Seth MacFarlane

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with
Seth McFarlane.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm just playing.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
With you.

Speaker 4 (00:11):
I'm just playing lone with you.

Speaker 5 (00:18):
Hi.

Speaker 4 (00:18):
Welcome to the show. I'm Nora. With me is Sarah Oda. Hello, Hi.

Speaker 5 (00:23):
Hi.

Speaker 6 (00:25):
Our guest today is the incredibly talented Seth McFarlane. Yes,
he's an actor. He's a comedian, a writer, animator, filmmaker, director,
And what we dig into on this episode is say
that again. What we dig into, dude, is that he

(00:48):
is a singer.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Yeah, he's a great singer.

Speaker 6 (00:52):
And many people know him as the creator a family guy,
the Orville American Dad show, The Ted Movies Ye, which
he directed and starred and also cameoed me Laura Jones.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
We talk about that, we talk about This episode is
fun because we talk about music a lot, and we
also talk about his various shows and Ted and they're
rebooting a Ted TV show, which is pretty exciting, very exciting.

Speaker 6 (01:27):
And there's things about him that I learned, like how
much he knows about like old jazz tunes and he's
kind of got like a vast knowledge of all that.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
I don't feel like he's someone from the acting world
who's just just doing some hobby of singing songs in
his spare time. I feel like he's pretty invested in
music for sure, And he's really a great singer. I
mean you can tell from family guy that's he's got
a knack for the vocal, vocal, theatrics.

Speaker 6 (02:02):
Absolutely, and like it's crazy to think that somebody who's
as smart and funny and talented as he is and
is working on so many projects all the time constantly,
so busy, can also put out a great album of
music like every couple of years.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
Yeah, well he just loves it. Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
It's great to see somebody who's so excited about what
they're doing.

Speaker 6 (02:23):
Yeah, and I like having him around because then I
don't feel like the most inappropriate person in the room.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
We used to hang out with Seth like what twelve
years ago. Yeah, we had so much fun, and then
we didn't see him for like ten years.

Speaker 6 (02:37):
Yeah, we're kind of on a tenure hang schedule.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, we talked about all that, and this is a
fun episode. I hope you like it.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
Please enjoy Seth mcfiley.

Speaker 7 (02:48):
I just love.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Audio. When you had kid Rock here on the show,
how did you guys do it like that's trying get
that vibe.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Oh you know who I had on the show, Logic.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Oh yeah, I love Logic.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
So you guys hung out.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I think he hadn't met you yet when we probably not. Yeah,
he was just telling me about it. And then and
then I see you're gonna you sing on his album.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yes, that's so cool.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, it's my first, my first rap album.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
I mean, very exciting.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
That is exciting.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
He was stoked because he loves the way your vibe singing.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
He's such a nice guy too. It's like really just
humble and just just a just a cool, cool vibe
to him.

Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah, he's sweet. We had fun, yeah, good, and we
talked about you.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Oh good. Yeah that's my well, my favorite. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
I think my song with him came out today.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Actually, oh you oh really did.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
A song with him too?

Speaker 3 (03:45):
You did?

Speaker 8 (03:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Well, suddenly I don't feel so special, you know, just
so so you know, yeah, okay, all right, he's great.
He's like he's he's again like one of those guys
just sort of an instant like my cousin Eric, just
sort of instantly you just kind of he's he's a
cool guy.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
You should give Eric Bobby's number and then maybe they
can start texting.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, yeah, it's good. There you go done. I do
it right now. But but you don't no fun, no phones,
no fun.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah see I thought you were making a joke. Okay,
you get it.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
I don't make jokes off the clock. You want to
try a song, sure, absolutely, I'm raspy as fuck. But
let's see what comes out?

Speaker 4 (04:30):
Should we try to? Let's try too sleepy people?

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Sure?

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Is that? Okay?

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Sure?

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Is this how we met?

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yes? This is how we met. It was this. This
was the first song.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Was this your first Standards album?

Speaker 3 (04:42):
It was?

Speaker 4 (04:43):
And you asked me to sing this song on it?

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Yeah, and I and I remember coming in, first of
all being shocked that you said yes, and then coming
in just realizing, okay, now I have to Like the
second I opened my mouth, she's gonna know I'm a fraud.
That was that was That was what was going through
my ad.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
Do you know how I knew you weren't a fraud?

Speaker 1 (05:01):
How because you wanted to come sing live together.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
Do you know how many people don't do that?

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah, even great people. I mean people are busy. I
get it. It's just easy.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
But it's it's I guess I sort of feel like
it's like when you're shooting a show. If you're shooting
one actor's stuff on one day and another actor stuff
on another gate, there's no there's no performance there. Yeah,
so yeah, there has to be well, I mean.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
Duh, but guess what a lot of people don't do
it that way.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Well, that's disappointing. I know, it's disappointing.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
I was stoked as soon as I heard that, especially.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, yeah, but that was fun. That was a that
was a while ago. That was like two thousand and ten,
Is that right?

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Probably?

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Probably? Wait, whendom was the roast of Donald Trump? Because
that's how I that's everything that's I feel like it
was before that.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
The only reason you invited me to that is because
I sang on your album and we had already met.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, so the roast of Trump was probably I mean
I had him been around twenty ten.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, so I we sang and then we hung and
we watched you roast Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Somebody watching this is going to look it up on
their phone and go like, oh no, it's two thousand
and five. Yeah, you fucking fossil.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Oh my god. No, we feel young. No, we're young.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, yeah, we haven't seen years. No, No, I and I,
as I said before, you look you have not. You
look exactly the same.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
Well you like, say it one more time, just in
case the cameras. Yeah, time please.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
You also look any different than when I saw you
in twenty ten. It's canny and creepy and bizarre. And
it's like maybe you're taking that Death Becomes Her drug
that they love that movie.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. I would watch
that again. Yeah, so yeah, all right, sure, I'm nervous.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Now why I don't know your idea. I know you've
done fifteen of these. I always get a little who's
the who's the worst guess?

Speaker 2 (06:56):
You know.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
I'm not going to ask you that.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Honestly. It's been so fun, yeah, so fun to do this.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, yeah, it seems it.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, be flat.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Here we are out of cigarettes? Did you I think
I fucked No.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
I think I was gonna let you come in, but
I forgot to set up the time, and then I
started doing the time.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
I just yeah, you want me to wait? Is it
like a like a four bar? No, you were right,
I didn't it was I tell you know you can
also do you want to you can throw me.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
A look or if I know, yeah, that's what I should.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Okay, perfect, let's do that.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
Does it feel too slower? Too fast?

Speaker 2 (07:51):
You don't know?

Speaker 3 (07:53):
Can roll with whatever? Man, I got my beverage farm.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
There how many beverages you have?

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Looks like there's three. There's the coffee, there's the water
I brought, and then there's a water you guys left
for me.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
No whiskey.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
So it's I feel like Santa coming down there. It's like,
look at all the bentages. Yeah, do you drink during
this stuff?

Speaker 4 (08:15):
If I didn't have to play piano, I would be down.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
It's tough, isn't it to play piano drunk? Is well,
I mean not drunk, but like it's it's.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
It's I don't want to mess it up?

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, because I already am like shaky on it and
then I have to and also like the singing.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
Yeah, it's a little like.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
It's a lot of it's a lot of coordination.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yea. By the end of the session, I could have
a drink.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
You were You were the one that told me at
one point that you like I asked you, like, do
you ever drink before a show, and you you said, yeah,
like sometimes if I have a little bit of whiskey,
sometimes it'll like loosen up my and I use that
psychologically as an excuse to have like five whiskeys before. Well, Nora, fine,

(08:57):
exactly what I'm doing right now, and and that just
shuts him up.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
Well, it's definitely balanced, right, it's a slip pretty slow, my.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Friend, It sure is.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah, sure, one or two.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
And then if you bring it on stage and you
keep doing it right, you're really screwed.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Right, Well, that's why there's rehab.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
Oh god, okay, it's going to be beautiful.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Sure, sure, okay.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
I just pictured my dad like being like.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
That's by the way that and you know how that
makes me feel like in the middle of this lovely mote,
you're picturing your dad, I'm.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
Featuring my dad that line, father didn't like you at all.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
I just picturing my dad, like watching Ted and and
and that line when when I first come on and
you said, hey, thanks for nine to eleven, and I
just pictured my my old Indian.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
Dad being like, I didn't go over well, I don't
think it went over right.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
And he might he probably didn't care that it was
a huge laugh, you know from the audience.

Speaker 4 (09:54):
I can't I think, Yeah, I'm pretty sure he saw
it and that's what he was like.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
I don't know about that line, because what isn't that
a line that was that was added after the fact.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Right, Yeah, you didn't say that line and we shot it. Yeah,
so when I saw it, I was like, oh yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
It's funny because like in my fucked up, like just
reverse engineered memory, I remember, God like Nora was such
a great sport forgetting that, like, oh yeah, we did
a test screening, maybe we need another joke here and.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
We add that line.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Yeah, I guess I should have called you it's okay,
but it would probably go over better now though.

Speaker 4 (10:28):
Yeah not, I don't think you could get away with that.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
No, No, it's it's I mean damage is done. Yeah,
sorry about that.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
No, no sorries.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
We are.

Speaker 9 (11:02):
Out of cigarettes, holding hands and yawning.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Look how late it gets.

Speaker 7 (11:11):
Two sleepy People.

Speaker 10 (11:14):
By danz ely Lie and Too Much in Love to
Say a night.

Speaker 7 (11:25):
Here we are in a cozy chair.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Picking on a wishbone from the frigid air.

Speaker 7 (11:36):
Two sleepy people were loving to say and too much
in love to break away.

Speaker 11 (11:48):
Do you remember the nights we used to linger in
the hall?

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Father didn't like you at all.

Speaker 10 (12:01):
Remember the reason why we married in the fall, to.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Remp this little nest and get a bit of rest.

Speaker 10 (12:14):
Where we are, we're just about the same.

Speaker 12 (12:21):
Foggy little fellow, drowsy little dad, two sleepy people by
Down's early life.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
And too much in love to.

Speaker 13 (12:35):
Say good night.

Speaker 11 (13:22):
Do you remember the nights we used to cuddle in
the car.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Watching every last fading star?

Speaker 10 (13:35):
Remember the doctor said your health was under par.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
And you, my little snooks, were ruining your looks.

Speaker 8 (13:47):
Where we are, keeping up the pace, letting each tomorrow,
slap us in the fae.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Two sleepy people.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
But.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
And too much in love to.

Speaker 13 (14:12):
Say good.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
Yeah, we got it.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah, it's all in there, man, okay, good, all in there.
Come on North Saint, my day job.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
I mean this is you know, well it is mine,
I guess.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah. You actually have.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
To sound I actually should sound.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
That you sound. You sound fabulous. It's just this this velvety, velvety,
gorgeous instrument. Yeah oh thanks, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Well I feel like my thing is basically singing and playing.
But when I mess up my playing, I sing and
I cover it.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
You know what I mean. Have always kind of been
like that.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
It's equilibrium.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, it works out. I love that line in this song.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Remember the doctor said your health was underpart and then
and you my little snooks were ruining your looks.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
It's like, come on, this is totally random, but I
had because I have my iPod on shuffle. iPod, that's wow,
you're old. Well whatever the fucking thing that's on your phone.
You know, your music system on your phone. It's on
shuffle in my car, okay, And one of your albums
comes up the other day, was that the Little Willie's
Oh wow, And there's a there's a song which I

(15:46):
thought you guys had written, and I'm almost more impressed
that it's something you dug up called foul Owl on
the prow. Yes, that's an old Quincy Jones tune, right,
and it's from a movie.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
It's from a movie or a TV.

Speaker 8 (15:57):
Show, so I think it's from a movie right in
the heat of it might be yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Yeah, but it's wearing an old cop movie. And it
popped up on because I collect like old soundtracks as well,
and I was like, wait a minute, that's what it's.
I love when people like dig for that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
That's just.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, that Richard, Richard Julian, my bandmate. It was his idea,
and I think he was also super excited at how
kind of obscure it was and where he found it.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Is he British Richard Julian. What a shame of that name,
Richard Julian.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
His real name is Richard Munzaleski.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
Okay, well there, yeah, I would do the same thing.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
Yeah, he's from Delaware.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Munzialeski. That's like a it's like a Woody Allen character.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
Yeah, yeah, you love I mean you I feel like
going through music for this.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
You have so many songs. You love all these songs.
You know, more old standard tunes than I've ever heard of.

Speaker 4 (16:57):
You probably know that more than most jazz musicians.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
It's it's well, probably not, but it's like it's fun
to dig. It's fun to dig for stuff. That's just
because you know, my favorite records that you know of,
you know, Sinatra and Nat King Call and Rosemary Clooney
and these these great vocalists, they all dug deep, like
their old songs from like the twenties and thirties that
were just kind of forgotten and they reinvented them, you know,

(17:21):
made them new again. And it's fun to dig for
that stuff because there's so much stuff that's never been touched.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, there really is, and and sometimes it disappears the
passage of time because nobody's reissued it or re thought
about it at all.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
And also the stuff from old musicals and movies.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, there's a lot of great tunes that. I mean,
it's a treasure trove out there that's, yeah, just untouched still.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
And it's funny how they they become a little dated.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Sometimes's certain little lines, yeah, yes, but that classic.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
Sort of feeling through them all. I mean, it's just
like the human condition. It's all about love and.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Heartbreak and yeah, really wives and lovers, those lyrics don't yeah,
don't sustain.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
Not always, but but it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I think of the songs that like are that are
the least palatable. Now that song might be that burke
backracks on Wives and Lovers.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
I actually don't know that.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, go go look it up, listen to the lyrics
and and see if there's any way to salvage that.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, there's some lyrics that just so you
can't say anyone my little Snooks.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, that's pretty benign.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
But oh it's benign.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
It's just kind of right, like the actress from Succession.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
Oh that's right, Yeah, Sarah Snook is that her name name.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah, I'm like really helping this conversation, aren't I like
I'm really taking it to some interesting time.

Speaker 13 (18:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:54):
No, it's all good.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
This is why I'm alone so much.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
You're not alone so much, You're totally busy always that. Oh,
actually that song is a Hogey Carmichael Frank Lesser song people. Yeah,
I think so. I love Hogy Carmichael song.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
He's my one of my favorites.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
He's got a really interesting just natural quality to his voice.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
Oh yeah, he sang a lot of them. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Did you ever see him on the Flintstones. No, yeah,
he sings that song.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
But dad but dab Yeah, but dab dab dab. I
didn't know that Carmichael.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
Okay, I feel like you're like a wealth of knowledge.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
I don't know how they like, because I know after
they tweaked his name, like it's probably like Stony Carmichael. Yeah,
I'm not sure. I don't know exactly what Michael. Yeah,
you go wow, damn write that down. Yeah, yeah, but
it's uh no, he was on the Flintstones, his his
his uh his library is really he wrote Skylark right, Oh.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
Yeah, he wrote The Nearness of You.

Speaker 13 (19:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
God, he wrote a lot of really good ones.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, like very unique, just unaffected emotional. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
I feel like he had he always had like an
emotional quality. Something about his songs feel more emotional to me.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, There's like certain singers that are just they have
like if you listen to like Betty Hutton m who
is a vocalist from the forties and fifties, and she's
just all like, you know, technically good but like all
just like she sounds like she's got a drink in
her hand but never misses a note, never misses a beat,
but almost sounds like she's like shouting to you, but

(20:33):
it's all very controlled. Yeah, there's some there's some cool,
cool folks out there.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
You ever heard of her?

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, Betty Hutton.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
You know a lot of stuff. You know a lot
of old stuff.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
A lot of stuff about a few things, and then
other things. I'm absolutely ignorant, Like, yeah, let's talk about
sports now, and.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
Well I don't know anything about sports, but I do
know that.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
I think, yeah, I've been making that mistake for years
though people say, Patrick ewreing, oh, Dallas, I'm sure a
lot of people make that.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
You know what, I'm probably wrong, and I'm just so
confident that I'm right that you believe me.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
No, you're right, you're correct.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
Now I'm second guessing it.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
You're right, you're right about Patrick.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
Do you ever sing any Gershwin tunes?

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (21:18):
What's your favorite Gershwin tune?

Speaker 3 (21:21):
I like loves Here to Stay? That's a great Oh.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
I have a recording of me from high school doing that, yes,
and scat singing scatsing?

Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yes, Oh that takes that takes some courage.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
Oh I stopped after high school. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It
wasn't great at it.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
It's like, can you even can you still scat with?
People still sit still for scatting, there's still people who
still do it.

Speaker 4 (21:42):
I don't. There are people who still doing it and
are really good at it.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
It's just like one of those things you know where
it's like it's hard to pull it off, right.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Scatting is a is a it's like scootly boot and
and for those.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Folks, yeah, it's it's unfortunate that the term for scat
also describes animal poop.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
But oh, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
Yeah, I don't like that.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
No, no, that's not fair. Only in the academic community, though,
that's true. I've never heard like a like a layman's
tru here's the term. Oh I have to go scat?

Speaker 4 (22:15):
Yeah gat?

Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (22:18):
No, no, that's like biologists use that. You never collected
the animal's scat for study.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
Yeah, it's all like kids in the park. Oh there's
some dog scat.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
No, no, never heard it.

Speaker 7 (22:31):
This song you did?

Speaker 4 (22:32):
You put out an album last year?

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yes, the sky I just yelled, why bark that out?

Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's okay, they're going.

Speaker 13 (22:39):
To mix it.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
God, that was so just need Did we hit the needle?
Did it go into the red?

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Did you hit the needle?

Speaker 4 (22:46):
It's okay?

Speaker 5 (22:48):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (22:48):
This?

Speaker 3 (22:49):
Uh wait, which one are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (22:50):
Blue Skies?

Speaker 6 (22:51):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (22:52):
Blue Skies?

Speaker 4 (22:52):
Yes, you did this song recently? Yes, I did Irving Berlin,
moving Berlin beat. That another great. I have a frog
in my well. I'm not going to I don't have
to sing on this one.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
I am too. I have a whole swamp in my
throat actually not just a frog. Yeah, how fast or
how slow.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
I want you want to ping pong this?

Speaker 4 (23:18):
You want me to sing?

Speaker 13 (23:19):
So all right?

Speaker 4 (23:22):
I can phrase around it. Just look at me.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah, you don't have to.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
It's like I'd love to.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Blue sky smiling at me, nothing but blue sky? Do
I see.

Speaker 7 (23:56):
Blue bird singing a song? Nothing but blue all day long?

Speaker 14 (24:09):
Never saw the sun shining so bright, Never saw things looking.

Speaker 7 (24:15):
So right, noticing the days high by when you're by,
how they fly.

Speaker 15 (24:24):
Blue days, all of them gone nothing but blue sky.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
From no on.

Speaker 14 (25:05):
Never saw the sun shining so bright, Never saw things going.

Speaker 10 (25:10):
So right, You're not to sing the days time by,
when you're in love by, how they flowers?

Speaker 13 (25:19):
Blue day, blue days.

Speaker 8 (25:21):
All of them gone.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Nothing but blues sky from none, all blue skins.

Speaker 7 (25:36):
Smiling in me, nothing but blue skies.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Do see blue bird singing a song? Nothing but blue
bird from now, blue sky smiling at me, nothing but

(26:36):
blue scar.

Speaker 13 (26:41):
Do I.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
See?

Speaker 4 (26:53):
That was the weirdest, funnest version of.

Speaker 13 (26:57):
God.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
I feel like I'm like sound like Tara Reid after
a night of drinking. You can bleep that out, you
can bleep out her name.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
That's he's like fifteen years ago, right, No, because.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
It's probably way better now.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
That was a fun version. I love this song.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, this is this is uh, it's funny. This was
This was one of the more Most of the stuff
that I do is so goddamn obscure.

Speaker 7 (27:28):
It really is.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
And that's why I picked this one.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yeah, people might know.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
It well also I know it. I didn't want to
mess up a song. I didn't know that well.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
You know some pretty deep cuts too, though, like you
pretty deep. I do it all owl on the prowl
Jesus Christ, like I.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Said, that was Richard's pick, But I do it. I don't.
I don't.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
I don't seek deep cuts out as much as I
just you know, if I stumble upon him, I'm excited.
I feel like you you're like a research machine or
something I don't know, or you just you just listen
to a lot of old stuff I do.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, it's part of it is that it's fun, and
part of it is that I can't think of any
good reason to sing. You know, Lady is a tramp like,
I'm not gonna I'm just not gonna. The The iconic
version has been done. I hate that word, and I
just used it.

Speaker 4 (28:18):
Iconic iconic.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, I'm so say, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
What, you could start using it and pronounce it differently iconic. Yeah,
you could just see the iconic version has already been
done to.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
See what people do.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
It sounds like like a Canadian tribe hit her in
the Latin of the iconic.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
Also, the lady is a tramp. Can you explain that
lyric to me?

Speaker 3 (28:37):
No, because it doesn't the lyrics don't. I have never
been able to figure out those lyrics. The lady is
a tramp, and yet all the lyrics are about she's
actually has pretty refined tastes.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
But what does that mean then, Like how are they
using that lyric, that word the tramp?

Speaker 3 (28:52):
I don't know, like probably not in the way that
we think.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, not back then does she have a stamp you think?

Speaker 3 (29:00):
I don't think character and just above her, just above
her fanny.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Well, it is hard to pick songs from this era
actually for that reason, Yeah, because so many have been
done so famously.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, it's it's but there's so many out there that
just haven't been touched that are you know, you can
make your you can make the definitive version. It's still
hanging out there. Yeah, that was what was cool about that.
This is the third time I brought up foul Owl
on the prowl.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
Everybody go check it out.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
It's like, that's not that's not a like that was
a that was a find.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
Yeah. Also, just Quincy Jones is cool. It's cool that
we did it. Yeah, he's on a country record.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
He's just a genius.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
He is.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
It's just when you look at that guy's library, from
arrangements to film scores to his career as a producer, Like,
it's just it's kind of incredible.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
He actually wrote a book recently. It's pretty good. It's
like a it's one of those books that's short and
easy to read, and it's sort of like a manual
to life right a little bit, you know, like he's
telling his story a little but it's also giving a
lot of good advice.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
Yeah, so it's kind of a cool read. I can't
remember the name of it.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Right now, but I remember, yeah, I remember reading. But
I might have ordered on Amazon.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
But did you read it? No, did you open the package?

Speaker 3 (30:20):
I think I did open the package. And I order
a lot of books and when I set them aside,
I'll get to that.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
You don't read a kindle like I don't reader.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
I don't. I can't.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
You're too old school.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, I like to like the feel of paper.

Speaker 4 (30:33):
Do you listen a lot of vinyl? I, you know,
it's funny.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
Just recently, I don't love the set, Like, I don't
necessarily get the whole Oh my god, vinyl sounds so
much better.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
AI, it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
It doesn't sound better to me. I just love to
watch the damn thing spinning. Yeah, Like, I'm so fascinated
by the technology that this little needle is rubbing against
this vinyl and the sound is coming out. Yeah, yeah,
she did, but it's yet. Just recently, I bought a
bunch of records just in the past few weeks, and
I haven't done so in.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
Years, and it's kind of making a comeback.

Speaker 13 (31:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
But also, you don't get that it sounds better. Maybe
you don't have the right vinyl setup. Do you have
like a tube thing and you know you must have
great speakers?

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (31:18):
I have a really really I mean, this record player
looks like a Rube Goldberg device, Like it's a real
gorgeous thing. It's just, you know, it's the the fullness
isn't always yeah, you know, it's just it's it's a
it's an old technology.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
It is well, I mean, it should be fuller. Maybe
you have it. I'm like, let me come.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Fix your like like if I if I listen to say,
you know, like okay, let's say I'm listening to like
the Star Wars soundtrack on an LP as opposed to
you know, a digital download. The digital download is going
to sound like the orchestra is right there and it's
present and the and the vinyl sounds great.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
It's just I think the thing is it's supposed to
sound like warmer and fatter, yeah, a little bit, and.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
The digital stuff has a little.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Bit of a sheen on it, this kind of well,
maybe my record player is a piece of shit.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Maybe your record player is amazing and it's going through
some like lay mass digital converter that you don't know.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
Maybe maybe maybe that's yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
Are you technically savvy?

Speaker 13 (32:17):
No?

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Okay, not even a little all right, not even I
feel like there must be a way.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
To prove it to you.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
I believe you, believe me.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
It's it's but I know what you mean. Sometimes you
listen stuff digitally.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
It's Patrick Ewing. We're sitting here telling me this. I'd
be like you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
I'm inclined to believe you.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
I'm pretty sure you're right that it's the guy from Dallas.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
No, No, I don't know. I'm pretty sure I'm wrong,
Pretty sure I'm wrong.

Speaker 6 (32:42):
No.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
No, Patrick Ewing is the athlete, and j R. Ewing
and Bobby Ewing are are the TV characters. Okay, that's
pretty simple.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
And who's Pat Conway again? No, I'm I'm just going
and Conway Twitter?

Speaker 5 (32:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Yeah, yeah, and Twitter? And then Jeff Conaway was on Taxi.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
Are you still on Twitter?

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Unfortunately? Yes I am.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
Oh my god, I bet your fun on Twitter.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
You know I haven't. I haven't been on Twitter in
a minute.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
If I followed stuff on Twitter, I would follow you.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Yeah. I used to be really funny on Twitter, and
then Trump got elected and me, along with every other comedian,
just got all pissed and self righteous and oh wow, yeah,
it's it's probably time for me to leave Twitter.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Do you think that it's harder to make jokes now?
Or do you not give a crap? Are you grandfathered in?

Speaker 3 (33:33):
I'm grandfathered in a little bit.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
Okay, yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
I think.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
I've I've made enough of a public nuisance about the
fact that my politics are pretty left that that buys
you a little bit of comedy.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
It's funny, but.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
It depends. It's one thing for me to tweet something,
and it's one thing for me to tell a joke.
It's another thing for Stewie or Peter or Brian. Yeah,
to make it unfamily.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
Guy, that's true.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
Actually, that's still kind of a protected space because it
just it just is what it is.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
But how cool is that because it's kind of hard
for people now to navigate.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's yeah, it's I mean even that
shows it's a little more it's a little trickier than
it used to be, but it's it's not that much.
Like I don't really notice much of a difference, do you.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
I mean, you're pretty you have a lot of sienniority.
The show's been on for how long?

Speaker 3 (34:30):
Ah, it's nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
That's insane.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah, yeah, still just as good as as as ever.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
I mean, that's kind of that's insane.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
No, it's still it's still wonderful. Uh yeah, no, it's
it's it's a lot I never would have thought, ever
would have thought that's a wrong time.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
Yeah, wrong time.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
I mean, even though you know you have the seniority,
do you feel like, do people tell you that joke's
not kind of fly? Do you have people from the
network that like check your work or anything, or you just.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
Have free range?

Speaker 3 (35:00):
Yeah, No, there's there's the Broadcast Standards Department that that
will tell you. But they're even they're they're pretty cool.
I mean, that's those are that's a that's an office
that will their job is to make sure nothing too
offensive gets on the air. And I'm gonna say, like
I got I got a lot of a lot of
criticisms of of Fox as a company, but that department

(35:20):
is a pretty cool that's great. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
What what year did your.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
First record come out?

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Two thousand and two?

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, so so family Guys been on roughly. That's kind
of round when we started. Yeah, that's around when we
started that.

Speaker 4 (35:36):
That's just insane to me. I mean, I feel like
I'm twenty five still, I don't I.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Don't mean too Yeah, it's kind of nuts.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
It's totally nuts.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Yeah, something's happened.

Speaker 4 (35:45):
Yeah, but I heard you're going to reboot Ted, Yes,
going to be on TV.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yes, what the heck eight episode okay, yeah, but that's awesome. Yeah,
an eight episode run.

Speaker 4 (35:57):
We'll see on what network?

Speaker 3 (35:59):
On Peacock.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
Poppycock right explained.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Peacock's a streaming service that as of now exists. I
don't know when this airs, but you know, as of
as of this taping, Peacock it exists, is a streaming
service that exists.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
I believe that's where you can watch The Office.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Now, you can watch the Office there, you can watch
Law and Order. Yeah, okay, all on Peacock. But but yeah, yeah,
we we Yeah, we'll probably use some some version of
your tune so you'll get some you'll get some fucking
dough out of this.

Speaker 4 (36:37):
I didn't write it. You get some you wrote, Yeah,
I don't. Well that's fine. Yeah, that's why I was asking.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yes, I figured that's where the right, that's I knew.
That's why I just just the elephant in the room.
I'll just say, yes, it's you'll we'll work it out,
the lawyers, the agents will work it out. It'll all
be fine.

Speaker 4 (36:57):
But so you're gonna you're gonna do a TV an
eight episode thing.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah, yeah, we shot it already with the.

Speaker 4 (37:03):
Same like Mark and prequel it's a prequel.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
Takes place in nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 4 (37:08):
What, Yeah, the music's gonna be jamming. That's amazing, is
that sure?

Speaker 3 (37:13):
That's like the early nineties, is yeah?

Speaker 4 (37:15):
That's my Yeah. I was like, yeah, I was born
in seventy ninees, early nineties.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Right, right, So that's your I have like this very
unpopular opinion you're gonna want to kick me out of
your studio that the nineties might be the worst era
for music in the history of pop. I mean, you
can throw that water in my face.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
No, no, no, I don't necessarily disagree with that, but
but there's still some great stuff.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
Sure, sure for pop.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
Yeah, you're not talking about like hip hop.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
Well, like the whole brunge thing where it's like, hey,
we know three chords, let's make a billion dollars.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
Are you eight hundred and fifty seven years old? Fucking
I swear to god? Absolutely, you look young.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Where are the Flukees?

Speaker 4 (37:55):
But you're talking like an old man. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
But there's a complexity to like, I mean, you listen
to your stuff, it's like there's a there's a there's
a sense that Okay, there's a real musicianship, there's an
understanding of music.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Theory and all that.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
You like my stuff because I love the old stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
Well, yeah, but it's but it's but you're not like
it's because I I it's I can't pick out Oh
this is how she did this. She did this, and
then she went to there, and then she went back
to there, and that's wow. It's like you're writing songs.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
I mean, in terms of the nineties, it holds a
special place in my heart.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, but I will say it's like kind of a
it was kind of a weird middle area of the eighties.
Production was so insanely cool and weird, and then the
nineties got kind of like folked out, but then still
had really heavy production, which feels weird on folky music
to me sometimes.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
But now when I.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Hear it, it's nostalgic. But I think at the time
I didn't always understand that aspect of it.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Oh That's how I feel about a lot of eighties music.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
Is that it's it's, Oh, you don't like the eighties either.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
Well, I I it's strange because there's things I love,
Like there's a lot of music that I love from
the eighties, but I I'm very aware that it's because
oh I associate this with my child.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Nostalgic for this, this, This reminds me of this, This
reminds me of this. I have like a certain box
for that stuff, and then another box for stuff that.
Oh that's just great music, and oftentimes there is no
association for my life. It's just whoa, that's crazy.

Speaker 4 (39:22):
Yeah, so you're you're an old you're an old man.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
Who's like, Yeah, you have a refined taste.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
That's all I wanted to hear. That's all anybody wants
to hear. Wow, you have really good taste in music.
Who doesn't love hearing that?

Speaker 4 (39:39):
Let's do Whip It by Divo?

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Is that what that is?

Speaker 13 (39:43):
I know at all?

Speaker 3 (39:48):
That's that? That's uh say it's your birthday? Right? That
what that is?

Speaker 13 (39:56):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (39:56):
That's pretty woman.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
Oh yeah, Now I try to say whip it by
Who's the old? I try to play with it by
Deevo devoted to play a Roy Orbison strong and.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yeah that's fine. Fine, he's not here. Oh my god,
he can't hurt us.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Wait, so the Ted when we shot ted in Boston.
That's probably one of the funnest like things that's ever
happened to me. I don't know if I've ever told
you this, because we we hung out for a few
years and then I had kids and I disappeared and like,
I haven't seen you in ten years. Yeah, for a
long time and still today, but definitely for like a

(40:32):
good eight year period, Ted was all I got recognized for.
Like I've gone so many years sort of flying under
the radar and people don't recognize me that much, and
and all of a sudden, people recognize me for Ted
because it.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
Was such a huge movie and that's so crazy. And
then I would be playing shows.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
That doesn't make sense because you have like an arm
load of Grammys.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
No, but I'm you know, I'm I'm kind of I'm
not I'm not a huge superstar, you know, I'm like,
I don't know, man.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
I I the the the half the cast of Ted
was was very, very excited that we might might be
revisiting this tune.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
The other half like, who's this?

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Everybody knows you?

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
It was so fun and and it was at the
Hatshell too, right, and we.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
All over Boston. Yeah, and I couldn't believe it. They
were like it looked like five thousand people out there
for the shoot.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
Yeah, it was like eight probably, Yeah, I don't have
but they were there. They were They came out just
because we said, like, hey, Nora Jones going to be
doing yeah, and we thought we were going to have
to do that that tiling where like you you shoot
a certain number of number of crowd people and then
you kind of shake rubber stamp them into the rest
of the space. And we didn't have to do any
of that.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Really.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
They all showed up.

Speaker 15 (41:47):
Oh my gosh, that all night.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah, it was like all night and all night I remember,
I was really tired.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
And then it was so surreal for me.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
You're playing Come Away with Me over and over again,
and they were there. They were there for all of it.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
It was so fun. And then Mark Wahlberg, it was
so fun to meet him, I mean talk about hello
nineties Hello.

Speaker 5 (42:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
I love that. Yeah, I love that I got to
meet Mark.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Yeah, and you even there was even a take to
where I think, as you guys are passing right, you
gave him a little ass grab I did you did?

Speaker 4 (42:18):
I did my own village?

Speaker 13 (42:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Yeah, that was a bit of improv, but you put
it in Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
Yeah, putting in the cut.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Yeah, that was.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
I don't know if people know that that was. That
was just a spur of the moment.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Am I going to get canceled?

Speaker 5 (42:30):
No?

Speaker 3 (42:31):
Come on, I feel like he loved it. He loved it.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (42:36):
Well, it was pretty funny. Oh my god. I was like,
I was like a teenager.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
It was just yeah, that was.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
That was a I couldn't help myself.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
That was. That was a lot of like.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
That was.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
I remember that movie being a lot of guessing, having
no idea really what I was doing.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
That was your first movie, right that you directed. Yeah,
but you also wrote it and everything.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
Yeah, with two writers from Family Guy and I. But
I remember like whispering to my DP, to my director photography, like, so,
you're gonna have to help me out here, I don't
really know what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Oh that's right.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
But I remember everybody being so happy to be working
with you.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
I remember this.

Speaker 4 (43:16):
I remember the crew and.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
A bunch of the cast were telling me how how
sweet you were and kind and how like it was
your first time but you were super open and just everybody.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Loved working Oh that's nice, that's nice. Yeah, it's it's yeah.
I mean I had I Yeah, I needed a lot
of help.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
Yeah, so you had to be nice.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
I had to be nice. Yeah, you gotta be nice
when you don't know what you're doing. But it's it's yeah,
that was a that was a lot of And I
remember that Bride'smaids came out while we were shooting. Oh yeah,
and I and I saw that movie and I was like,
this is hilarious. Oh shit, it's a huge hit. Our
movie's gonna suck. Why am I doing this? Oh yeah,

(43:57):
just think yeah, just completely self con just like I'm
just what am I doing? This is just gonna back.
I should go back to family guy. But it worked.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
What a leap though, Like it worked well, you'd already
you're already halfway through production those you can't stop.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
We got you gotta finish, gotta finish.

Speaker 4 (44:13):
But that's great.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Don't you love those moments in life where you're you're
halfway through the jump.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
And you're like, oh, crape, Oh yeah, I feel like that.
I feel like I'm maybe at that point in my
career overall.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
Yeah, but that's pasfway through and it's like, oh no,
you're pushing yourself.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
And I think that's like the most. That's when you
have the most fun, because otherwise you're going to be
bored just doing the same thing.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Yeah, you you, you have to do what makes your
days seem fun. I I can't recall a point when
I've ever said, you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna
win an award with this. Oh yeah, it's more what
sounds like, it's going to be fun for me to
get up in the morning and go off to shoot.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
Yeah, that's why I'm doing this.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah, it's fun with people. Yeah, this seems like the
kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
You know.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
I did Kevin Hart's show, and it's the same thing
for him that it's just fun for him, it's.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Fun, and it's just it's actually really fun to play
music with people and you never know what's gonna happen, and.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Yeah, yeah, be perfect and yeah, it's it's it's well,
it's it's working. I'm still here.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
I still here. You haven't bailed on me. I was
thinking maybe we could try to do well, we'll do
the Ted song. I want to do the Ted song. Sure,
but I kinda yeah, let's do it. Let's do it now,
let's try it. Yeah, let's try it. Because we talked
about it. You wrote this with.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Walter Walter Murphy. Yeah, Walter Murphy of a fifth of
Beethoven fame, what which he hates? Fifth of Beethoven. I
don't know that Saturday Night Fever, but no, no, no,
do you.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
He played that?

Speaker 3 (46:02):
That was his hit in the seventies.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
That's hit.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, Walter Murphy, he
doesn't like, he doesn't. He's real. I think his I
think his grammy is in his It's either his grammy
or his gold record is in his bathroom. If you
go to use his bathroom, it's like that's where all
the memorabilia is. And he's like, because he's a serious composer.

Speaker 4 (46:22):
Yeah, and he sounds yeah, And I think he's like
just he's.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Like, oh, whatever, man, whatever this is. Yeah, yeah, I
did that. It's a long time ago.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
That's pretty funny.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
It's like it's a big hit. People loved it.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
I didn't know that. Yeah, oh my god, you asked
me to sing this at the Oscars. That's the only
time I've ever.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
Been to the that's right, and you right, Yeah, you
sang it at the Oscars.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if I did a good job.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
You did a great job. But I mean we didn't win,
so whatever. But but you know, he still did a
good job.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
It wasn't my fault.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
That was pretty cool, though, it's for you know, for me,
it's Hey, here's Norah Jones singing a song for our
movie at the Oscars. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Yeah, but you were hosting, so you must have been
like you couldn't even appreciate anything.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
You probably just as stressed.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
I was pretty by that point in the show. I
was you were, Yeah, I had. I had about three
three drinks before I even got on stage. Oh my god,
live TV. Yeah, forget it doing that? Sobers's crazy. It does?
It does? Yeah, it was the dance, the dancing. It's like,
I cannot wait.

Speaker 4 (47:28):
You did dancing in the opening act.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
Yes, and I'm not a dancer.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
So you thought getting drunk would like help you dance better? Yeah, yeah,
I guess it does.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
But I was just thinking.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
You just said that, like it's a thought no one's
ever had. You thought getting drunk would help you dance better?

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Yeah, to me, drunk makes you dance better on the
dance floor, But doing choreography, I don't know about that.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
I just I figured it was going to go south somehow,
and I didn't want to have my wits about me
when it did. I wanted to be a little toasty
when when I ruined everything, you.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
Did great though, Yeah it's it's fun. Did you do
it again after that?

Speaker 3 (48:05):
I didn't. I didn't they know. They asked me back
the following year. Make that clear, Yes, I do want
to make that clear. I was asked back and I
was shooting my my little western oh yeah point, and
I was, and I was deep into it and I
and I almost I came close to saying yes, and
then I realized I would only be saying yes to

(48:26):
kind of show up some of the critics who, you know,
the distractors. And I'm like, that's not going to work.
Three months out of spite, no.

Speaker 4 (48:38):
You say that, Like I remember my first album was
full of ballads, and you know, everyone's like, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Amazing or oh god, it's so boring. And so for
a long time I was like, I'm not boring.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
I'm going to do like something really fast, and like
what am I doing?

Speaker 7 (48:54):
I just do what I want?

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's got It's
like you're you're. I mean it's got to be cool, though,
to have a repertoire of songs that you've written that
are now I mean, what it's like going on two
decades that are still their their standards, their modern standards.

Speaker 4 (49:13):
Well, pretty cool. That first album. I didn't write a
lot of songs. I wrote two songs. I wrote come
Away with Me, but I didn't write don't know why.
My friend Jesse Harris wrote it.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
But but come Away with Me is I mean, it's
just that's that's still used it we did. Yeah, Yeah,
that ain't easy.

Speaker 4 (49:28):
It makes me happy.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
That ain't easy to create something like that that has
staying power.

Speaker 4 (49:35):
This life, This life is crazy.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
Yeah, or you're very good, Nora.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
I'm as my daughter says, my six year old middle
really middle Oscar Howard Day's cool?

Speaker 7 (49:48):
Is middle?

Speaker 4 (49:49):
How's your how's your pizza?

Speaker 13 (49:51):
God?

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Just middle God a negative energy that it's.

Speaker 4 (49:56):
Very funny to me. Okay, yes that's how I was
to really.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
Yeah, I'll ask Ron, Yeah, yeah, Ron, I'll tell you.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
I moved it up a step so we do it.
Sure it was actually kind of low for me anyway. Yeah, yeah, okay, good,
which I remember?

Speaker 4 (50:18):
Now you should have said something, well, you know you'd
already recorded it with a full orchestra.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Oh ship, Yeah, there's that.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
It's all good. It worked out.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
How do you want to do this?

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Let's do Let me start it and you take the
second verse and then I'll do the bridge.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
Like like split it up.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
This should be mostly you because this is your this
is your you know. Yeah, but I'll jump in on
the second verse.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Yeah, and then.

Speaker 4 (50:44):
Maybe do the let me take the whole cour Well, no,
and you're.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Okay with that? How did you come to be stuck
with a bum like?

Speaker 4 (50:53):
Yeah, I know that can not play on that part.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Okay, okay, okay, I remember getting shipped for that.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
For me, Yeah, it's like a tongue twist. It's like
it's doctor Zeus fast or something. So how do you
come to be stuck with a Bama like me?

Speaker 2 (51:05):
There you go?

Speaker 4 (51:05):
Yeah, No, I practiced.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Oh you're good. Where did you When did you take
When did you start studying piano?

Speaker 4 (51:12):
I was like seven, Oh oh yeah, that's why. Well,
that's why I suck, That's why you're good.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
No, well, I played classical piano until I was sixth grade.
Oh my mom said I had to take five years
before I could quit, because as soon as we started,
I don't want to practice.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
And did you stick with it after the five years
or did.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
You quit after the five years?

Speaker 13 (51:32):
On the dot?

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Oh, I know, I had a very nice teacher. I
was just like, I don't want to I don't know,
and then she took me to some big band concert. Yeah,
and uh, I got into jazz. And then she found
this teacher in Dallas named Julie Bank, who is this
super cool hippie jazz piano player, and she taught me.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
Then I was hooked.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah. Yeah, so you picked it up again, It's like now, yeah, yeah,
I picked it up.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
I started playing saxophone for a while. Oh really yeah, for.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
Like a couple of years, and you probably retained and
not of your what you had learned as a kid.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
That your yeah, you're yeah, I think her plan Mark.

Speaker 13 (52:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
Yeah, like I had enough foundation to where I was great.
Continue it's great. Did you ever play an instrument?

Speaker 3 (52:11):
I played? You know, I took piano for a number
of years when I was a kid, and then uh
quit and then started up again when I first came
out to LA and just kind of taught myself to
just play the stuff that I wanted to learn. So,
like my site reading is terrible. I don't really have
an understanding of you know, music theory when it comes

(52:32):
to chord changes and whatnot. But if I, you know,
give me a week and there's a piece of music
that I like, I can usually you know, learn it
well enough to pretend like I can play better than
I can.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
But do you ever sit down to write music? Can
you pick stuff out to write? Or do you just
hear stuff in your head?

Speaker 3 (52:47):
In in a rudimentary way, not like you're doing.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
Not like no, but you know you can pick stuff out?
Or do you just hear the music in your head?
Kind of?

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Yeah, I mean a little more, a little more along
those lines.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
Played the trombone in high school?

Speaker 13 (53:03):
Oh my god? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (53:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (53:05):
Were you a marching band? I was me too on saxophone.
I have a pretty great picture of me in my outfit.
I'd like to see yours.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Marching band is such an interesting experience.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
It's a religion.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Yeah, well in Texas it's a religion because football is
a religion.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Because it's almost like it shouldn't work, but it does.
Like where you're really you're literally reading music. You can't
be looking where you're going. Yeah, and you're in this
big group. Nobody's looking where they're going because they're all
looking at their little sheet music. But yet it works.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
It works.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
It's definitely dangerous.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
It's super dangerous. Be some pile ups, I think. Oh
I bet.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
In Texas it was so hot we had to start
our rehearsals at six in the morning because by noon
we would have passed out because it's all outside.

Speaker 13 (53:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:46):
Yeah, yeah, And we did this one.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
I remember we did this marching band competition once and
it was one hundred and ten degrees and.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
We're all wearing like full wool suits. Oh yeah, and
my my section leader was like, just pretend to play.
If it's I think you're gonna pass up, go pass
out on the side, Go pass out on the side,
because nobody wanted to trample situation. It's pretty intense.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
Section leader, my section leader, what is that? I'm trying
to remember what that is.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
It's like the first chair of the alto saxophone section,
like the leader of each instrumental section.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Got it, Yeah, got it.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
He was a senior named Eric and had a crush
on him.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
Okaynna say that's like a you just you describe his
his voice as there's a there's a bit of a dictatorial.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
Kind of Yeah. I don't know why I could.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
That's not at all have a fucking lead sex.

Speaker 7 (54:45):
My words are lazy, my thoughts are hazy.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
But this is one thing. I'm sure.

Speaker 7 (54:53):
Everybody needs a best friend.

Speaker 4 (54:58):
I'm happy, I'm you.

Speaker 9 (55:02):
You got a double who brings your trouble and though
you're better without me, everybody needs the best friend.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
I'm happy, I'm yours.

Speaker 10 (55:18):
You could see decidedly that's your ten and I'm three.

Speaker 7 (55:26):
Boy you breed is what's your name? So how do
you come to be stuck with Obama?

Speaker 13 (55:31):
Like me?

Speaker 15 (55:34):
You got a headful love someone dreadful, But how that
someone adores?

Speaker 7 (55:42):
Everybody needs a best friend. I'm happy, I'm your.

Speaker 10 (56:20):
A fool could see decidedly that you'll retain, and I'm three.

Speaker 7 (56:29):
Royal breed is what you need? So how do you
come to me stugging with a bummer like me?

Speaker 14 (56:36):
You've got a headful, i'm someone dreadful, and you had
a last that someone adores you.

Speaker 13 (56:46):
Everybody needs.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
It's a best friend. I'm happy, I'm yours.

Speaker 7 (56:53):
I'm just a cloud.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
And I'll bring you.

Speaker 7 (56:59):
Down, but you just don't care because your best friend.

Speaker 4 (57:12):
It's me. It's me.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Yes, there you go.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Now if you would, now, if you had to sit down,
you had to play like some sort of like a
classical concerto. No you can't, you know really, I.

Speaker 4 (57:36):
Stopped doing classical when I was eleven, or.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Like you gotta go a little Oscar Peterson on.

Speaker 4 (57:42):
I don't have a lot of chops. Really, I can't
play very fast. I'm good at slow. I'm good at
like medium swinging kind of, but like, yeah, I never
had a lot of chops. I've always been a bad practicer.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
Yeah, I guess that's I guess you got a practice.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
Yeah, that's so. I told this story the other day.
But I took classical piano in.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
College because I was required to for a jazz degree,
and I failed my dreury and then I dropped out
of school because I couldn't face doing like eight semesters
of classical.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
Wow, I love listening to it.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Yeah, yes, I.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
Don't have the brain to stuck with it.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
Man, maybe you'd have done something with your life.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
I know, I could have been playing orchestra hall since Christ.
But you know, it's hard for me. I thought that
was cool though, right, I think that works?

Speaker 3 (58:32):
Yeah, beauty?

Speaker 4 (58:34):
Oh man? All right, so you're doing Orville?

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Yes, it's yeah, yeah, we're we're.

Speaker 4 (58:40):
How many seasons has it been.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
It's been three seasons, fingers crossed for a fourth.

Speaker 4 (58:47):
That's great.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
We're sort of awaiting the verdict.

Speaker 4 (58:50):
Wait what platform is that on now? Because everything it's
on Hulu?

Speaker 3 (58:53):
Okayah, Hulu and then there's a second run on Disney Plus,
but its first first run is on Hulu.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
Okay, cool, I have that?

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Who is great? Who is great? Who's who? I have
had a really good experience there.

Speaker 4 (59:04):
Did you watch pen fifteen? Yes, that's why I got Hulu.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Well, you know what's funny penft You know who that that?
Maya Erskin is love? Yeah that's Peterskin's Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Do you play with him all the time?

Speaker 4 (59:16):
Yeah? Yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
When we started Orville, Maya and the Pen fifteen bunch
sent us a lovely little basket of flowers and candy,
saying welcome to the Welcome to Hulu. Yeah. I love
that show. I love those guys.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
I could watch that show forever.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Yeah, yeah, the funniest great I mean coming from a
teenage girlhood and then it's even funnier.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
That's that's one of the like that's that's easily like
in the top five like single camera comedies out there
right now. Yeah, it's it's really they're super talented.

Speaker 4 (59:44):
I love them so much. That's so exciting. Though. When
I when I did the podcast with Logic Bobby Bobby Hall,
he was he's obsessed with the Orville.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Yeah, I know, yeah, it's kind of nice.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
It's awesome.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Yeah, because we're still kind of we fly into the
radar a little bit. But yeah, he has he has
a song on his record called Orville, which is kind
of cool.

Speaker 12 (01:00:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
Yeah, it's like, my god, somebody noticed.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
Yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Somebody noticed now that that was that was very that
was very uh gratifying. But yeah, yeah, we're we're plugging
away at that and hoping to do more.

Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
That's great. And when does the TED thing come out?

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
It looks like Ted is probably going to be fall
late summer or early fall of this year of twenty
twenty three.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
So does it get just like released all at once.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
We don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Most I hear I'm a big fan of like the
weekly release because you're an old man. Yeah, well it's
also but here's why too. It's like, it's because you
spend all this time on something and it's cool to
see how the audience reacts. Like with Orville, they released
him once a week, and you know, it took us
a good year and a half with the pandemic break

(01:00:59):
to do the third season, and you know, you get
to kind of see how the audience reacts to each show,
and it's the pleasure is spread out. When it's all
dumped out there at once, it's like they blow through
it in a weekend. They're like, all right, what else
you got? I'll be like, that's just that was like
eighteen months to do what you just blew through on
a Saturday.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
You're right, it must be so much more satisfying, so
much better.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Yeah, from most most writers and showrunners that I know
prefer to not have it dumped out in a heap
for that reason. But I think that maybe what they
do with Ted. I mean, certainly people like to binge.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
People like to binge, but does it make you think
differently about how you write the ending of each episode?

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
I mean, do you just have a cliffhanger to some degree,
I think, you know, if you have something that's a
meaningful piece of storytelling in one episode that you'd kind
of like people to digest for a little bit before
they move on to the next one, it's a little
it hurts that a little bit because it's like, oh,
bang bang bang bang bang, and then we'll No. Episode
four had a really cool little, you know, message that

(01:02:05):
that you may want to sleep on, yeah, but you
can't when you're blowing through them all.

Speaker 4 (01:02:10):
Yeah, and sometimes half asleep if you're n yeah oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's such a different way to watch stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's for those kinds
of shows. I mean, certainly people say, oh yeah, I
fall asleep to Family Guy every night compliment at this point,
it kind of is it is.

Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
Your initial reaction is like, wait a second.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
It's like they're either falling asleep or they're getting high.
That's when they have the show on.

Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
Well, if I had a dollar for every time somebody
told me that they put their baby to sleep to
come away with me. Yeah yeah, all right, great, yeah
sleeping babies. Yeah, it's to annoying, but yeah, but you know,
it's it's yeah, it's soothing.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
Yeah, that's that's I mean, how much soothing music? How
much beautiful music is out there now? I mean when
you think about it, like, how much of today's music,
like what the Grammys just on, how many of these
songs would you say, oh, what a what a beautiful
melodic piece of music?

Speaker 4 (01:03:06):
I think I think not much.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
I think the popular culture is all about quick and
like loud, and everybody's trying to be heard over everyone else.

Speaker 4 (01:03:16):
So it's it's kind of difficult.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Now, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
The the real the real uh.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
Giveaway to me is like when you buy like the
piano sheet music for a pop song. Oh yeah, if
it works, then I feel like, okay, there's some legitimacy,
there's a musical legitimacy. If it doesn't then maybe that's
and I'm excluding like rap and hip hop and what that.
But like things, things that are kind of meant to

(01:03:45):
be melodic or pop, that's that's when it. You know,
you see, the Emperor is close. The Emperor is closed,
that right, isn't that?

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
The yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Is nude And that's why this song doesn't work well.

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
I guess Adela does ballads.

Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
This is mean, this is me when I don't drink,
Like most of the time, I have alcohol for these
kinds of things, and today I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
Do we need them?

Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
No, No, I'm fine, but I'm it's interesting because I figured,
let's just try this once sober.

Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
I think we've drank enough together in the past. Yeah,
we have a rapport that's already drunk.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Right right right. Our brains are telling us, Oh, Nora,
me drunk.

Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
What's your drink these days?

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
You know, I'm sort of a martini guy these days. Vodka.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
That's not very old school.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
No, no, it's not.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
That's very modern of it.

Speaker 13 (01:04:41):
It is.

Speaker 4 (01:04:41):
Yeah, I'm a vodka martini.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
I can't have more than one anymore. It hits me
way harder.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Yeah, I I I empathize.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
We've already been there, are you? And to Tony Bennett?

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
I like Tony Bennett.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:59):
Who Who was your main who were like your main
singers you grew up? But was your mom the singer?

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
My dad?

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
I mean they both sang. My dad was the serious singer.

Speaker 13 (01:05:09):
He was.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
He was a serious folk singer. He was. He used
to perform with his acoustic guitar at a at a
couple of clubs and pubs rather in Massachusetts, the Grog,
the Thirsty Whale, these kinds of joints and yeah, and
my mother saw him came to she was out one

(01:05:29):
with a bunch of her friends at one of these pubs,
saw him performing and said, Hey, I want to meet
that guy and maybe you know, get him. They met,
and so she found out where he lived and went
to his apartment, knocked on his door and asked for
guitar lessons, and from there on out, she you know,

(01:05:52):
kind of I guess whatever it was she did to
make sure that they got married, that is so sweet? Yeah,
or or is it crazy? It's a little it's a
little predatory, right, my mom was a predator.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
Well, it depends on if he was into if he
wasn't into predatory.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
He was, he was into it, he was, he was yeah,
or he was just like so zonked out on pot
and LSD at that point that he was like, you
know what, this person's.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
Here, Why not I could see Ron doing some pot now.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):
Ye oh yeah, oh yeah, he's he's he's got a
couple of LSD stories that he's told us over the years.

Speaker 4 (01:06:25):
That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
But yeah, you know, he was at Woodstock he did
all he was he was my dad was it Woodstock?

Speaker 4 (01:06:32):
I mean he played, he played.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's a little different.

Speaker 4 (01:06:37):
Yeah, I just see how I just got.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
Yeah, yeah, that was that was wow.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
I just went up to you man, just got.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Chilly in here.

Speaker 13 (01:06:44):
That is cool.

Speaker 4 (01:06:45):
They were both at wood Starck.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
Yeah, it's yeah. My dad was probably watching your dad
playing and wondering where he where he was and why
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Great.

Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
Yeah, and so you guys just sang in the house.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
How did you do?

Speaker 3 (01:07:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:07:04):
And they loved these old songs as well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
They yeah, they know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
My parents were more they were more folk. They were
more into you know, like Peter, Paul and Mary.

Speaker 4 (01:07:15):
So where did this part come from?

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
It's it was because I loved I loved film scores,
a big film score nerd.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
And when I discovered, you know, the popular jazz vocalists
of the of the I mean certainly the forties, but
mainly the fifties and the early to mid sixties, that
was sort of the sweet spot, Like my God, like
this this is these singers that are singing to even
if you pull their voices out, these beautifully arranged orchestrations

(01:07:45):
that are that are like stories in and of themselves.
I mean those those Sinatra ballad albums like Only the
Lonely and We Small Hours and Where Are You and
and such, they're they're I mean these it's it's like
he's singing to a classical symphony. It's there.

Speaker 4 (01:08:02):
They're they are very beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
They're really extraordinary.

Speaker 4 (01:08:06):
You love orchestras I do, and big bands I do.

Speaker 13 (01:08:10):
I do.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
I'm yeah, you love having that And it's cool because
you know the way they used to record that stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:08:20):
They'd be in the room with the orchestra. Oh yeah,
guess who doesn't do that anymore except for you?

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Well, you must do it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
I never do it with big big No, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
I don't do stuff with large bodies of musicians. I
like intimate stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Oh yeah, I record live with the band, but I
don't ever use orchestras or big bands. I'm talking about
like right from the big band. You know, I feel
like you you all still do it like that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
I'm a masochist, but it's so fun that way. It's well,
it's you kind of have.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
To do it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
When it's when it's anything that's kind of roboto. When
it's when it's like if there's a it's if it's
a ballad that's kind of ebbs and flows tempo wise,
you just kind of have to do it. There's just
no other way around it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Yeah, but I feel like people don't do it that
way anymore, That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
I don't know. It's fun and I love being God,
It's like, why wouldn't you want to? It's like, what's
not to like being in a room with a huge ensemble.

Speaker 4 (01:09:12):
It must be so powerful feeling.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
It's it's it's uplifting as well.

Speaker 4 (01:09:18):
It's not. It's it's it's like it must feed you
to be good.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
It does, it does. Yeah, it's like working with like
a really great ensemble of actors. You just get it
just makes you better.

Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
It makes you better.

Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
Yeah yeah, Yeah, it's mess yeah, and it's and it's fun.
It's just there's a there's a magic to it that's
so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Yeah. I've never loved singing with a lot of instrument
always stripped things down because I feel like I like
sings more intimate for my voice.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
But even if, like I don't know, if you if
you sang with like just a you know, it's like
a You know, sometimes Nat King Cole would sing with
like piano and strings where there's no brass, no woodwinds,
it's just piano and and just a really.

Speaker 4 (01:09:54):
Mellow large like a quartet or something.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
Yeah, or even even a full string section that is
just playing softly and it's letting the vocal. Uh, you
know take that's always a nice see I've never done that. Yeah,
it might be cool with your voice.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
It's interesting. I just don't. I gravitate so far from
I like to strip everything away. That's so funny.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
I should try it, because all in how they play too.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Oh No, it's not about the musicians. I just I
always feel like I'm good. I always just like the
intimacy of it. But yeah, the orchestrations on your albums
are so like they go through so many different key changes.

Speaker 4 (01:10:32):
When I was trying to listen to one of these things,
I was like, what the hell keys the same, Such
a beautiful arrangement leading into the beginning of the song.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
This was Andrew Andrew Cotty which We'll be together again.

Speaker 4 (01:10:46):
Again right, Yeah, this is one of my favorite songs
from back in when I was a wee.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
Last little really was who was the was there a
vocalist that you particular. There are a lot of people
saw this song.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
I only know that Tony Bennan, Tony Bennan. I love
the Bill Evans version of this, and then I later
got got into that album he did with Tony Bennett.
So it's just Tony Bennett and Bill Evans accompanying him,
and it's a really beautiful album, and they crushed the song.

Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
It's just so pretty.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
Yeah, it's it's a nice tune.

Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
It's a very I feel like it's a very melancholy.

Speaker 3 (01:11:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
I love this lyric too.

Speaker 13 (01:11:25):
It's just so.

Speaker 4 (01:11:27):
It's so sad.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
Yeah. Yeah, it's some cool chord changes too.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
And it's like, you know, all those men went off
to war and they were all those war songs. You know,
we'll be together again, for all we know, we may
never meet again. Yeah, yeah, I just yeah, they always.

Speaker 4 (01:11:45):
Make me kind of emotional.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
Oh you have the you have the the verse?

Speaker 4 (01:11:49):
I do? I have the verse. I actually didn't know
the verse.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
I didn't either until we recorded this other was one
and then we dug up the sheet music and we sound,
oh there's a there's a verse that's really pretty.

Speaker 13 (01:12:04):
Hyah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
Here in our moment of darkness.

Speaker 3 (01:12:26):
Remember the sun has shown.

Speaker 5 (01:12:33):
Laugh and the world we'll laugh with you. Cry you cry, longe, no.

Speaker 13 (01:12:52):
Tears, no.

Speaker 8 (01:12:57):
Fear.

Speaker 15 (01:13:01):
Remember there's always tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
So what if we.

Speaker 3 (01:13:13):
Have to part?

Speaker 16 (01:13:18):
Will be twogether again, your key, You're a smile, our.

Speaker 14 (01:13:39):
Memorysile, treasure forever.

Speaker 13 (01:13:46):
So try.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Thinking with your heart will be to get again.

Speaker 15 (01:14:10):
Times when I know you'll be lonesome, and times when
I know you'll be sad. Don't let temptations surround you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
Don't let the blues make you bad.

Speaker 13 (01:14:43):
Some day.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Some ways we both have a lifetime before for parties
is not goodbye.

Speaker 13 (01:15:12):
Will be.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Together oh again?

Speaker 3 (01:15:38):
But the best I can do with my Donald Duck,
My Donald Duck vocal chords today. Great, it's a nice tune.

Speaker 4 (01:15:45):
I love that song very much.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
Yeah, it's good. It's good tune.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
It's emotional, Yeah it's.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
It's one of those songs you think, like, how what
what does it take? Like if you wanted to write
a song like this today? What's that X factor that's
just kind of of makes it sort of that makes
it kind of elusive. Like if I sat down to
try and write a tune like this, I would I
would be I would, I would walk away feeling inadequate.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
Well, I think the whole point to me is, I
think if you try to write a song like this,
you're going to miss.

Speaker 4 (01:16:20):
The heart of it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
But even if you're in like just a trashed emotional state,
I think you have to be Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:27):
Yeah, but maybe I'm wrong about that. I don't know.
This song just has so much heart.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:32):
I feel it must have been they must have been
longing for someone. Yeah right, yeah, no tears, no fears.
It's so sad. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
My grandfather gave me when he was live, gave me
his collection of World War two, had like a time
life collection of the great songs of World War two,
and and he said, this is not like the music
of today. This is these are real songs with real
emotion by people who have been hurt.

Speaker 4 (01:17:06):
Yeah, that's funny.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
And it's like and that with that dialect, it just
people who have been hurt.

Speaker 4 (01:17:15):
Is it a Boston Boston?

Speaker 3 (01:17:17):
Yeah, Newburyport, Massachusetts?

Speaker 4 (01:17:20):
Right. I wish I could hear you sing this song
with that accent.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
And you're in our moment of darkness, You're in a
moment of remember the sun is shown, no teas, no fears.

Speaker 4 (01:17:37):
No, I was so excited that you could do this.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
Yeah, this is this is I wish I'd been able
to do it the last time, but I'm glad I finally.

Speaker 4 (01:17:44):
No, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
I mean, it's like, you know, like I said, it's
sort of an open invite, so I just wanted to
check in and see if you were around.

Speaker 4 (01:17:52):
Yeah, while I'm here. Yeah, because I miss you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
I know, because it's been because it's been a hundred years.
I feel like though, when we do get together, it's like,
oh the time, just the year is just accordion. Yeah good, Yeah,
feel like No, it doesn't feel awkward, not at all. No,
maybe at first earlier today, right, that was super awkward
as we're just starting out and the cameras are rolling,
it's like, oh god. But now it's fine. No, it's okay.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
Thank you so much for doing this.

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
Yeah, No, this is great. I love you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
This is great.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
I love you too. Thanks for having me. Yeah, they
love you too.

Speaker 4 (01:18:29):
Tell him, I tell them all, I said, Hi.

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):
I will they're hold up there in Maine.

Speaker 4 (01:18:33):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:18:34):
Yeah, I'm just oh that was so fun.

Speaker 6 (01:18:42):
He's so funny and so sweet.

Speaker 4 (01:18:44):
God, it's true. Though, Also hanging out with him just
feels I mean, we're all friends. Yeah, so, and it's
crazy that we haven't seen him in so long. I know,
it felt so good to hang out and spend time.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
He's a busy, busy dude.

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
He is busy.

Speaker 6 (01:18:58):
I like what he said about how well he's always
just doing what makes him happy in the moment and
how I mean, I guess that's why he's always working
on different things and you know, trying new things. And
I guess that's how he stays busy and happy.

Speaker 4 (01:19:15):
Yeah, I mean, I can really keep it fresh, keep
it fresh. I can relate to that though.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
I mean, that's what that's what the goal is, if
you're lucky enough to do things that make you happy.

Speaker 4 (01:19:28):
In this episode, we talked about Quincy Jones.

Speaker 6 (01:19:31):
Oh yeah, and we couldn't remember the name of the
book in the moment, but it is twelve Notes on
Life and Creativity.

Speaker 11 (01:19:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
I highly recommend it. It's a really beautiful little life manual.
Quick correction from the episode from The Little Willies. Actually
it wasn't Richard Jillian who told us to.

Speaker 4 (01:19:48):
Do foul Ol on the Prowl.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
It was Jim camp Alongo the guitar player for the
Little Willies. So sorry I messed that up, Jim, but
it was just you know, on the fly. By the way,
how many times did I call him an old man?

Speaker 4 (01:20:01):
Several? And how many did you cut out of the
I didn't.

Speaker 6 (01:20:04):
I maybe twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
I remember at the end of the episode, I was like,
this is going so great, and then I called him
an old man one more time, and I was.

Speaker 4 (01:20:12):
Like, we're going to cut that one too many. We're
just having too much fun drawing the line.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
If you're curious about the songs from this episode, the
first song we did, it's called two Sleepy People. It
was written in nineteen thirty eight by Hogy Carmichael and
Frank Lesser. Blue Skies written by Irving Berlin in nineteen
twenty six. Everybody Needs a Best Friend and that's from
the movie Ted from twenty twelve, and the music of
that was written by Seth McFarlane and Walter Murphy. And

(01:20:41):
then the last song we did was We'll Be Together Again,
written in nineteen forty five by Carl T.

Speaker 4 (01:20:47):
Fisher and Frankie Lane.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
Seth has done albums with all these old standards on
him and the Ted song can be found on the
Ted soundtrack.

Speaker 4 (01:20:56):
I love that we did all these old songs. It
was so fun cause he's old man. He is so
young looking. I know, he always like, uh so young
and atteractive like.

Speaker 6 (01:21:06):
He looks exactly like twelve years ago, which is probably
exactly what he looked like ten years before that.

Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
I looked at old pictures of him and he looks
the same.

Speaker 6 (01:21:14):
Yeah, we looked at him real close, real up close.

Speaker 4 (01:21:16):
He's a great, great looking man. Anyway, thanks for listening.
We appreciate you. Have a good day.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
Tata.

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
I couldn't remember if it was Tatar Tod.

Speaker 6 (01:21:31):
I just kind of great, all right.

Speaker 4 (01:21:33):
I'm just playing long dude, weezy do do do doude.

Speaker 6 (01:21:39):
Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe to Norah Jones
as playing along wherever you get your podcasts so you
never miss a new episode.

Speaker 1 (01:21:49):
This episode was recorded at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, California,
by Clinton Wheelander, assisted by Zach Zadel, edited by Sarah Oda,
mixed by Jamie Landry.

Speaker 4 (01:22:01):
Additionally engineering by Greg Tobler.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
Artwork by Eliza Frye, Photography by Shervin Linez.

Speaker 4 (01:22:07):
Produced by Me and my Ota

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