo Carmen (10:49):
it.
You really can.
And people just take whateverthey need to hear.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Will Oldham (10:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's the hall of death.
So the hall of death, it's likewhen you're going down those
corridors and you're seeingpeople just, you know, many of
whom are evidently abandoned byGod and family.
And those are, that's whatthere's, always seem to be, and
(11:15):
God bless all the people whowork in those places.
Lo Carmen (11:20):
Yeah, well, I didn't hear that at all.
So
Will Oldham (11:23):
one more time, I see myself here, a mountain of
someone who's never death againBut it's rough.
(12:31):
It's rough that those places doexist.
You know?
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (12:37):
Yeah.
And, I mean, it is rough, too,that it's not more normalized, I
guess, to know how to lookafter our family in those kind
of extreme circumstances.
Yeah.
You know, it seems...
Seems like the wrong thing todo.
Will Oldham (12:52):
Seems like the wrong thing to do, yeah.
You're looked down upon if youcare for your folks, yeah.
Lo Carmen (12:59):
In certain circles.
I mean, in my circles, yeah.
It's like they needprofessional help.
Will Oldham (13:02):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (13:03):
They need people that know what they're doing.
Have you ever written your owneulogy?
Will Oldham (13:09):
No.
Lo Carmen (13:10):
No?
Will Oldham (13:11):
No.
Are
Lo Carmen (13:12):
you sure?
Will Oldham (13:13):
I'm pretty sure.
I don't think so,
Lo Carmen (13:18):
yeah.
I feel like...
I've attempted my own eulogy afew times, like in a slightly
tongue-in-cheek kind of fashion.
Will Oldham (13:25):
Yeah.
Wouldn't know where to begin.
Lo Carmen (13:28):
Apparently Frank Sinatra hated singing My Way,
but it became a hit so fast, notthat he wrote it, but it became
a hit so fast he had to sing ithis whole life and he never
really related to it.
Will Oldham (13:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I suppose, yeah, there was alittle...
collection of sort of eulogyslash soliloquy songs that I put
together in the early 2000scalled Ask Forgiveness, where I
covered songs that all seemed tobe eulogy-esque, but in first
(14:07):
person.
They were summing up somebody'sexistence, but not my own,
because they were all
Lo Carmen (14:16):
other people's.
So were they all eulogizingsongs?
the same person or a bunch ofpeople?
A
Will Oldham (14:21):
bunch of people.
I mean, it was a bunch of, youknow, it was all different
songwriters just sort of talkingabout I thought of it because
one of them is a song by a womannamed Gail Caldwell called
Cycles that was one of RickSinatra's later hits, late 60s,
yeah.
That is, you know, it runs,it's like a, I'm going to say,
(14:42):
though I feel strange aboutsaying, you know, maybe where my
way is Paul Anka's masculineeulogy, then Cycles is a
feminine, it's written by thiswoman, Gail Caldwell, who was
very...
It's much more introspective.
There's no bombast in itwhatsoever.
(15:04):
Life is like the seasons Afterwinter comes the spring So I'll
keep this smile wide open It's agorgeous song.
(15:27):
Yeah, I mean, Sinatra's isgreat.
I grew up with his greatesthits, Volume 2, which included
My Way and Cycles, and hisversion of Kermit the Frog's
Being Green as well.
Lo Carmen (15:41):
Fantastic.
I'll have to listen to that oneas well.
have you had many people useyour songs for funerals and tell
you about it?
Will Oldham (15:52):
Well, I'm not aware.
I'm not aware of thathappening, but once again, like
on, on this new super wolvesrecord that Matt Sweeney and I
made, there's a song calledresist the urge, which in the
process of making it, I got inthe habit in the past few years
of asking my, putting a piece ofpaper on the wall and ask my
(16:14):
wife to write song titles.
And then I'll, have to see whatI can do about making a song
around the titles that shegives.
And she had put up theunfortunate title of, uh,
something like if I die before Iwake, you know, and I was like,
okay, well, what the fuck,where's that going to go?
That's, it can't be fun.
(16:35):
And I,
Lo Carmen (16:36):
thanks honey.
Will Oldham (16:37):
Yeah.
And so then that's why I putthis little refrain after most
of the lines, which is resistthe urge.
Cause it's just the resist theurge to go to any of the places
where, a songwriter would go ora listener would want to go or
anyone would want to go withthat phrase and try to think,
well, where else can Ipotentially go with it?
And it ended up being this songthat when we finished the song,
(16:59):
I thought and think like, oh,we've made our first funeral
rock song.
Because I attended a friend'sfuneral years ago, and there was
a song there by– An Americanpop country band called The Band
Perry.
Do you know The Band Perry atall?
Lo Carmen (17:16):
I know their name, but I don't know that I know any
songs.
Will Oldham (17:18):
I think they had a couple of hits, and one of them
was called If I Die Young.
And it's...
It's so intense.
It's kind of
Lo Carmen (17:30):
upbeat.
Will Oldham (17:55):
Wow, this is probably a market, right?
I mean, I can't imagine theband Perry, maybe.
Maybe their manager said, youknow what?
We could really make a lot ofmoney.
We
Lo Carmen (18:10):
could make a
Will Oldham (18:11):
month's worth.
Yeah, because when we had thissong, I thought, you know, I
think that this song is going tobe played at somebody's funeral
sometime, somewhere, and it'sbuilt for it.
It is from top to bottom.
It's like...
It is an unsinkable funeralsong.
And I have mixed feelings aboutit because it's a pretty
(18:35):
positive song.
It's definitely celebrating thelife of somebody who's
discussing passing over.
But it's strange to be a partof a song that...
I mean, and I knew it fromseeing the title that my wife
had given me.
I just thought...
This is, you know, this isgoing to be a dark thing.
(18:58):
Yeah.
But then I tried to, we triedto, I mean, and then Sweeney
tried to uplift it even furtherwith fairly upbeat music.
It's really, you know, it makesyou feel kind of good to hear
it, but it's all about dying.
If I should die before I wakeResist the urge, resist the urge
(19:22):
Cry or falter for my sake Ididn't die, I didn't die If you
should wake and I'm not thereResist the urge, resist the urge
I'm in your breath, I'm in yourair I haven't gone away I'm
(19:50):
holding you Singing strong andconstant in your ear I may not
be there bodily But in the windI'm
Lo Carmen (20:08):
here Amazing.
I had a weird experiencewriting a song about imagining
myself dying and just imaginingall the shitty stuff that I've
got.
I don't have anything good togive to anyone.
And I looked over and saw mytambourine.
I went, oh, my tambourine'sreally good.
Like, who would I give mytambourine to?
(20:28):
So I wrote this song calledBlack Tambourine and recorded
it.
And then a friend of ourfamily's died, an older woman, a
singer, who had been incrediblyformative for me.
And I was given her old blacktambourine.
And it was quite a kind ofspooky, amazing little
(20:48):
coincidence.
Will Oldham (20:54):
We ain't got long to go It goes down fast and it
comes up slow
Lo Carmen (21:51):
Yeah, I was looking up funeral songs, like what the
popular ones are.
And I was quite surprised, likeWind Beneath My Wings is like
one of the very top ones.
There's a Robbie Williams songcalled Angels that I don't know,
but I'm going to listen to.
That's also one of the very topones.
(22:11):
I think that there's definitelya big market for A really,
really good funeral song.
Yeah.
We need one.
Will Oldham (22:19):
Yeah.
And the next question,obviously, is are funeral
parlors good about payingroyalties?
Lo Carmen (22:26):
Ah.
Will Oldham (22:26):
Probably not.
Lo Carmen (22:27):
That...
I'm going to make a note about
Will Oldham (22:30):
that.
Lo Carmen (22:30):
Surely they have to.
Will Oldham (22:32):
Yeah, I'm trying to think of the songs.
I just saw a program for mymom's funeral, and I know we
did, Sweeney sang Suzanne, andthere was another, because that
was one of my mom's songs.
So yeah, I wonder if the estateof Leonard Cohen made a royalty
off my mom's funeral or not.
Lo Carmen (22:48):
Well, I guess if Sweeney would have to put it on
his live performance return.
Will Oldham (22:53):
Well, here I think that you know venues are
supposedly responsible we don'tI mean in America there's so
much more I'll say casualmeaning that it almost doesn't
exist like you do not catalogthe songs that you perform at
live venues and they don'tunless maybe you're in Nashville
or New York and they have arelationship to the ASCAP BMI
(23:16):
you know royalty collection
Lo Carmen (23:17):
agencies you do in Australia it's artists do it
themselves
Will Oldham (23:21):
yeah and in Europe as well and you know you yeah
and you go there and then andyou realize that The laws are
likely in place in the UnitedStates, and they're just
completely ignored.
Yeah, right.
I don't know if the funerals inAustralia, though, yeah, if the
funeral organist plays a song,does she or he have to then tell
(23:42):
the funeral director, like,these are the songs that were
performed here, and then do theyhave to pay the, I don't know.
Lo Carmen (23:51):
I'm going to look into that.
That's a whole new sideline tomusic.
To discover.
Have you ever had to sing at afuneral?
Did you sing at your mom'sfuneral?
Will Oldham (24:01):
I couldn't have sung at my mom's funeral.
Emmett and I sang at my greatuncle's funeral.
My great uncle was a wonderful,fun man.
And he was an amateur magicianwhose stage name was Can Do,
which he spelled wrong.
K-A-N-D-U, can do the magician.
And yeah, he died maybe adecade ago, and Emmett was in
(24:24):
town, and I guess someone said,you know, would you sing
something?
And so Emmett and I sang We'llMeet Again at his funeral, which
was great.
So as an amateur magician, Iguess a tradition among the
magician world is that a magicwand is broken, like at the
pulpit, you know, in front ofeverybody.
(24:44):
And so that was done.
And there were also like magictricks on everybody's seats,
which was really neat.
So you got to take home asouvenir, the kind of things
that he would have brought toour birthday parties when we
were children.
And then also I have a slew offriends who are music
therapists.
And one of them named BrianSchreck, he works specifically
(25:09):
in hospice music.
but for children.
And he was working for a while.
Cincinnati is about an hour anda half away, and he was working
at the hospital in Cincinnati.
And he asked myself, anothermusic therapist friend, Cheyenne
Mize, and Emmett.
Again, we went up there to thehospital, and every year they
(25:29):
have one funeral recognizing allof the children who passed in
the hospital that year.
So we sang...
A couple of songs there.
And then I also sang at myfriend's funeral, who I heard
the band Perry song, If I DieYoung.
I did sing a song.
(25:50):
We were on a beach in Indiana,on Lake Michigan, and sang a
song there.
That might be all of the...
funeral.
Oh, and my grandmother'sfuneral.
My brothers and I sang.
She spent some time in Hawaii.
My mother was born in Hawaii.
So we sang Aloha Oye and wesang Swing Low Sweet Cherry
(26:11):
because that was
Lo Carmen (26:12):
her favorite hymn.
Gorgeous.
That's
Will Oldham (26:16):
beautiful.
So a bunch.
Lo Carmen (26:17):
Yeah.
Will Oldham (26:18):
It's easier to sing at a funeral.
I mean, I couldn't have sung atmy mom's funeral.
I just wouldn't have been ableto handle it.
But singing at a funeral iseasier than singing at a wedding
because the person you're sonervous to for somebody who's
getting married.
Like you're like, Oh, you'relistening to me and I'm doing
something at this important, youknow, whereas the person who's
passed away, they're just like,do your thing.
(26:39):
You can't, you can't go wrong.
Lo Carmen (26:41):
There is that.
That's funny.
Do you listen to music much toparticular songs to sing up the
memory of people that have gone?
Will Oldham (26:54):
I mean, there was a, there was a song that I, that
I made in the middle of mymom's descent into dementia that
I would sing while she wasstill alive to sing up the
memory of her, I guess.
And then I guess after myfather died, which was 15 years
(27:17):
ago, like next week, I think,there's a song called Missing
One that I made...
that's on a record called LieDown in the Light.
That's like just a fully, asong of, you know, of memory and
(27:37):
grieving.
I know that missing me has justbegun There's years to come And
trying to sleep tonight Next toyour kin Is fully lovely As
I've ever been But I wouldn'ttrade my life For someone's
(28:05):
millions And I know you left Fora reason And the trees and
flowers And creeks and rocksHold your face with every
(28:26):
season.
Lo Carmen (28:29):
Beautiful.
That's such a beautiful album,
Will Oldham (28:34):
that one.
Thank you.
Lo Carmen (28:35):
What about I See a Darkness?
That's a song that people seemto associate with thinking about
death.
Is that correct?
Will Oldham (28:45):
Well, I mean, on that record, the I See a
Darkness record, there's theDeath to Everyone, which is far
more death-centric.
But, yeah, I think I see adarkness implies that there's
still some living to be wrungout of life and, you know, some
(29:08):
reason to, against certain odds,reason to hope that...
There's
Lo Carmen (29:17):
more to come.
Will Oldham (29:18):
Yeah, there's more to come.
The continuance has value,yeah.
Lo Carmen (29:22):
Yeah.
It must have been amazing tohear Johnny Cash singing that
Will Oldham (29:28):
towards the end of his life.
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (29:32):
And it sounds like he was at a place where he knew he
was approaching the end of hislife.
I wonder if the time in thatsong was smaller for him in the
contemplation than it was foryou when you sang it.
Will Oldham (29:49):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (29:51):
Did you sing that?
With him, I know you're on therecord as well.
Will Oldham (29:55):
Yes, absolutely.
Lo Carmen (29:58):
Wow.
How special.
Will Oldham (30:01):
It was so special because, yeah, he was just, he
was even, he had sung, he'dtaken a pass at the vocal and he
wasn't comfortable with wherehe was hitting the beats,
essentially.
And so he asked if I would singit over the instrumental track
that they had.
And then he could use that as aguide.
(30:22):
And then he still...
Then he tried it with my voice.
And he still wasn't...
I don't...
I mean, you can imagine, like,I could not hear any flaw, you
know, because I was just so...
You know, I couldn't evenbelieve I was in the room.
So I couldn't hear a flaw.
(30:44):
I would love...
You know, it will never happen.
It maybe doesn't even exist,but I'd love to hear...
that pass again that he dideven with my voice or the one
before, because each of, each ofthose that I heard, I thought
sounded magnificent because theywere magnificent, but he still
didn't like it.
But then when
Lo Carmen (31:00):
wasn't hitting it for him.
Will Oldham (31:01):
Yeah.
So then, but they had put bothof our voices up on the playback
speakers and, you know,everybody kind of agreed that
the voices sounded goodtogether.
So, so then the next decisionwas for me to go just sit, next
to him in the vocal booth andjust give him his cues for each
(31:21):
line
Lo Carmen (31:23):
like conduct johnny cash that's what i did
Will Oldham (31:25):
i sat i sat you know we just sat like six inches
apart uh you know with ourknees six inches apart he would
just look at me and i i wouldpoint to him you know and then
and then i sang a harmony overhis part afterwards
Lo Carmen (31:40):
yeah amazing
Will Oldham (31:41):
so yeah it was me yeah you can't yeah you can't
imagine you can't even fantasizethat something like that you
know that's the kind of thingthat
Lo Carmen (31:52):
would happen
Will Oldham (31:53):
yeah yeah yeah like I had a dream once where for
some reason like I went into abathroom and I like pooped all
over the room and I think it wasmaybe in Sinead O'Connor's
apartment and she came in andcleaned it all up you know And,
(32:14):
like, that's the kind of thingthat happens in a dream.
Another thing that happens in adream is that you conduct
Johnny Cash singing, you know,that you sit next to him, you
know, like Johnny Cash.
You're like, I had this dreamwhere I was sitting right next
to Johnny Cash and he was askingme how to sing.
A song.
Lo Carmen (32:33):
And so I conducted it.
And so I conducted it.
Will Oldham (32:35):
I mean, right?
That's just a dream.
That's a story of a dream.
Lo Carmen (32:39):
Are you sure you didn't dream it?
Will Oldham (32:41):
I mean, there's a record that exists and people
ask me about it, so that's theonly evidence.
Because it doesn't feel likeany different from...
Like last night I dreamed thatI ordered a child's scoop of
elderberry ice cream.
And while the guy was preparingit, I walked into another room
and it was a dark room.
And some reason he put down theice cream cone, came into the
(33:03):
dark room, and put his armaround my mouth and was going to
beat me up.
And I woke up screaming.
And I never have nightmares.
I think it's because I'd hadsome melatonin right before bed.
But...
Like that's a, you know, that'sas real to me as sitting in the
room with Johnny Cash, likegetting beat up by the ice cream
(33:27):
vendor is as real to me assinging with Johnny Cash.
Lo Carmen (33:33):
Wow.
Will Oldham (33:34):
So, you know, Ferg.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So David Ferguson in Nashville,we just, he asked me to make a
music video for him for a songthat he's about to release
called Boats to Build.
And it's a cover song writtenby guy clark and uh verlin a guy
named verlin thompson and thenight before my daughter and i
(33:58):
went down to make the video iasked for who wrote the songs i
didn't know who wrote the songand he said well guy clark and
and verlin thompson i said wellis verlin thompson still alive
he said yeah he's still aliveand he's heard the song actually
he really likes it and and thenhe said and he has a he, he
married a newscaster and theyown a TV production studio and
(34:20):
maybe they have a green screenand maybe we should shoot some
of this video there.
It's like, all right.
So he called him and we, wewent in and so we hung out with,
with this guy, Verlin Thompson,who talked about the making of
this song boats to build.
And it was so wonderful becauseit was like him and Guy Clark.
And they had a, uh, a friendwho, who went, uh, whose wife
(34:43):
got him, uh, uh, So it's thisbeautiful song.
It's one of these soliloquy,perfect funeral song.
Because it's like, I'm going tobuild me a boat with these two
hands.
It'll be a fair curve from anoble plan.
Let the chips fall where theywill, because I've got boats to
build.
And it's just sort of a summingup of life.
And the writers had a friendwhose wife...
(35:06):
bought him a boat buildingcourse, like let him, you know,
paid for him to go up to, to thestate of Maine for six weeks
and, and learn how to buildwooden sailboats by hand.
And, uh, yeah.
So then while he was up there,they were talking and just
saying, you know, well, where'sour, where's our friend?
Oh, he's up there.
Or, you know, and then theyjust thought, well, let's write
(35:28):
a song about this guy and wherehe's doing, why he's not hanging
out with us.
And then also, and then I guesspart of the punchline was that
his wife, uh, found another guywhile she was slow.
No, that
Lo Carmen (35:41):
wasn't what I expected you were going
Will Oldham (35:45):
to say.
Lo Carmen (35:47):
That's like a sucker punch
Will Oldham (35:49):
line.
Yeah, exactly.
But it makes the song all themore poignant because they're
writing about, you know, thisguy's, you know, like inner
journey and what he's exploring,not realizing that his whole,
you know, his whole life wasbeing turned upside down.
Lo Carmen (36:05):
Yeah, wow.
So did you manage to greenscreen Verlin?
Will Oldham (36:10):
Yeah, yeah.
He was so wonderful and justcharming, and there's a mandolin
part of the song, and I thinkFerg or Sean Sullivan brought a
mandolin, or somehow a mandolinappeared, and Verlin just, you
know, he played all the parts ofthe mandolin.
We sat with my daughter and ourfriend Pete.
Do you know Pete Townsend atall, the drummer?
(36:31):
He's from Louisville, and helives in Nashville.
Yeah.
But his two daughters and mydaughter are, like, playing
drums and mandolins and buildingboats out of Legos.
And then we have a greenscreen.
Lo Carmen (36:44):
Wow, that sounds great.
And how beautiful to, you know,Guy Clark being dead but Verlin
being alive and
Will Oldham (36:56):
Ferg, obviously.
Somewhere in between.
Lo Carmen (36:58):
Somewhere in between.
Bringing it all together.
Will Oldham (37:02):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (37:04):
Time for a change Tired of that same old same Same
old words, same old lines Sameold tricks, the same old rhymes
(37:28):
And it's days, precious daysrolling and out like waves got
boards to bend planks to nailcharts to make and seas to sail
(37:51):
i'm gonna build me a boat Withthese two hands it'll be a fair
curve from a noble plan.
Let the chips fall where theywill, cause I've got boats to
(38:14):
build.
You curated Ferg's collection ofCowboy Jack songs and you met
Cowboy Jack.
Did you?
Yeah, many times,
Will Oldham (38:26):
yeah.
Lo Carmen (38:28):
That's a pretty special way to keep someone with
you, to bring someone to life,to make a tribute album
Will Oldham (38:36):
to somebody.
It was beautiful, yeah, becauseCowboy, he didn't ever get as
far as my mom did, but he hadsome dementia issues that were
happening.
And seeing Ferg's relationshipto his, like, friend, mentor,
employer, father figure, youknow, musical partner, and just
(38:59):
seeing him, you know, just treathim with such love and such
care and such respect in thoseyears while, you know, and then
I'd drive back here and see, youknow, and see my mom.
But the first time, like I'dmet Ferg on the Johnny Cash
session, and then first time Isaw him in Nashville, I...
(39:21):
called him and said, I'm comingthrough Nashville.
He said, well, let's meet here.
And he said, and so we met justin the parking lot somewhere.
He said, okay, get in the car.
We're going to Cowboys.
And so that was the first thingwe did is we went to Cowboys.
Lo Carmen (39:33):
That's like something that happens in a dream too.
Will Oldham (39:35):
Yeah.
And then we, you know, went inCowboys office and, and they
just pulled some guitars downimmediately and started playing
the, I'll be all smiles tonightby the Lubin brothers.
So, so wonderful.
Yeah.
And just had so many greattimes with, with Cowboy, but,
but Ferg's record, his, his,tribute to cowboy that has a
little bit of cowboy playing onthere as well as it's one of my
(39:56):
very very favorite records
Lo Carmen (39:58):
how long after he died did ferg record that
Will Oldham (40:02):
he was working on it like in the final months of
of cowboy's life because yeahcowboy has a part has a plays
like a part or two on on acouple of songs i think he was
Lo Carmen (40:14):
right so did he know did cowboy know the folk was
doing it
Will Oldham (40:18):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, yeah, I think, I thinkso.
It's hard to tell.
Like sometimes, you know,dementia is not, it's not a
straight line.
It's not, you know, it's
Lo Carmen (40:31):
really better than others.
Will Oldham (40:32):
Some days are better than others.
And in the course of the day ora conversation, it's all over
the place.
And so you have to just, youdon't know if a memory is like,
you know, landing in water andjust sinking to the bottom, or
if it's landing and sitting onthe surface or landing in mud
and getting stuck somewhere,what, you know, if somebody, and
then if, if, if you forgetsomething, you know, like you
(40:54):
forget things all the time, itdoesn't mean they're gone.
So that complexity is, uh, youknow, exponentially more complex
when somebody has dementiabecause you're, you feed them
information and you don't evenknow, uh, where, how far in it
goes and if it sticks anywhere,if it relates to other things.
(41:16):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (41:16):
Yeah.
A little bit like conversationsamongst musicians, really.
Will Oldham (41:20):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (41:25):
Do you have a particular song that you'd like
played at your funeral or songs?
Is that something you'd like?
The impossible question.
Yeah.
I
Will Oldham (41:37):
mean, it's because it's about, you know, your
relationship to Like, would theyget it right?
Yeah, like would
Lo Carmen (41:45):
you leave
Will Oldham (41:45):
directions?
Yeah, I don't, you know, it'sbecause it's so much up to the,
you know.
Lo Carmen (41:53):
Those that are left behind.
I
Will Oldham (41:54):
feel like death, you know, yeah, death doesn't
belong to the dead.
Death belongs to the living.
So it would be, you know, Iwould, yeah, probably ask people
to look to New Orleans or.
Lo Carmen (42:12):
Yeah, that seems sensible.
Would you ever have your ashesput into a record?
Will Oldham (42:20):
Oh.
Lo Carmen (42:20):
You can do that.
Will Oldham (42:22):
Is that right?
Yeah.
That's an interesting thing.
I think I may have some ashesleft.
I had my dad's ashes forever.
Lo Carmen (42:36):
Oh, really?
Will Oldham (42:36):
And I didn't know what to do with them.
So I split them.
I had them for my brothers.
So I split them into threeparts, and I asked a woodworker
guy to make wooden boxes to puteach one in because they were
just sitting at my house.
And after about a decade, Ithought, okay, this is stupid.
(42:58):
So I just wanted to get themtheirs and worry about mine.
And then I had mine.
You know, my dad's ashes in abox.
What
Lo Carmen (43:10):
do I do?
Yeah, what do I
Will Oldham (43:11):
do?
And finally, I just thought,there's no good reason to have
somebody's, you know, for me,have somebody's ashes.
Lo Carmen (43:23):
Flung them to the winds.
Will Oldham (43:24):
Yeah, but even then, it's, you know, I don't,
you know, my parents havegravestones, but I don't think
about, I don't think that peopleare related to their remains.
Lo Carmen (43:38):
No, I feel the same.
But obviously, a lot of peopledon't.
Will Oldham (43:43):
Yeah.
And
Lo Carmen (43:44):
I'm glad for cemeteries.
Will Oldham (43:45):
Cemeteries are wonderful places to visit.
And as historical records,they're amazing.
But I don't ever feel like it'sfull of people.
I just feel like it's full ofhistory.
Lo Carmen (43:56):
You know, Dolly Parton has said that she loves
to write in cemeteries.
Oh, wow.
Will Oldham (44:01):
I didn't know that.
She's
Lo Carmen (44:02):
Yeah, when she used to tour in a bus in the 70s,
she'd stop, go to the graveyardfor a while to get a bit of
peace and quiet and right.
Will Oldham (44:13):
Cool.
I
Lo Carmen (44:13):
thought
Will Oldham (44:14):
that was pretty.
We're coming up on a holidayhere, the American Memorial Day
is this coming weekend.
And there's something I learnedabout as a kid.
I was looking into gypsypopulations that used to live in
Louisville, Kentucky.
live and pass through.
Because I found articles in thepaper about people who claim to
(44:38):
be the king of the gypsies.
Lo Carmen (44:40):
Like Romany Gypsy?
Will Oldham (44:42):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Back in the 1970s.
And my grandfather toldinteresting stories.
He was an obstetrician.
He told an interesting storyabout delivering a gypsy baby
and how outside of the hospital,There were maybe 40 or 50
gypsies who just set up tentswhile they waited for the gypsy
mother to give birth.
And this was probably the1960s.
(45:02):
And then I think I went tothe...
Somehow I had heard that therewere celebrations at a
particular cemetery.
It's a cemetery where I havesome relatives.
And it was always on MemorialDay.
And it was just a few yearsago, finally, I thought, I'm
going to...
go there and I'll go and I'llsee my great grandfather's
(45:24):
grave.
And I will see if I can figureout, you know, see if the
gypsies still party there.
And I went and I saw the gypsygraves, including the, these
like the king of the gypsiesthat I'd seen in the newspaper.
Cause they, they adopted theguy, Joe name Mitchell was some
of them.
So it's this, it'd be a bigMitch Mitchell.
(45:44):
And they'd have these hugeostentatious tombstones always
with, uh, photographs or smallcameos or little paintings of
them glued onto the headstones.
None of the other headstones inthe whole cemetery have these
except for the gypsy headstones.
And I looked around forsomebody who worked there and I
said, do you remember when thegypsies used to come here on
(46:06):
Memorial Day?
And they said, oh yeah, wewould just have to look the
other way because they would beand we don't usually allow that.
And And I said, well, does itstill happen?
They said, well, you neverknow.
Every once in a while it stillhappens, but not in that way.
And so then I said, can youhelp me find my relatives'
(46:28):
graves?
Yes, it's over there.
Looking around the graveyard,and then I start to notice big
SUVs with out-of-state platespulling up to where the gypsy
graves are.
And I look over, and I see thewoman who was talking to me
about it.
She looks at me, and she'slike...
points you know her eyes getbig and she points like these
are you know this is it and theywere like then families of
(46:50):
gypsies who were coming you knowin in these big you know
ostentatious suvs and setting uplawn chairs and sitting out
there and it it wasn't you knowas as uh crazy i think a
celebration as as in times pastbut it was it was pretty magical
to it to see the traditioncarrying on.
(47:11):
So maybe we'll go there onMonday now that I know that it
happens and when it happens.
Lo Carmen (47:18):
It's pretty wild to party in the graveyard.
Will Oldham (47:23):
What a wonderful place to do it, you know, and I
think it should just happen allthe time as long as people clean
up after themselves.
Lo Carmen (47:30):
My friend Betsy was telling me about going to the
Day of the Dead in Mexico backin the early 70s or mid-70s.
And she said that familieswould turn up with like little
portable TVs for the night, setup camp for the night and just
plump the TV on top of thegraves.
(47:50):
Yeah,
Will Oldham (47:51):
yeah.
I think we have been inAmerican culture and In a
Western American culture, we'vebeen shortchanged in our
relationship to death, I feellike.
There's a lot more going onthere.
It's
Lo Carmen (48:10):
kind of been taken from us, hasn't it?
It's become so formalized andpeople are cautious and aren't
quite sure of what the rightthing to do is instead of just
knowing how to accept it as partof the great cycle.
Will Oldham (48:24):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (48:28):
Well, I feel like I've taken lots of time.
Will Oldham (48:34):
It's been great.
Lo Carmen (48:34):
To go and kiss your
Will Oldham (48:39):
baby.
I do want to do that, yeah.
Every terrible thing is arelief Even months on end buried
(49:11):
in grief Are easy light timeswhich have to end With the
coming of your dear friend Deathto everyone Alright, well you
(49:37):
have
Lo Carmen (49:40):
a great night and thanks so much for talking with
us.
Will Oldham (49:45):
Thanks for asking.
Lo Carmen (49:51):
Now, as I promised Will, I have looked into whether
funeral services actually doput in a report to the
collection societies regardingwhich individual songs were
performed at each service, andunsurprisingly, it seems the
answer is no.
Although they do have topurchase a license in order to
(50:12):
play any copyright-recordedmusic at a service, how those
funds are paid out or sharedbetween copyright owners remains
murky.
The world of music copyright isa fraught and incredibly
complicated area.
As Hunter S Thompson once said,the music business is a cruel
(50:32):
and shallow money trench, a longplastic hallway where thieves
and pimps run free and good mendie like dogs.
There's also a negative side.
Popular funeral songs such asMy Way, The Wind Beneath My
Wings, My Heart Will Go On andIf I Die Young do, however,
(50:56):
generate a lot of money viasales, streaming and other
performances.
I'm very grateful to Will andto Ferg and their labels for
permission to play their musictoday.
Thanks also to Robin AdeleAnderson for permission to use
an excerpt from her version ofIf I Should Die Young,
(51:18):
originally performed by the bandPerry, and to Lola Levina for
letting me use a live porchrecording of them performing
Bubba Mowda.
All music is licensed by AbraAmcos and the details of all the
songs you heard today areavailable in the show notes.
Original and theme music forDeath Is Not The End was
(51:40):
written, performed and recordedby Peter Head.
He also whipped up the coverversions heard today.
Our conversation was verylightly edited for time and
clarity.
Death Is Not The End iscreated, recorded and edited by
me, your host, Lo Carmen, andproduced by Black Tambourine
(52:02):
Productions.
After today's episode, you knowthe story behind the name.
You can also find me onSubstack at
lowcarmen.substack.com.
And if you'd like to hear moreof my music, just get your
Google on and I'm sure you'llfind it.
I'd love for you to hit thefollow button wherever you
(52:22):
listen to your podcasts andleaving a review for the show is
very gratefully appreciated andhelps us find more listeners,
which can only be a good thing.
Till next time, this is LowCarmen.
signing off and remember deathis not the end
The human race has become prettyadept at finding solutions for
(00:21):
our problems.
When our bodies break down, wego to a doctor.
We turn to plumbers when wewant to fix leaky taps and
mechanics when something goeswrong with our cars.
But when something goes wrongwith our hearts or we're
grieving or lost or feel alone,we tend to turn to more
(00:42):
mysterious places like songs.
Lyrics and melodies thatresonate can provide comfort and
lift us up when nothing elseworks.
Countless, timeless songs ofWill Oldham, who also represents
Bonnie Prince Billy, havehelped many of us make some kind
(01:05):
of sense of life, love, deathand other swirling matters of
the soul and the universe, whileholding out a metaphysical hand
along the way.
So I reached out to the manbehind the songs to see if we
could have a conversationinvestigating life and death and
the power of music to helpprocess it all, At the time of
(01:27):
our talk, Will had just releasedthe 2021 Superwolves album,
made with Matt Sweeney.
He has released a bunch ofother music since then,
including his magnificent latestalbum, The Purple Bird, that
definitely has a few songs wecould have discussed here if we
(01:49):
could have skated through timeand into the future.
Lo Carmen (02:04):
I feel like you've written lots of songs that have
touched on death in one way oranother.
Will Oldham (02:10):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (02:11):
It's funny, it seems to keep popping up, doesn't it?
Will Oldham (02:14):
It's just some place that we can naturally go
because music immediately pullsus out of certain spaces and
into an abstraction.
And once you're in the abstractspace, you come face to face
with...
The denizens of those spaces.
Lo Carmen (02:31):
All the big stuff.
Will Oldham (02:32):
Just hanging around drinking, smoking cigarettes,
death.
Lo Carmen (02:34):
Smoking cigarettes in the cosmos.
I was listening to Hall ofDeath before, off your latest.
That's a great one.
Will Oldham (02:43):
Thank you.
Lo Carmen (02:45):
Where did that come from?
Will Oldham (02:47):
It may be the least worked on lyric that I can
think of of any song because itwas...
We were gathering for arecording session in New York,
and I got to town.
I think we went over to theapartment of Mikey Colton, who's
(03:10):
going to be playing bass, andwe all got together.
Instruments got plugged in, andpeople started playing, and
then I just sat in the cornerwith my notebook while a song
was taking form and put wordsdown, and then we went into the
recording studio the next dayand recorded it.
So I don't usually work likethat.
Lo Carmen (03:30):
Yeah, that's great.
Fresh out of the box.
Will Oldham (03:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Lo Carmen (03:35):
It kind of reminds me of that great Brenda Lee song
My Whole World is Falling Down.
Will Oldham (03:41):
I don't know it.
Lo Carmen (03:43):
It's just, it's a really kind of jaunty feeling
song, but with a lyric that'skind of tragic.
It's a wonderful oppositionthat brings it to a kind of
really vibrant, strange, greatplace.
Will Oldham (04:01):
Yeah, the song is addressing, I guess at the time
my mother was still alive andshe was, I didn't know, but she
was coming to the end of a long13 or 14 year relationship with
(04:21):
dementia and Alzheimer's.
And there was a period of timewhere I had found good
caregivers who could stay in herhouse with her.
And then maybe about five yearsago, one of them, I was in
(04:42):
Nashville working on some music,thought, you know, I could get
away for a couple of days.
And I got a call from, we havehere, you probably have hospice
there, right?
Hospice care.
Yeah.
So we had a relationship withhospice care.
And there was a woman who wouldcome in addition to the
(05:03):
caregivers that I had hired.
There was a woman who wouldcome and just spend an hour on
Tuesday mornings with my mom andread.
Lo Carmen (05:11):
Just as a friendly
Will Oldham (05:13):
person.
Yeah.
And so I got a call fromhospice and they said, and I was
in Nashville, and they said,we've just got a message from
your mom's house and yourcaregiver has died.
And I was like, I don't know.
No, there's a message that'snot been communicated properly.
(05:34):
So what are you saying?
And they're like, yeah, that'sour message is that your
caregiver has died.
I was like, no, I don't thinkso.
But actually, that is what hadhappened.
We don't know exactly whathappened, but somehow she fell
on– maybe she had a stroke,maybe she fainted, but for some
reason she fell for, fell, fellbackwards off some like three,
(05:56):
three steps in the back porchand crushed her skull.
And so then I tried and she wasgreat.
She was like,
Lo Carmen (06:05):
was she a family friend?
She
Will Oldham (06:06):
had become one.
She had become kind of one ofmy closest friends.
Like whenever I, every time wejust, we were close and, and
she, so then I needed to, fillin some, you know, I needed to
get somebody to help take care.
And I found somebody who spenta year at my mom's house and was
(06:28):
ultimately just chaotic andterrible.
And so then I did what I didn'twant to do, which was take my
mom to a, you know, assistedliving facility is what they
call it, but it's really, youknow, an assisted dying
facility.
Lo Carmen (06:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Will Oldham (06:46):
And it was one that was just a couple of blocks
from her house.
I could, I wheeled her overthere.
And, and by that point,apparently
Lo Carmen (06:53):
she was aware.
Will Oldham (06:54):
No, I don't think so.
I don't think she was aware atall, but, but it is, you know,
it's the last place.
A lot of us want to see anyonethat we know or love.
Lo Carmen (07:04):
Yeah.
It's tough stuff.
Will Oldham (07:07):
And so that was kind of the, and, and then, and
then, you know, didn't know, youknow, part of me had the, the
dark wish that she would besomewhat aware and would hate it
so much that she would give upthe ghost at some point.
But it took a few years still.
And, yeah, it was like going tovisit her was very...
Lo Carmen (07:33):
Confronting?
Will Oldham (07:36):
Yeah, it was confronting and demoralizing
and...
Lo Carmen (07:42):
Not what you want for your mom anymore.
Will Oldham (07:45):
Yeah, and just trying to, you know, like we're,
if you're spending time withsomebody who's in late stages
dementia, you don't know who isthere.
You just kind of work on faith.
Lo Carmen (08:05):
Was she distressed in her dementia?
Will Oldham (08:08):
At that point, no.
She had gone through a state, Imean, at that point she was, I
mean, she hadn't, I'm not sureif she'd said an intelligible
word in a few years.
So it was impossible to know ifthere was something that we
could call emotion or recognizeas emotion that she was
experiencing.
But she's still my mother'sbody, right?
(08:31):
Yeah.
And maybe my mother's soul.
I'm not sure I will know.
So it's going...
know again and again and againand again and again and again
and again to see her or to seeher physical body and to
communicate with the staff andand just to whatever sit there
(08:54):
and read a book or watch a moviewith her do a crossword puzzle
you know in her room or and thenit
Lo Carmen (09:00):
Just to be physically present.
Yeah, and then
Will Oldham (09:02):
ultimately to like, you know, her granddaughter is
born, to bring the granddaughterthere, because do you not bring
her there or do you bring herthere?
I choose to bring her there,but I don't know if that, you
know, is that a good decision ora bad decision?
She didn't react.
No.
And so anyway, those lyricscame out because they're going
(09:24):
over that kind of thing.
And then when we went in torecord it, the Mdu Mokhtar, who
played some lead guitar on it,you know.
Or Matt Sweeney said, tell Mduwhat it's about.
So I told him what it wasabout.
I just said, it's about, youknow, somebody in a nursing
(09:45):
home.
It's just a living facility.
And he was like...
That's the worst.
Americans are the worst becausethey do that.
They have no respect and nolove for their loved ones.
Because he's from Niger andhe's like, we don't do that in
Niger.
And, you know, I didn'tdisagree with it.
But in addition to being one ofthe quickest lyrics I've ever
(10:11):
written, it was one of the, youknow, it was the most
distressing and painful, youknow, recording sessions because
because it ultimately and it'sso it's it's interesting when
people react to the song andtalk about its its jauntiness
and its liveliness because it'syeah you know it's just it's
(10:32):
always like yeah there's alwaysjust i mean people don't really
listen to lyrics i think uh youknow kind of people don't listen
lyrics that's just people don'tlisten lyrics yeah Yeah.
So you can write anything youwant.
You can write anything you wantin a lyric and you can get away
with
Lo Carmen (10:49):
it.
You really can.
And people just take whateverthey need to hear.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Will Oldham (10:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's the hall of death.
So the hall of death, it's likewhen you're going down those
corridors and you're seeingpeople just, you know, many of
whom are evidently abandoned byGod and family.
And those are, that's whatthere's, always seem to be, and
(11:15):
God bless all the people whowork in those places.
Lo Carmen (11:20):
Yeah, well, I didn't hear that at all.
So
Will Oldham (11:23):
one more time, I see myself here, a mountain of
someone who's never death againBut it's rough.
(12:31):
It's rough that those places doexist.
You know?
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (12:37):
Yeah.
And, I mean, it is rough, too,that it's not more normalized, I
guess, to know how to lookafter our family in those kind
of extreme circumstances.
Yeah.
You know, it seems...
Seems like the wrong thing todo.
Will Oldham (12:52):
Seems like the wrong thing to do, yeah.
You're looked down upon if youcare for your folks, yeah.
Lo Carmen (12:59):
In certain circles.
I mean, in my circles, yeah.
It's like they needprofessional help.
Will Oldham (13:02):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (13:03):
They need people that know what they're doing.
Have you ever written your owneulogy?
Will Oldham (13:09):
No.
Lo Carmen (13:10):
No?
Will Oldham (13:11):
No.
Are
Lo Carmen (13:12):
you sure?
Will Oldham (13:13):
I'm pretty sure.
I don't think so,
Lo Carmen (13:18):
yeah.
I feel like...
I've attempted my own eulogy afew times, like in a slightly
tongue-in-cheek kind of fashion.
Will Oldham (13:25):
Yeah.
Wouldn't know where to begin.
Lo Carmen (13:28):
Apparently Frank Sinatra hated singing My Way,
but it became a hit so fast, notthat he wrote it, but it became
a hit so fast he had to sing ithis whole life and he never
really related to it.
Will Oldham (13:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I suppose, yeah, there was alittle...
collection of sort of eulogyslash soliloquy songs that I put
together in the early 2000scalled Ask Forgiveness, where I
covered songs that all seemed tobe eulogy-esque, but in first
(14:07):
person.
They were summing up somebody'sexistence, but not my own,
because they were all
Lo Carmen (14:16):
other people's.
So were they all eulogizingsongs?
the same person or a bunch ofpeople?
A
Will Oldham (14:21):
bunch of people.
I mean, it was a bunch of, youknow, it was all different
songwriters just sort of talkingabout I thought of it because
one of them is a song by a womannamed Gail Caldwell called
Cycles that was one of RickSinatra's later hits, late 60s,
yeah.
That is, you know, it runs,it's like a, I'm going to say,
(14:42):
though I feel strange aboutsaying, you know, maybe where my
way is Paul Anka's masculineeulogy, then Cycles is a
feminine, it's written by thiswoman, Gail Caldwell, who was
very...
It's much more introspective.
There's no bombast in itwhatsoever.
(15:04):
Life is like the seasons Afterwinter comes the spring So I'll
keep this smile wide open It's agorgeous song.
(15:27):
Yeah, I mean, Sinatra's isgreat.
I grew up with his greatesthits, Volume 2, which included
My Way and Cycles, and hisversion of Kermit the Frog's
Being Green as well.
Lo Carmen (15:41):
Fantastic.
I'll have to listen to that oneas well.
have you had many people useyour songs for funerals and tell
you about it?
Will Oldham (15:52):
Well, I'm not aware.
I'm not aware of thathappening, but once again, like
on, on this new super wolvesrecord that Matt Sweeney and I
made, there's a song calledresist the urge, which in the
process of making it, I got inthe habit in the past few years
of asking my, putting a piece ofpaper on the wall and ask my
(16:14):
wife to write song titles.
And then I'll, have to see whatI can do about making a song
around the titles that shegives.
And she had put up theunfortunate title of, uh,
something like if I die before Iwake, you know, and I was like,
okay, well, what the fuck,where's that going to go?
That's, it can't be fun.
(16:35):
And I,
Lo Carmen (16:36):
thanks honey.
Will Oldham (16:37):
Yeah.
And so then that's why I putthis little refrain after most
of the lines, which is resistthe urge.
Cause it's just the resist theurge to go to any of the places
where, a songwriter would go ora listener would want to go or
anyone would want to go withthat phrase and try to think,
well, where else can Ipotentially go with it?
And it ended up being this songthat when we finished the song,
(16:59):
I thought and think like, oh,we've made our first funeral
rock song.
Because I attended a friend'sfuneral years ago, and there was
a song there by– An Americanpop country band called The Band
Perry.
Do you know The Band Perry atall?
Lo Carmen (17:16):
I know their name, but I don't know that I know any
songs.
Will Oldham (17:18):
I think they had a couple of hits, and one of them
was called If I Die Young.
And it's...
It's so intense.
It's kind of
Lo Carmen (17:30):
upbeat.
Will Oldham (17:55):
Wow, this is probably a market, right?
I mean, I can't imagine theband Perry, maybe.
Maybe their manager said, youknow what?
We could really make a lot ofmoney.
We
Lo Carmen (18:10):
could make a
Will Oldham (18:11):
month's worth.
Yeah, because when we had thissong, I thought, you know, I
think that this song is going tobe played at somebody's funeral
sometime, somewhere, and it'sbuilt for it.
It is from top to bottom.
It's like...
It is an unsinkable funeralsong.
And I have mixed feelings aboutit because it's a pretty
(18:35):
positive song.
It's definitely celebrating thelife of somebody who's
discussing passing over.
But it's strange to be a partof a song that...
I mean, and I knew it fromseeing the title that my wife
had given me.
I just thought...
This is, you know, this isgoing to be a dark thing.
(18:58):
Yeah.
But then I tried to, we triedto, I mean, and then Sweeney
tried to uplift it even furtherwith fairly upbeat music.
It's really, you know, it makesyou feel kind of good to hear
it, but it's all about dying.
If I should die before I wakeResist the urge, resist the urge
(19:22):
Cry or falter for my sake Ididn't die, I didn't die If you
should wake and I'm not thereResist the urge, resist the urge
I'm in your breath, I'm in yourair I haven't gone away I'm
(19:50):
holding you Singing strong andconstant in your ear I may not
be there bodily But in the windI'm
Lo Carmen (20:08):
here Amazing.
I had a weird experiencewriting a song about imagining
myself dying and just imaginingall the shitty stuff that I've
got.
I don't have anything good togive to anyone.
And I looked over and saw mytambourine.
I went, oh, my tambourine'sreally good.
Like, who would I give mytambourine to?
(20:28):
So I wrote this song calledBlack Tambourine and recorded
it.
And then a friend of ourfamily's died, an older woman, a
singer, who had been incrediblyformative for me.
And I was given her old blacktambourine.
And it was quite a kind ofspooky, amazing little
(20:48):
coincidence.
Will Oldham (20:54):
We ain't got long to go It goes down fast and it
comes up slow
Lo Carmen (21:51):
Yeah, I was looking up funeral songs, like what the
popular ones are.
And I was quite surprised, likeWind Beneath My Wings is like
one of the very top ones.
There's a Robbie Williams songcalled Angels that I don't know,
but I'm going to listen to.
That's also one of the very topones.
(22:11):
I think that there's definitelya big market for A really,
really good funeral song.
Yeah.
We need one.
Will Oldham (22:19):
Yeah.
And the next question,obviously, is are funeral
parlors good about payingroyalties?
Lo Carmen (22:26):
Ah.
Will Oldham (22:26):
Probably not.
Lo Carmen (22:27):
That...
I'm going to make a note about
Will Oldham (22:30):
that.
Lo Carmen (22:30):
Surely they have to.
Will Oldham (22:32):
Yeah, I'm trying to think of the songs.
I just saw a program for mymom's funeral, and I know we
did, Sweeney sang Suzanne, andthere was another, because that
was one of my mom's songs.
So yeah, I wonder if the estateof Leonard Cohen made a royalty
off my mom's funeral or not.
Lo Carmen (22:48):
Well, I guess if Sweeney would have to put it on
his live performance return.
Will Oldham (22:53):
Well, here I think that you know venues are
supposedly responsible we don'tI mean in America there's so
much more I'll say casualmeaning that it almost doesn't
exist like you do not catalogthe songs that you perform at
live venues and they don'tunless maybe you're in Nashville
or New York and they have arelationship to the ASCAP BMI
(23:16):
you know royalty collection
Lo Carmen (23:17):
agencies you do in Australia it's artists do it
themselves
Will Oldham (23:21):
yeah and in Europe as well and you know you yeah
and you go there and then andyou realize that The laws are
likely in place in the UnitedStates, and they're just
completely ignored.
Yeah, right.
I don't know if the funerals inAustralia, though, yeah, if the
funeral organist plays a song,does she or he have to then tell
(23:42):
the funeral director, like,these are the songs that were
performed here, and then do theyhave to pay the, I don't know.
Lo Carmen (23:51):
I'm going to look into that.
That's a whole new sideline tomusic.
To discover.
Have you ever had to sing at afuneral?
Did you sing at your mom'sfuneral?
Will Oldham (24:01):
I couldn't have sung at my mom's funeral.
Emmett and I sang at my greatuncle's funeral.
My great uncle was a wonderful,fun man.
And he was an amateur magicianwhose stage name was Can Do,
which he spelled wrong.
K-A-N-D-U, can do the magician.
And yeah, he died maybe adecade ago, and Emmett was in
(24:24):
town, and I guess someone said,you know, would you sing
something?
And so Emmett and I sang We'llMeet Again at his funeral, which
was great.
So as an amateur magician, Iguess a tradition among the
magician world is that a magicwand is broken, like at the
pulpit, you know, in front ofeverybody.
(24:44):
And so that was done.
And there were also like magictricks on everybody's seats,
which was really neat.
So you got to take home asouvenir, the kind of things
that he would have brought toour birthday parties when we
were children.
And then also I have a slew offriends who are music
therapists.
And one of them named BrianSchreck, he works specifically
(25:09):
in hospice music.
but for children.
And he was working for a while.
Cincinnati is about an hour anda half away, and he was working
at the hospital in Cincinnati.
And he asked myself, anothermusic therapist friend, Cheyenne
Mize, and Emmett.
Again, we went up there to thehospital, and every year they
(25:29):
have one funeral recognizing allof the children who passed in
the hospital that year.
So we sang...
A couple of songs there.
And then I also sang at myfriend's funeral, who I heard
the band Perry song, If I DieYoung.
I did sing a song.
(25:50):
We were on a beach in Indiana,on Lake Michigan, and sang a
song there.
That might be all of the...
funeral.
Oh, and my grandmother'sfuneral.
My brothers and I sang.
She spent some time in Hawaii.
My mother was born in Hawaii.
So we sang Aloha Oye and wesang Swing Low Sweet Cherry
(26:11):
because that was
Lo Carmen (26:12):
her favorite hymn.
Gorgeous.
That's
Will Oldham (26:16):
beautiful.
So a bunch.
Lo Carmen (26:17):
Yeah.
Will Oldham (26:18):
It's easier to sing at a funeral.
I mean, I couldn't have sung atmy mom's funeral.
I just wouldn't have been ableto handle it.
But singing at a funeral iseasier than singing at a wedding
because the person you're sonervous to for somebody who's
getting married.
Like you're like, Oh, you'relistening to me and I'm doing
something at this important, youknow, whereas the person who's
passed away, they're just like,do your thing.
(26:39):
You can't, you can't go wrong.
Lo Carmen (26:41):
There is that.
That's funny.
Do you listen to music much toparticular songs to sing up the
memory of people that have gone?
Will Oldham (26:54):
I mean, there was a, there was a song that I, that
I made in the middle of mymom's descent into dementia that
I would sing while she wasstill alive to sing up the
memory of her, I guess.
And then I guess after myfather died, which was 15 years
(27:17):
ago, like next week, I think,there's a song called Missing
One that I made...
that's on a record called LieDown in the Light.
That's like just a fully, asong of, you know, of memory and
(27:37):
grieving.
I know that missing me has justbegun There's years to come And
trying to sleep tonight Next toyour kin Is fully lovely As
I've ever been But I wouldn'ttrade my life For someone's
(28:05):
millions And I know you left Fora reason And the trees and
flowers And creeks and rocksHold your face with every
(28:26):
season.
Lo Carmen (28:29):
Beautiful.
That's such a beautiful album,
Will Oldham (28:34):
that one.
Thank you.
Lo Carmen (28:35):
What about I See a Darkness?
That's a song that people seemto associate with thinking about
death.
Is that correct?
Will Oldham (28:45):
Well, I mean, on that record, the I See a
Darkness record, there's theDeath to Everyone, which is far
more death-centric.
But, yeah, I think I see adarkness implies that there's
still some living to be wrungout of life and, you know, some
(29:08):
reason to, against certain odds,reason to hope that...
There's
Lo Carmen (29:17):
more to come.
Will Oldham (29:18):
Yeah, there's more to come.
The continuance has value,yeah.
Lo Carmen (29:22):
Yeah.
It must have been amazing tohear Johnny Cash singing that
Will Oldham (29:28):
towards the end of his life.
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (29:32):
And it sounds like he was at a place where he knew he
was approaching the end of hislife.
I wonder if the time in thatsong was smaller for him in the
contemplation than it was foryou when you sang it.
Will Oldham (29:49):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (29:51):
Did you sing that?
With him, I know you're on therecord as well.
Will Oldham (29:55):
Yes, absolutely.
Lo Carmen (29:58):
Wow.
How special.
Will Oldham (30:01):
It was so special because, yeah, he was just, he
was even, he had sung, he'dtaken a pass at the vocal and he
wasn't comfortable with wherehe was hitting the beats,
essentially.
And so he asked if I would singit over the instrumental track
that they had.
And then he could use that as aguide.
(30:22):
And then he still...
Then he tried it with my voice.
And he still wasn't...
I don't...
I mean, you can imagine, like,I could not hear any flaw, you
know, because I was just so...
You know, I couldn't evenbelieve I was in the room.
So I couldn't hear a flaw.
(30:44):
I would love...
You know, it will never happen.
It maybe doesn't even exist,but I'd love to hear...
that pass again that he dideven with my voice or the one
before, because each of, each ofthose that I heard, I thought
sounded magnificent because theywere magnificent, but he still
didn't like it.
But then when
Lo Carmen (31:00):
wasn't hitting it for him.
Will Oldham (31:01):
Yeah.
So then, but they had put bothof our voices up on the playback
speakers and, you know,everybody kind of agreed that
the voices sounded goodtogether.
So, so then the next decisionwas for me to go just sit, next
to him in the vocal booth andjust give him his cues for each
(31:21):
line
Lo Carmen (31:23):
like conduct johnny cash that's what i did
Will Oldham (31:25):
i sat i sat you know we just sat like six inches
apart uh you know with ourknees six inches apart he would
just look at me and i i wouldpoint to him you know and then
and then i sang a harmony overhis part afterwards
Lo Carmen (31:40):
yeah amazing
Will Oldham (31:41):
so yeah it was me yeah you can't yeah you can't
imagine you can't even fantasizethat something like that you
know that's the kind of thingthat
Lo Carmen (31:52):
would happen
Will Oldham (31:53):
yeah yeah yeah like I had a dream once where for
some reason like I went into abathroom and I like pooped all
over the room and I think it wasmaybe in Sinead O'Connor's
apartment and she came in andcleaned it all up you know And,
(32:14):
like, that's the kind of thingthat happens in a dream.
Another thing that happens in adream is that you conduct
Johnny Cash singing, you know,that you sit next to him, you
know, like Johnny Cash.
You're like, I had this dreamwhere I was sitting right next
to Johnny Cash and he was askingme how to sing.
A song.
Lo Carmen (32:33):
And so I conducted it.
And so I conducted it.
Will Oldham (32:35):
I mean, right?
That's just a dream.
That's a story of a dream.
Lo Carmen (32:39):
Are you sure you didn't dream it?
Will Oldham (32:41):
I mean, there's a record that exists and people
ask me about it, so that's theonly evidence.
Because it doesn't feel likeany different from...
Like last night I dreamed thatI ordered a child's scoop of
elderberry ice cream.
And while the guy was preparingit, I walked into another room
and it was a dark room.
And some reason he put down theice cream cone, came into the
(33:03):
dark room, and put his armaround my mouth and was going to
beat me up.
And I woke up screaming.
And I never have nightmares.
I think it's because I'd hadsome melatonin right before bed.
But...
Like that's a, you know, that'sas real to me as sitting in the
room with Johnny Cash, likegetting beat up by the ice cream
(33:27):
vendor is as real to me assinging with Johnny Cash.
Lo Carmen (33:33):
Wow.
Will Oldham (33:34):
So, you know, Ferg.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So David Ferguson in Nashville,we just, he asked me to make a
music video for him for a songthat he's about to release
called Boats to Build.
And it's a cover song writtenby guy clark and uh verlin a guy
named verlin thompson and thenight before my daughter and i
(33:58):
went down to make the video iasked for who wrote the songs i
didn't know who wrote the songand he said well guy clark and
and verlin thompson i said wellis verlin thompson still alive
he said yeah he's still aliveand he's heard the song actually
he really likes it and and thenhe said and he has a he, he
married a newscaster and theyown a TV production studio and
(34:20):
maybe they have a green screenand maybe we should shoot some
of this video there.
It's like, all right.
So he called him and we, wewent in and so we hung out with,
with this guy, Verlin Thompson,who talked about the making of
this song boats to build.
And it was so wonderful becauseit was like him and Guy Clark.
And they had a, uh, a friendwho, who went, uh, whose wife
(34:43):
got him, uh, uh, So it's thisbeautiful song.
It's one of these soliloquy,perfect funeral song.
Because it's like, I'm going tobuild me a boat with these two
hands.
It'll be a fair curve from anoble plan.
Let the chips fall where theywill, because I've got boats to
build.
And it's just sort of a summingup of life.
And the writers had a friendwhose wife...
(35:06):
bought him a boat buildingcourse, like let him, you know,
paid for him to go up to, to thestate of Maine for six weeks
and, and learn how to buildwooden sailboats by hand.
And, uh, yeah.
So then while he was up there,they were talking and just
saying, you know, well, where'sour, where's our friend?
Oh, he's up there.
Or, you know, and then theyjust thought, well, let's write
(35:28):
a song about this guy and wherehe's doing, why he's not hanging
out with us.
And then also, and then I guesspart of the punchline was that
his wife, uh, found another guywhile she was slow.
No, that
Lo Carmen (35:41):
wasn't what I expected you were going
Will Oldham (35:45):
to say.
Lo Carmen (35:47):
That's like a sucker punch
Will Oldham (35:49):
line.
Yeah, exactly.
But it makes the song all themore poignant because they're
writing about, you know, thisguy's, you know, like inner
journey and what he's exploring,not realizing that his whole,
you know, his whole life wasbeing turned upside down.
Lo Carmen (36:05):
Yeah, wow.
So did you manage to greenscreen Verlin?
Will Oldham (36:10):
Yeah, yeah.
He was so wonderful and justcharming, and there's a mandolin
part of the song, and I thinkFerg or Sean Sullivan brought a
mandolin, or somehow a mandolinappeared, and Verlin just, you
know, he played all the parts ofthe mandolin.
We sat with my daughter and ourfriend Pete.
Do you know Pete Townsend atall, the drummer?
(36:31):
He's from Louisville, and helives in Nashville.
Yeah.
But his two daughters and mydaughter are, like, playing
drums and mandolins and buildingboats out of Legos.
And then we have a greenscreen.
Lo Carmen (36:44):
Wow, that sounds great.
And how beautiful to, you know,Guy Clark being dead but Verlin
being alive and
Will Oldham (36:56):
Ferg, obviously.
Somewhere in between.
Lo Carmen (36:58):
Somewhere in between.
Bringing it all together.
Will Oldham (37:02):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (37:04):
Time for a change Tired of that same old same Same
old words, same old lines Sameold tricks, the same old rhymes
(37:28):
And it's days, precious daysrolling and out like waves got
boards to bend planks to nailcharts to make and seas to sail
(37:51):
i'm gonna build me a boat Withthese two hands it'll be a fair
curve from a noble plan.
Let the chips fall where theywill, cause I've got boats to
(38:14):
build.
You curated Ferg's collection ofCowboy Jack songs and you met
Cowboy Jack.
Did you?
Yeah, many times,
Will Oldham (38:26):
yeah.
Lo Carmen (38:28):
That's a pretty special way to keep someone with
you, to bring someone to life,to make a tribute album
Will Oldham (38:36):
to somebody.
It was beautiful, yeah, becauseCowboy, he didn't ever get as
far as my mom did, but he hadsome dementia issues that were
happening.
And seeing Ferg's relationshipto his, like, friend, mentor,
employer, father figure, youknow, musical partner, and just
(38:59):
seeing him, you know, just treathim with such love and such
care and such respect in thoseyears while, you know, and then
I'd drive back here and see, youknow, and see my mom.
But the first time, like I'dmet Ferg on the Johnny Cash
session, and then first time Isaw him in Nashville, I...
(39:21):
called him and said, I'm comingthrough Nashville.
He said, well, let's meet here.
And he said, and so we met justin the parking lot somewhere.
He said, okay, get in the car.
We're going to Cowboys.
And so that was the first thingwe did is we went to Cowboys.
Lo Carmen (39:33):
That's like something that happens in a dream too.
Will Oldham (39:35):
Yeah.
And then we, you know, went inCowboys office and, and they
just pulled some guitars downimmediately and started playing
the, I'll be all smiles tonightby the Lubin brothers.
So, so wonderful.
Yeah.
And just had so many greattimes with, with Cowboy, but,
but Ferg's record, his, his,tribute to cowboy that has a
little bit of cowboy playing onthere as well as it's one of my
(39:56):
very very favorite records
Lo Carmen (39:58):
how long after he died did ferg record that
Will Oldham (40:02):
he was working on it like in the final months of
of cowboy's life because yeahcowboy has a part has a plays
like a part or two on on acouple of songs i think he was
Lo Carmen (40:14):
right so did he know did cowboy know the folk was
doing it
Will Oldham (40:18):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, yeah, I think, I thinkso.
It's hard to tell.
Like sometimes, you know,dementia is not, it's not a
straight line.
It's not, you know, it's
Lo Carmen (40:31):
really better than others.
Will Oldham (40:32):
Some days are better than others.
And in the course of the day ora conversation, it's all over
the place.
And so you have to just, youdon't know if a memory is like,
you know, landing in water andjust sinking to the bottom, or
if it's landing and sitting onthe surface or landing in mud
and getting stuck somewhere,what, you know, if somebody, and
then if, if, if you forgetsomething, you know, like you
(40:54):
forget things all the time, itdoesn't mean they're gone.
So that complexity is, uh, youknow, exponentially more complex
when somebody has dementiabecause you're, you feed them
information and you don't evenknow, uh, where, how far in it
goes and if it sticks anywhere,if it relates to other things.
(41:16):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (41:16):
Yeah.
A little bit like conversationsamongst musicians, really.
Will Oldham (41:20):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (41:25):
Do you have a particular song that you'd like
played at your funeral or songs?
Is that something you'd like?
The impossible question.
Yeah.
I
Will Oldham (41:37):
mean, it's because it's about, you know, your
relationship to Like, would theyget it right?
Yeah, like would
Lo Carmen (41:45):
you leave
Will Oldham (41:45):
directions?
Yeah, I don't, you know, it'sbecause it's so much up to the,
you know.
Lo Carmen (41:53):
Those that are left behind.
I
Will Oldham (41:54):
feel like death, you know, yeah, death doesn't
belong to the dead.
Death belongs to the living.
So it would be, you know, Iwould, yeah, probably ask people
to look to New Orleans or.
Lo Carmen (42:12):
Yeah, that seems sensible.
Would you ever have your ashesput into a record?
Will Oldham (42:20):
Oh.
Lo Carmen (42:20):
You can do that.
Will Oldham (42:22):
Is that right?
Yeah.
That's an interesting thing.
I think I may have some ashesleft.
I had my dad's ashes forever.
Lo Carmen (42:36):
Oh, really?
Will Oldham (42:36):
And I didn't know what to do with them.
So I split them.
I had them for my brothers.
So I split them into threeparts, and I asked a woodworker
guy to make wooden boxes to puteach one in because they were
just sitting at my house.
And after about a decade, Ithought, okay, this is stupid.
(42:58):
So I just wanted to get themtheirs and worry about mine.
And then I had mine.
You know, my dad's ashes in abox.
What
Lo Carmen (43:10):
do I do?
Yeah, what do I
Will Oldham (43:11):
do?
And finally, I just thought,there's no good reason to have
somebody's, you know, for me,have somebody's ashes.
Lo Carmen (43:23):
Flung them to the winds.
Will Oldham (43:24):
Yeah, but even then, it's, you know, I don't,
you know, my parents havegravestones, but I don't think
about, I don't think that peopleare related to their remains.
Lo Carmen (43:38):
No, I feel the same.
But obviously, a lot of peopledon't.
Will Oldham (43:43):
Yeah.
And
Lo Carmen (43:44):
I'm glad for cemeteries.
Will Oldham (43:45):
Cemeteries are wonderful places to visit.
And as historical records,they're amazing.
But I don't ever feel like it'sfull of people.
I just feel like it's full ofhistory.
Lo Carmen (43:56):
You know, Dolly Parton has said that she loves
to write in cemeteries.
Oh, wow.
Will Oldham (44:01):
I didn't know that.
She's
Lo Carmen (44:02):
Yeah, when she used to tour in a bus in the 70s,
she'd stop, go to the graveyardfor a while to get a bit of
peace and quiet and right.
Will Oldham (44:13):
Cool.
I
Lo Carmen (44:13):
thought
Will Oldham (44:14):
that was pretty.
We're coming up on a holidayhere, the American Memorial Day
is this coming weekend.
And there's something I learnedabout as a kid.
I was looking into gypsypopulations that used to live in
Louisville, Kentucky.
live and pass through.
Because I found articles in thepaper about people who claim to
(44:38):
be the king of the gypsies.
Lo Carmen (44:40):
Like Romany Gypsy?
Will Oldham (44:42):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Back in the 1970s.
And my grandfather toldinteresting stories.
He was an obstetrician.
He told an interesting storyabout delivering a gypsy baby
and how outside of the hospital,There were maybe 40 or 50
gypsies who just set up tentswhile they waited for the gypsy
mother to give birth.
And this was probably the1960s.
(45:02):
And then I think I went tothe...
Somehow I had heard that therewere celebrations at a
particular cemetery.
It's a cemetery where I havesome relatives.
And it was always on MemorialDay.
And it was just a few yearsago, finally, I thought, I'm
going to...
go there and I'll go and I'llsee my great grandfather's
(45:24):
grave.
And I will see if I can figureout, you know, see if the
gypsies still party there.
And I went and I saw the gypsygraves, including the, these
like the king of the gypsiesthat I'd seen in the newspaper.
Cause they, they adopted theguy, Joe name Mitchell was some
of them.
So it's this, it'd be a bigMitch Mitchell.
(45:44):
And they'd have these hugeostentatious tombstones always
with, uh, photographs or smallcameos or little paintings of
them glued onto the headstones.
None of the other headstones inthe whole cemetery have these
except for the gypsy headstones.
And I looked around forsomebody who worked there and I
said, do you remember when thegypsies used to come here on
(46:06):
Memorial Day?
And they said, oh yeah, wewould just have to look the
other way because they would beand we don't usually allow that.
And And I said, well, does itstill happen?
They said, well, you neverknow.
Every once in a while it stillhappens, but not in that way.
And so then I said, can youhelp me find my relatives'
(46:28):
graves?
Yes, it's over there.
Looking around the graveyard,and then I start to notice big
SUVs with out-of-state platespulling up to where the gypsy
graves are.
And I look over, and I see thewoman who was talking to me
about it.
She looks at me, and she'slike...
points you know her eyes getbig and she points like these
are you know this is it and theywere like then families of
(46:50):
gypsies who were coming you knowin in these big you know
ostentatious suvs and setting uplawn chairs and sitting out
there and it it wasn't you knowas as uh crazy i think a
celebration as as in times pastbut it was it was pretty magical
to it to see the traditioncarrying on.
(47:11):
So maybe we'll go there onMonday now that I know that it
happens and when it happens.
Lo Carmen (47:18):
It's pretty wild to party in the graveyard.
Will Oldham (47:23):
What a wonderful place to do it, you know, and I
think it should just happen allthe time as long as people clean
up after themselves.
Lo Carmen (47:30):
My friend Betsy was telling me about going to the
Day of the Dead in Mexico backin the early 70s or mid-70s.
And she said that familieswould turn up with like little
portable TVs for the night, setup camp for the night and just
plump the TV on top of thegraves.
(47:50):
Yeah,
Will Oldham (47:51):
yeah.
I think we have been inAmerican culture and In a
Western American culture, we'vebeen shortchanged in our
relationship to death, I feellike.
There's a lot more going onthere.
It's
Lo Carmen (48:10):
kind of been taken from us, hasn't it?
It's become so formalized andpeople are cautious and aren't
quite sure of what the rightthing to do is instead of just
knowing how to accept it as partof the great cycle.
Will Oldham (48:24):
Yeah.
Lo Carmen (48:28):
Well, I feel like I've taken lots of time.
Will Oldham (48:34):
It's been great.
Lo Carmen (48:34):
To go and kiss your
Will Oldham (48:39):
baby.
I do want to do that, yeah.
Every terrible thing is arelief Even months on end buried
(49:11):
in grief Are easy light timeswhich have to end With the
coming of your dear friend Deathto everyone Alright, well you
(49:37):
have
Lo Carmen (49:40):
a great night and thanks so much for talking with
us.
Will Oldham (49:45):
Thanks for asking.
Lo Carmen (49:51):
Now, as I promised Will, I have looked into whether
funeral services actually doput in a report to the
collection societies regardingwhich individual songs were
performed at each service, andunsurprisingly, it seems the
answer is no.
Although they do have topurchase a license in order to
(50:12):
play any copyright-recordedmusic at a service, how those
funds are paid out or sharedbetween copyright owners remains
murky.
The world of music copyright isa fraught and incredibly
complicated area.
As Hunter S Thompson once said,the music business is a cruel
(50:32):
and shallow money trench, a longplastic hallway where thieves
and pimps run free and good mendie like dogs.
There's also a negative side.
Popular funeral songs such asMy Way, The Wind Beneath My
Wings, My Heart Will Go On andIf I Die Young do, however,
(50:56):
generate a lot of money viasales, streaming and other
performances.
I'm very grateful to Will andto Ferg and their labels for
permission to play their musictoday.
Thanks also to Robin AdeleAnderson for permission to use
an excerpt from her version ofIf I Should Die Young,
(51:18):
originally performed by the bandPerry, and to Lola Levina for
letting me use a live porchrecording of them performing
Bubba Mowda.
All music is licensed by AbraAmcos and the details of all the
songs you heard today areavailable in the show notes.
Original and theme music forDeath Is Not The End was
(51:40):
written, performed and recordedby Peter Head.
He also whipped up the coverversions heard today.
Our conversation was verylightly edited for time and
clarity.
Death Is Not The End iscreated, recorded and edited by
me, your host, Lo Carmen, andproduced by Black Tambourine
(52:02):
Productions.
After today's episode, you knowthe story behind the name.
You can also find me onSubstack at
lowcarmen.substack.com.
And if you'd like to hear moreof my music, just get your
Google on and I'm sure you'llfind it.
I'd love for you to hit thefollow button wherever you
(52:22):
listen to your podcasts andleaving a review for the show is
very gratefully appreciated andhelps us find more listeners,
which can only be a good thing.
Till next time, this is LowCarmen.
signing off and remember deathis not the end
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