Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Madeleine Peyroux

Transcript

Madeleine Peyroux · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Madeleine Peyroux is a jazz inspired singer songwriter who got
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: her start singing in street bands in Paris as a teenager.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety six, Atlantic Records released Madeline's debut album,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: where she covered tunes from the thirties and forties by
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: artists like Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday, and the later
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: she recorded songs by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. This year,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Madeleine Peyroux released Let's Walk, her first album of all
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: original songs, co written with her longtime touring guitar player
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: John Harrington. On today's episode, Madeleine and John play through
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: some songs for the new album, and Bruce Headlin talks
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: with them about their mutual creative process. Madeleine also remembers
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: her early days busking with a Bohemian ex pat named
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Dan William Fitzgerald who became her musical mentor, and she
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: explains how doctor Cornell West became her guiding light during
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: a recent bout of personal despair. This is broken record
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: liner notes for the Digital Age.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I'm justin Richmond. Here's Bruce Hedlm's conversation with Madeline Peru
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: and John Harrington. You've got this new album, Let's Walk,
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: which is very exciting. It's been what six seven years
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, since your last album. Now your last
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: album at the time, you said the question sort of
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: driving that album was where do you stand? What was
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: the question going into this album? What was animating you
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: going into the studio this time?
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: These songs are central to my experience in the middle
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: of COVID, facing issues, realities, or feeling the need to
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: be able to really get personal. And you know, I've
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: always tried to say and I thought I sounded flippant
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: in the past when I said everything is a little
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: bit political, and some people would say, no, not everything.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: We need to be able to get away from it,
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: and I'm like, yeah, of course we do. You know,
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: I was not ever civically engaged in my life to
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: a degree, So I suppose I was telling myself that
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: the act of you know, playing live music, the act
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: of sharing space, sharing vibrations in music is at least
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: when I was a street musician it felt political in
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: a way. But this time in twenty twenty that I
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: spent a lot of time forced to be alone with myself,
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: and I would have gone mad if it hadn't been
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: for John Harrington responding to my email saying, Okay, that's
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: an interesting idea. How about this? And we started collaborating.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: I think it was twenty twenty or maybe twenty twenty
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: one when we first started the throwing things back and forth.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: How did you know each other before? Then?
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: Well, we we've been playing music together. I pay him
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: to hang out with me.
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: I've been working for Maddie for at least fifteen years,
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: we think maybe more like seventeen years.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Okay, well that's why I thought. I was a little
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: surprised just in her band on the road when I
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: reached Oh okay, yeah, all right, so the relationship was
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: a little different then, is what you are?
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: Well, this is new for us, Yeah, to be songwriters,
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: especially writing all ten tunes on the record. That that
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: was new for Okay, for me with Maddie, Yeah, no,
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: I've for a while. So I was new for Mattie too.
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: She's she's had some you know, records where there have
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: been other authors, but never like an exclusive writing pair
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: for all of the tunes.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's true.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Well, absolute and your producer, when he heard the song
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: said no covers.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: Yes he did. We had a lunch one meeting with
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Elliott Shy and the three of us sat there and
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: I had put together a list that that I thought,
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: this will make sense, and we can revamp some older
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: stuff and let's then we'll get this record done sooner.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: And Elliott he said, you know, I like the songs
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: that you two wrote together, and so just do that.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Only songs by you.
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: He said. He said, no covers, and none of those
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: other songs, just the ones that you wrote with John.
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: And if there aren't enough, write some more, you.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: Know, Is that right?
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what he said.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: I looked at John and I just went, what.
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: What are we going to do?
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Are we going to do that? Well, you've you've
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: been writing for a long time, but you kind of
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: made your bones as an interpreter of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: one of my favorites, Joe Henry. So what was it
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: like to say, Okay, I'm ripping off that band aid?
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: There's no.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was excited to try it, but I
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: remember thinking, oh God, you know, what have we gotten
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: ourselves into?
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: It felt it felt daunting and overwhelming. I think at first,
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: looking back at it now, I mean it was. It
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: was a brilliant idea, I.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: Think, and it made this record.
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: The record coheres in spite of the sort of range
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: of you know, sort of heavy to light, you know,
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: sort of content, you know, and and different moods. It's
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: somehow coheres, which which I was concerned about, but glad
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: to find that that it does.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: I don't think it coheres in the traditional way at all.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: I don't think it really. I think it's really weird record.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: I remember when we were recording it, sitting in the
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: booth going what are we doing? This stuff is crazy?
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: But but it is. It just wanted to let it be,
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: I feel for me, these songs just came to us
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: in varying degrees. We worked at chiseling away at them,
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: but it's all a gift, and the mandate for me
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: was to make sure that it's something that I really
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: care about. Even the Mosquito song, Yeah, it's something I
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: really care about.
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: I was going to say that there are ways that
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: it coheres from me, and that's that's the one I
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: think that's the most critical. That these are the most
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: personal collection of songs I think that you've ever put
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: on a single record together. You know, and that's that's
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: a big part of it. But I think sonically, thanks
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: to Elliott, it coheres and thanks to the musicians being
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: all basically the same same team, guys who'd been on
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: the road with you and everybody who was in the
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: studio together. That's true background vocal section that was the
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: same on the what four or five songs that have backgrounds. Yeah,
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: And so sonically I think it holds up that way too.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: And I think mostly because you weren't going to put
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: a lyric on, you know, a word on this record
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: that you hadn't vetted very thoroughly, and and that didn't
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: ring true to you personally, And that's that coheres to
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: me in spite of the range of styles, which which
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: I understand is that's.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: What I'm talking about, you know, just like I don't
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: think that that a lot of producers would have let
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: us get away with doing it like that. I think
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: Elliott might be one of the few people that's truly
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: still very adventurous, beautiful thing.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that about him. Do you think another
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: producer might have said, Okay, but let's put on a
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: let's put on a letter co on, let's put on
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: let's put on something.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: I think that they would have wanted to rearrange the
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: songs to be more tame in their stylistic breadth and
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: and say, well, let's let's try to rain this into
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: sort of a little bit dumb down to be you know,
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: in a.
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: Way, maybe the songs musically are more similar than they are,
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: you know, far arranging. But you know, the other thing
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: is another producer, if he were functioning as a real
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: producer and wanting the cloud and the control, I mean,
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: we should remind ourselves that you and I and Elliott
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: were all sharing the producer role. And and for that reason,
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: I think Elliott was hanging back a little more than
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: a sort of producer producer who was the only producer
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: on the record would do. And so it was a
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: collaborative effort that way as well. And I think you know,
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: he liked that and wanted it that way. And he's
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: the kind of reticent guy until it's important to speak up,
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: and then he speaks. And that's that's that's one of the.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: Only things he said at that lunch was no covers, like.
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, it's he's he's got you know, strength, but
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: but he waits a long time and He only speaks
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: up when it when he knows it's important.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: In fact, he's sitting right here and he hasn't said
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: a word.
• 8:52
  Speaker 6: It's not.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Well, we're waiting for that. He'll he'll finish the episode.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: So how did you split up the producing duties? How
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: did that work?
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: Well, John did most of the work.
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: Well thing is a funny term, and there's so many
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: there's so much overlap nowadays in the way most people
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: put a record together. There's overlap between the songwriting, the arranging,
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: the producing, the engineering, the recording.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: So, John, you had made demos before we met with
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: Elliott Shiner, and we had made demos too, and then
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: I had added my vocals to them. But I think
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: you pretty much were the one that made those demos.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: You played everything we recorded. Anything that I recorded, I
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: came over to your place, and some.
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: We didn't have time to really demo, but we but.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Even Yeah, and then there was the one like the
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: title track, which you made the whole song and made
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: a demo so we could hear all these vocal parts,
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: all the harmonies, the type of bass treatment, the type
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: of treatment, and the energy. And some of these songs
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: were I mean could have just been scripted. Obviously, we
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: didn't do that to the guy who.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: They were pretty well thought before we got to this.
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: That's what we wanted to be that way.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: The title track, A couple of tracks have it. They've
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: got like a New Orleans feel to that.
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: That one certainly does.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you've got that kind of New Orleans organ
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: And a couple other songs. Was that deliberate? Was that?
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: Did that come from something?
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: Or I think Let's walk became a sort of the
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: drummer was playing that kind of beat. I don't know
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: if there was conceive of it that way really, but
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: I think I changed it a little bit.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: We tried it like that in rehearsal, and we sort
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: of liked that it felt a little more spirited and
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: not so sort of safe.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's a march, and what is more appropriate
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: to feeling like you're dancing while you're walking, you know,
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: feeling music and walking that's American? What's more American? Then? Yeah?
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: And I think the New Orleans, the New Orleans.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: It's a natural part of all of these musicians, you know,
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: sort of repertoire, you know, in terms of styles, you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: because it's music. We always we've all loved so much
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: for so.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Long, you know, and it's at the heart of what
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: do you think, because like to me, I have decided
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: that American music is one of the main important things
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: that we have to offer the world, and we don't
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: even know what we have. We don't necessarily recognize it
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: very well. We don't understand stylistically how much crossover there is,
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: how much like how blurry that is, and yet how
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: also steeped really in different like cultures that are identities.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: It is. At the same time, you don't think to
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: say I'm more country and I'm more bluegrass and I'm
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: more People still do that, which is so odd because
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: there is no those things were never separate.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: And musically well, you know, anytime money gets involved, you know,
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: the categorizations help sell it.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: So that's why they're yeah, but I'm trying to I'm
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: trying to step even further back. You know.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Now most people, of course think you're French right, you
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: are American right, But you did live in France and
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: that was your kind of musical education. Do you think
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: you have got that kind of outsider's view of American culture?
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Does that help?
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: It helps immensely There's several things about it. There's being
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: American in another country and realizing and listening to people
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: talk about del Vandos and you know, Kulan Zogong and
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: like who's cool and Zagong and who are Zabita's Who's
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: what is that? I've never heard of that band before?
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: Oh the Beatles? Oh okay okay. So like just like
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: realizing what people talk about, how people talk about America
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: that were my age at the time, when I was twelve,
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: thirteen or older, you know. And then secondly, what happened
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: when I became a teenagers I met American ex patriots
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: who I would have never met. That's something that Dan
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Fitzgerald said. He was from Kingston, New York, so upstate
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: New York, but he used to hang out in the
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Bowery and I used to take the train over to
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: Canal Street over and Broadway. I would have been in
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: New York City at the same time as him, but
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: I was a young, like maybe adolescent or teenage white
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: girl from South Brooklyn and he would have been a
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: middle aged black man from Kingston. We would have never
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: spoken to each other, even though we might have had
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: all of these cultural affinities. That were hard to find.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: But because we saw each other in Paris, we became,
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: you know, like family eventually, and of course it changed
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: my life to be there because of that. So it
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: was interesting. It's one thing to try. It's very hard
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: to try to understand another culture. I mean, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: I lived in France for a long time. My mother
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: has lived there ever since nineteen eighty seven. She's still
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: learning and we're still talking about attitudes and different types
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: of like sayings that you might have to describe something.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: And like just today she said, there's a French saying.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: Women talk about French men, they say, you know, they're
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: only interested until they have killed the beast. That's the
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: literal translation of they catch you a woman is the
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: wildness has to be beaten out of you. You have
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: to be tamed, I think, is what it's kind of saying.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: And then then they're interested and they'll move on to
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: other things.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: But I'll try I'll try that on my wife.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I don't suggest it, you see American.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: I'm not an American. She is an American, and don't
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: I don't think I would survive that conversation. I think
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: there would be some killing. But it wouldn't be her.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: So but we should back up because we haven't talked
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: about Dan. There's a song about him on this record.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Can you just back up and explain how you met
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: him in Paris and who he is.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: Daniel William Fitzgerald was born in nineteen thirty three in Kingston,
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: New York. Dan went to ministry school, he went to
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: law school. He became disillusioned by both of those things.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Joined the army in the fifties and that's what brought
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: him over to Europe. And then he just started going
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: back and forth and creating his life. And apparently in
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: nineteen seventy eight he was hanging out with some friends,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: some American friends he had met ex patriots in Paris
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: find each other right, and he said, I want to
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: go to JazzFest this year in New Orleans, and let's
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: start a band in order to go down there. Somehow
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: he knew all these old Bessie Smith and My Rainey songs,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: he knew them by heart. And there's a Ma Rainey
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: song called The Loss and Wandering Blues. And he started
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: a band called the Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: He made a washtub, he turned it into a washtub base.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: He painted it and he started this band. They went
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: around from that time on. They went to Europe, and
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: if there was an American who was going to wander
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: around Paris and they bumped into him, they would bump
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: into him on the street and they'd recognize him, and
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: then he'd make friends and we'd stay at somebody's house
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: that night. We'd go play near a restaurant. The restaurant
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: would come out and say, come inside and have a meal.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: You can hang out with us. And it was a
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: lifestyle that he created. I come along to Paris and
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: about twenty years later, eighty nine ninety, I was about fifteen,
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: joined a different street band that was in the same scene.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: At this point, you played ukulele or guitar or what
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: did you I had.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: A guitar, but I couldn't play any of the songs
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: that we were singing. You know. People said, oh, what
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: songs do you want to sing? I said, well, first
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: I was passing the hat for somebody, and then I
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: heard these guys singing and I said, you know, I
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: could probably do better than them. So I volunteered myself
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: as singing and they were like, oh, she wants to
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: sing a song. Okay, sure, what do you know? And
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: so it was Georgia in Summertime and that's it. And
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: then I thought, well, I know all these other songs, but.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: I your mother taught you songs? Is that?
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah? We used to play ukuleles together, and she sang
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: all the time. She sang every morning, she sang all
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: over the house. And it was really the only time
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: that my father was not being kind of tyrant was
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: when we would sit down, the two of us and
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: sing together. He would just stop and be quiet and
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: listen and say, oh, I guess I can't. I can't
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: do anything better than that. But the rest of the
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: time he was telling us what to do.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: But he was gone by the time you were in Paris.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we moved to Paris. Right after they divorced. He
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: moved out. He was living somewhere in the city for
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: the rest of his life, somewhere in New York. Eventually
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: he moved out to Corona, Queens in the end, Yeah, what.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Made you want to start busting?
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: The first thing that I remember was that I was
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: because I was in France and I couldn't speak the language,
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: and I wanted to make friends. I would go around
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: I would wander around the neighborhood with my guitar and
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: just sit around and play while other people were talking
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: to each other kids. And one day somebody threw some
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: money in the case and I remember going, wait, what
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: just happened here? So that was the revelation for me.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: It was like, oh, hey, you think I could actually
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: make money doing this? This would be amazing. And then
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: I did wander into Paris, I saw street I somehow
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: we saw street musicians at one point, and I remember thinking,
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: I've got to go back here to find these people,
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: and I did. I did a like a trek through
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: the city trying to find them, and that's when I
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: saw Danny's band. And I didn't speak to him that day,
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: but it was absolutely memorable because they all had hats on,
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: they had microphones and amps, and it was so weird.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: It was a weird type of hybrid of American music,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: like it bring kind of full circle to what we
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: were talking about, because he had this sort of Black
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: American musical culture that I had never heard. I had
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: heard some early blues from my parents' records, but it
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: was mostly like stuff that had gone into universities, like
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Robert Johnson, Like there was a certain group of black
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: artists that were part of the folk movement, but then
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: there were all these other blues jazz artists that I
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: don't know, Like that wasn't my experience. I didn't hear
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: some of that stuff. I knew fat Swaller, I'd heard
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: a lot of Fat Swaller, a lot of some Louis Armstrong.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: So but Danny was playing early early stuff, early jazz
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: almost like rag time stuff, or if you listen to
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: Bessie Smith records, it's right in the middle. It's after ragtime,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: because I think ragtime, I think of ragtime is like
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: Scott Joplin, So that's eighteen nineties basically. And then if
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: you think of swing, I think of the nineteen thirties,
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: it's post depression. But then like there's this period in
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: the through the twenties where even the rhythm is like
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: not absolutely sort of the approach to how the shuffle
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: feels is sort of like still in between those two spaces.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: It's not completely laid back yet, but you kind of
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: feel it's starting to lay back. But Billie Holliday's first recording,
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: when she was sixteen, was in the thirties and you
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: can hear that the bands, the dance bands are now
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: starting to do that thing where I suppose the Great
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: Migration is influencing that too, right, because you have country
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: blues becoming urbanized. And if you listen to Bessie Smith,
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: like Ma Rainy is really country, you don't have a
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: lot of harmonic changes. Really is sort of the in
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: a folky world. It's a folk thing. But with Bessie
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: you've got piano players and guitar players and they're playing
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: all these passing chords and there's like diminished chords, and
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: we're like little changes in tempo and these verses that
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: never repeat or these sections that never repeat that are
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: quite complicated. And I believe that that's more of like
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: because of the urban influence where they go to the
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: cities and you're hearing a lot of a lot more
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: different kinds of music.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: What grabbed you about that music.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: Well, it's harmonically accessible to me, Like it's a pop,
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: you know, dance type of music with some more complexity
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: to it, but not to the point where it's ethereal
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: and atonal. Yet it hasn't really gone over crossed over.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: So for me to learn music, to learn chords because
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: I was so fascinated by hearing like, you know, some
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: cool song like across the Universe from the Beatles. Like
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: I remember thinking like, how are you supposed to play
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: that on a ukulele? This is really hard. That was
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: my biggest problem, was like, well, where's the harmony coming from?
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: I just don't get it.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Well, you know the key there is you only play
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: the George Harrison songs because he used to write onles.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: Oh really yeah, definitely, Here Comes the Sun. It's like
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: one of the first ones that I was like, yes.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah or something. I think he yeah, he used to.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: He used to use a oh that's beautiful and then
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: he would just play sound like that.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: He would just play with the kpo right when he
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: played it in the guitar, so it would be in
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: the same Yeah.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: I mean I'm not that I wasn't that good a
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: ukulele player either.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Let's get a ukulele out here right now?
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: Not no, no, And I.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Heard you like when you start a guitar. You liked
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Freddy Green.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Well right, because he was in the small group with
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: Billie Holliday and those incredible recordings that they made with
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: Teddy Wilson Lester Young, Freddy Green, Philly Joe Jones maybe
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: on drums and some of those those recordings. So I
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: think they made like one hundred records, you know, during
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: those two years, maybe two or three years, thirty nine forty.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: It was all wartime too. I wonder if it wasn't
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: like FDR grants that made that happen. Those records are
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: absolutely like, they're just so good.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: We have to take a quick break and then we'll
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: be back with more from Madeline Peru and John Harrington.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: We're back with more from Madeline Peru and John Harrington.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: So tell me then, how how did you and Dan
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: then connect?
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: You heard him, Well, he taught me a lot of
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: this music. I heard him, and then I couldn't find
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: him again because apparently he had a car and he
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: would leave town. I thought that was the most amazing
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: thing ever, that the big Mercedes that would like just
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: barely fit in the walking street where we were all
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: hanging out in those days. So whenever he came to town,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: you knew it because he was parked in front of
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: the cafe. But I didn't see him for a couple
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: of months. I joined another band, I sang with them.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: We actually got a job singing in a club, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: apparently I was very badly behaved, and I drank because
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: I only had two songs to sing per set, so
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: I just sat and drank alcohol the rest of the time,
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: and by the end of the night they said I
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: wasn't behaving, so I can only imagine was just basically
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: everything looked bad at the point at that age, I
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: think it was still only fifteen or something, and I
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: had dropped, and I basically the high school told me,
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: you know, if you ever don't show up anymore, that's it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: You're out. So I took the gig, and I didn't
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: show up, and I just assumed I was out, and
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: then I was out, and then I ran out of
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: money from that gig. And then there was a rainy day.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Of course, if you're a street musician, you watch in
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: the weather all the time, and it was a rainy
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: day and there was no one anywhere, and I had like,
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: you know, seven francs or something, which was enough for
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: me to buy half a beer. Whatever it was I had.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: I literally decided, at ten in the morning, I'm going
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: to buy a drink with this. So I sat at
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: this bar with this beer and looked out the window
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: and I said, what have I done to myself? And
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: at that moment I saw Danny across the street, standing
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: under a covered walking passageway, just standing there. I'm just like,
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: what in the world. So I was just ran over
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: to him. I said, Danny, you said I could sing
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: in your band. He said, okay, go ahead, you have
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: to audition first. I said, sure, no problem, He said
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: go ahead. And then I said, I what here now?
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: And of course I couldn't play any of these songs
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: on guitar, so I snapped my fingers and I sang jeepers,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: creepers right in his face, and he stared me down
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: the entire time, and it was so embarrassing, and I
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: just just nervous, you know. I thought, Oh, this is it,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: you know. And then he was so nice. He just
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: turned to be He went from like making me dread
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: every minute to just being completely warm and said, okay,
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: you're in the band, but you have to audition for
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: the other guy as well. He's our musical director and
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: he's in Holland and we're going to go there tomorrow.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: So come back tomorrow and we'll go to Holland. We're
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: going to go to Holland together, and then I didn't
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: have anywhere to stay that night, so I was really,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: he was your mother, not My mother had told me
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: if I didn't go to school that I couldn't stay
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: at home anymore. But I'd dropped out of school several
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: times by this point, right, so we had gotten to
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: a point where she was just like, well, you're not
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: allowed to do that anymore. You can't be like this anymore.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: And she was right. But I got Danny to let
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: me join the band, and I still didn't have any
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: anywhere to stay that night, and I didn't tell him,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: and I didn't know him. I didn't know if he
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: would have helped me out. But I had this other friend.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: I went to the guy and he said, yeah, okay,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: you can sleep on my fortnight if you're joining Janny's band.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: It's cool. It's gonna be great because he knew Danny.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: But then the next day, Danny just sat around drinking
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: coffees all day long, and I sat outside the cafe
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: with my guitar, just wondering, like, I hope we're leved.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: We didn't leave.
• 28:45
  Speaker 7: I had to go back to my friend and he
• 28:47
  Speaker 7: opened the door and said, what the fuck are you
• 28:49
  Speaker 7: doing back here?
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: Oh, Danny, you know, okay, you can spend another night here.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: And it's happened three or four times. Guy cussed at me.
• 28:59
  Speaker 6: What the fuck went?
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Is Danny gonna leave? Then we did leave. I got
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: and I joined the band and I started learning this music.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: The musical direct or, quote unquote was a wonderful guitar
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: player named Chris Monin, who was actually also a teenager himself.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: He was studying guitar at the Conservatory, the Jazz Conservatory
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: in southern Holland.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: So how long did you play with with Danny's band?
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: I played with Danny's I tried to leave his band
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: a couple of times, and then I ended up coming back.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: But I mean, I think I was about seventeen, Yeah,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: seventeen when when we got to the end of this,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: there was a documentary. This film student was making a
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: documentary about us, and he said, come on, you guys
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: need to play in Harlem. And I remember thinking, why
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: on earth would we go and play this play in Harlem?
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: And Danny took it as a challenge, I think, and
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: so we did and people threw bottles at us. They
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: said you better not you know, set up your amps
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: in front of my house. What do you crazy? Which
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: you know, that was crazy, It was bad idea. But
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: we ended up finding a place that we could set
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: up and it was out in the court building there
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: on one twenty fifth. Anyway, when the documentary was over,
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: the people that had funded this documentary were suddenly had
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: no money to pay us anything at all, and so
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: everybody had to fall back on their own. Drathers and
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: I had nothing to fall back on. So I left
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: the band at that moment because I had absolutely nothing,
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: and I hitchhiked from wherever we were in Denmark back
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: to Paris. So I played in the subway after that
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: and tried to do like with my guitar, tried to
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: use some of the stuff I learned being in the band,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: and didn't do too well, but I learned some a
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: little bit of discipline. And then Danny would see me.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: I would turn around. This is how Danny went. He
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: was so such an amazing because I'd be playing in
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: this subway and everything, and I'd feel somebody staring at me,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: and I would look and way at the back of
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: the car. He'd be over over in the corner and
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: he had been following me, just listening to me, trying
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: to see what I was doing, and I just remember,
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: what are you doing? But it was so sweet. He
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: actually just we were family, and that's just the way
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: it was always going to be, you know, with his
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: potato salads, that he'd make these incredibly huge tubs of
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: food for parties, and he would throw parties on his boat.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: And he had kept let me live on his boat
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: for a while when I was in the band too.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: He had a boat outside of the seine.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Were you writing at this point or are you just?
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Were you just performing?
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: I wanted to write songs and Danny told me I
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: shouldn't do that. You know, I certainly didn't know what
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: I was doing. Basically, my approach to songwriting was like
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: everything else at that time. It was like close your
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: eyes and wish, make a wish and see what happens.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: And I really don't think I could ever figure out
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: writing until this record. I feel like I had a
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: breakthrough because for the first time I decided before sitting
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: down to finish a project or to write it and
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: say this is what I'm going to stand by, this
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: is what I believe is the song I want I
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: decided I need to find out what's already there that's
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: not being said, and just try and say it. And
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: if I'm not saying it, if it's not clear, then
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: the job's not finished.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: You've written lots of songs in the past. How is
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: that different?
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: I suppose in the past, I've always felt like I
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: was looking to discover what the song was, that it
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: was already that it was somebody else's song. Now it's mine,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: even though it was obviously it was still me doing it.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: But I think that COVID, all of the things that
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: matter in the world became so pronounced. And I'm gonna
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: borrow Carnel West's furbiage on this. It's the catastrophe that
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: we had to face. Just how to how to deal
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: with catastrophe. Now, I didn't suffer any catastrophe during COVID,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: but I just as most of my life I've witnessed it.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't much do a song. Now, what do you want?
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: Let's play a song.
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: You're gonna play Fine True Love. Yeah, this is the
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: opening track on the record. Okay, you got it?
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Just me.
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: Oh, let's go down to the.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: Vayume Fine True Love.
• 34:08
  Speaker 8: Listen to the blue booze, the Gospel.
• 34:11
  Speaker 9: Of Jeesus, feel the summer sunshine in the sun.
• 34:18
  Speaker 8: Breazees, hear the little baby bees whimper and cry, make
• 34:27
  Speaker 8: a little promise, Learn how to die all.
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: Let's go on to the levee.
• 34:36
  Speaker 10: Find true love. Listen to the brass bands, do.
• 34:42
  Speaker 8: The second line, pick a little guitar, spill a little
• 34:49
  Speaker 8: wine here the little.
• 34:52
  Speaker 9: Babies whimper and cry, Make a little promise, learn how
• 35:01
  Speaker 9: to die.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: All have proms to be open.
• 35:10
  Speaker 8: To feel the joy and pain.
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: The only way to make a life is to face.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: Try again.
• 35:31
  Speaker 10: So let's go on to the hilltop to find true love.
• 35:39
  Speaker 10: Listen to the seasons from above the tree line.
• 35:45
  Speaker 9: Pick a little fresh con spell little moon shine.
• 35:52
  Speaker 10: Hear the little babe bae whimper and cry, Make a
• 35:58
  Speaker 10: little promise.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: Learn how to die.
• 36:03
  Speaker 7: Oh yes, let's go on to the shoreline and find
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: too low.
• 36:27
  Speaker 9: Listen to the ocean thunder in the sky. Feel a
• 36:34
  Speaker 9: little empty and run a little.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: Dry, give a little baby bees.
• 36:43
  Speaker 10: Whimp and cry, make a little promise, Learn how to die.
• 36:51
  Speaker 8: All a promise.
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: To be all open, to feed the jaw pain, be all.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: Only way to me good life.
• 37:11
  Speaker 8: It's too face. Try again.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: Let's go down to the bayou, find true love.
• 37:28
  Speaker 10: Listen to the blues, the Gospel of Cheesees.
• 37:34
  Speaker 8: Feel the summer sunshine and the sudden.
• 37:38
  Speaker 9: Breathe, see the little babies whimper and cry.
• 37:47
  Speaker 10: Make a little promise, Make a little promise, make a
• 37:54
  Speaker 10: little promise. Learn how to die.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: Beautiful. A little feedback there right at the end. So
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: tell me about writing that song. Do you remember how
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: it started?
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: Uh? Yeah, John, and I remember very clearly because we
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: worked hard. I think the title and those three words
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: find true love were the hardest part of the whole song,
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: which now seems like the most obvious choice. But at
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: the time I was using the phrase eat, pray love
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: from the book, Right.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: Did you think that was going to be the song
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: or were you like, I'll just fix that later.
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: It was the whole song. I mean, you wrote the
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: whole song using with that, with that as the title.
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: But we threw lyrics back and forth quite a lot
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: on that, and at some point we chucked it, you know,
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: because it wasn't working with.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't necessarily the right thing.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: I know, but it was the springboard for you.
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the idea of eat pray Love is very powerful
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: because there are three distinct sounds, three distinct one syllable
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: words that are actions and nouns and worlds unto themselves.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: It's great writing, and I read the book and everything,
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: but I wanted the meaning of the song to have
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: its own life, and so I think on some level
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: we knew that it probably wasn't going to survive scrutiny.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: It was sort of can you do better than that?
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: And then I was like, well, I'm not as good
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: as you know, Elizabeth Gilbert on this, so.
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: I don't know what to say no, But sometimes you
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: need that to just to continue working on it. Just
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: having any words, you know, the blank sheet of paper
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: is the terrifying thing. When you have anything down, then
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: it's editable, you know. And so it wasn't a big
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: jump to go from Eat Prey Love.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was my It was the banks.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: It helps.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: One of the obvious word choices to jump out in
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: that song is learn how to die. Just about anybody
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: else would say learn how to fly, learn how to
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: do all these other things because it's a very joyful song.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: What brought that on?
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: Well for me? That's a direct quote from Cornell West
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: and I'd been listening to Cornell West quite a bit.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: I don't know who Cornell West might be quoting when
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: he says, in order to learn how to love, you
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: have to learn how to die, but he says it
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: quite a bit in a lot of different contexts, some
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: of his lectures that he's done and some of his
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: speaking engagements that he's done. But whatever I could find
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: mostly on YouTube during that time when for a good
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: couple of years after George Floyd, but even yeah, even
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: before that, you know, I was just following him because
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: he had a voice. It was a voice of reason
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: on television, you know, if you needed somebody, if you
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: wanted to hear somebody on television on the news speak
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: to you. It was slim Pickens for me, like I
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: felt a direct mirroring of my childhood with my alcoholic
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: father and the violent, tyrant tyranny in that world, and
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: the escape or rather the survival of that environment as
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: a child at playing music with my mother was like
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: a mirror image for me in twenty twenty of seeing
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: police brutality and the search for solace consolation, a path
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: forward using the tools that I still to day are
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: the only tools that really I've acquired, which is listening
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: to intuitively to poetry and music and being trying to
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: be part of that tradition.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: After this last break, we'll be back with the rest
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: of Madeline Peru and John Harrington. We're back with the
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: rest of Bruce Hellum's conversation with Madeline Peru and John Harrington.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: You said in the past about how particularly love songs
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: are political. Is it because for you it takes you
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: into a kind of a different place in your life,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: or it's like being relieved of a feeling of tyranny,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: a feeling of oppression that's political as well. It's not innotonus, Yeah,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: not in a cynical, terrible way, in a very profound way. Yeah.
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: And also just the desire to be heard if you
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: need help, or to feel like you could be heard,
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: you know, if you're going to need help because something
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: is going to come down the pike at you and
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: you're going to need to survive that. And it's just
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: a technique that I think a lot of kids of
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: alcoholic parents have are aware of that they was part
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: of their way of growing up. But I think when
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: I hear somebody like Cornel West turn around and say
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: we need to talk about justice is what love looks
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: like in public, and tenderness is love in private. And
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: it's like, yeah, that's These are not, you know, radical ideas,
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: they're loving ideas. They might be radical in a sort
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: of Christian way, but I don't think you have to
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: be Christian because I'm not going to go for it
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: that way. I needed to say the words the Gospel
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: of Jesus in the song, and that was an interesting
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: moment because I wanted to talk about the message without
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: the religion, and I'm not sure if that's even possible
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: for some people to grasp what.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: I'm interested with. The feeling you get from Cornell West,
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: which is someone saying true, sometimes messy things out loud,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: is that this is a stretch. Is that the same
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: feeling you got listening to those great old records you
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: love so much, like Ma Rainey and Billie Holliday. Is
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: it the same kind of truth telling in a way.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting that you say that. A very interesting
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: question because it's definitely still taboo right now to open
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: the discussion on violence within a relationship, within a romantic relationship,
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: and it can ruin the feminist message that, for example,
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: Billie Holliday or Bessie Smith or mal Rainie would have
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: when they sing about being having a man that mistreats
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: them and how much they still love him. But you
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: know that's the point. I mean, love is messy. We
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: are human. Nobody ever says I'm always right and they're
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: always wrong unless you're not really looking at finding the
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: truth because you've got to listen to more than one
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: perspective to find the truth, even if you don't want
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: to agree with it, you have to be aware that
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: it's there.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: Your breakthrough album was Careless Love. The reason it's called
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: careless Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: That was the WC. Handy song when Bessie smith recording
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: was the one that influenced me. And then I met
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: Odetta and she was singing it in her own way
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: with her different lyrics and discussing the meaning of that song,
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: and we perform it all the time, and it's definitely
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: been one hundred years now.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: I think, tell me about how I wish on this record?
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: So how I wish? I think that's a song that
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: I chiseled at like it felt like like maybe what
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: sculptors do when they see a shape inside of another
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: shape and they remove what's in the way of that,
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: And I feel like that was my job, especially with
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: the lyrics.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, let me ask you first, then what was in
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: the way.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: I had to accept that I wanted to be able
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: to say something to somebody that didn't know me or
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: anything about me or anybody else. I wanted it to
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: be a blank slate starting point, but a direct conversation
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: was a lot of my songs tend to be like that.
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: I'm talking to somebody.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Do you always have somebody in mind when you're No?
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think so, did you?
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: In this one, I'm probably talking to myself. Okay, well
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: that's making it making somebody else suffer, you know, the
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: conversation the monologue?
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Is that one of the ones you wanted to play
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: very much?
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Okay, please one two three, one two?
• 47:01
  Speaker 10: How I wish I could bring.
• 47:09
  Speaker 8: And slavening and to bear.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: The fat of each chaininess at to which.
• 47:33
  Speaker 8: I've been a pot.
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: All my Blackmerican hot.
• 47:48
  Speaker 8: Wol I'd give and a learn.
• 47:55
  Speaker 9: Should some pea and concern.
• 48:03
  Speaker 10: Fils empty dread.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: On the world.
• 48:14
  Speaker 8: We tread between fear and disgrace all my red American face.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Would my life.
• 48:39
  Speaker 8: Be in vain.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: Pifffin strove.
• 48:46
  Speaker 8: Some small pain.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: I gave up the road to this screen.
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: And spa.
• 49:05
  Speaker 8: Then would my it bigga?
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: Oh my white American.
• 49:21
  Speaker 11: Skied no more, no more, endlessly.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Journeying.
• 50:02
  Speaker 8: Yet to he freedom.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: Must we all be taught a.
• 50:19
  Speaker 8: No name shuns cross before the truth is whole?
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, my lost.
• 50:37
  Speaker 8: American.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: So no more, no more, no more.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: You may have to upgrade your opinion of your songwriting.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: And I think that's a great song.
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: I loved everything you were doing on the low strings
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: and the accompaniment. It's very uh, it was very Freddy Green,
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: I thought, using that D string.
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: Actually John arranged it with a with a different tuning
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: for the for the record, you did a love got
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: the low D in there, and it was beautiful arranging.
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: And uh And I'm glad. I'm glad that that it
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: turned out to be a beautiful arrangement because I remember
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: John telling me, what are you doing. I was like,
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: there's something wrong, there's something missing, don't change it. It
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: was good.
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: Now, this was one that needed very little and we
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: were you were working out for quite what while you're working.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: Quite a while.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: He was trying to teach me how to play the song,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: and he said, well, you wrote it. I said, no,
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: I didn't do that.
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: You would send You would send stuff like, because you
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: were working for quite a long time on the lyric.
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: You would send newer versions, you know, with different lyrics,
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: so I could hear them and I would notice that,
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: well she changed the melody there, or she changed that
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: chord progression. They're like, no, what are you doing. I
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: loved what you did early, so I mean so I
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: had to sort of keep cracking the whip so you
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: would just not lose what was great about in the beginning.
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: The first version of this basically had all the music
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: and you know, melody and chords and mostly the form too.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: And there's no single version of a song in any
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: former incarnation that that was just yours alone or just
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: mine alone that was better than the collaboration turned out
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: to be. So yeah, in all cases, the collaboration I
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: think helped, and I find that's almost always true.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: We should end there. I've got a million other questions,
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: but I've taken a lot of your time and it's
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: been fabulous. You real treat.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Thanks again to Madeline Peru and John Harrington for talking
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: about the making of their new album Let's Walk. You
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: can hear it along with other songs from Madeline on
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: a playlist at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: where you can find all of our new episodes. You
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: can follow us on Twitter.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: At broken Record.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: is Ben Tolliney. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
• 53:49
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• 54:07
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• 54:10
  Speaker 2: are theme music's by Canny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.