Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Patty Griffin

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Patty Griffin · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. When Patty Griffin released a Crown of Roses earlier
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: this year, she delivered something both timeless and urgent. It's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: an album that draws on gospel, folk and soul to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: explore themes of faith, doubt, and resilience. It's a return
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to the stripped down intimacy of her earliest work, but
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: with the wisdom and craft of an artist who spent
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: nearly three decades refining her voice. That voice first emerged
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six with Living with Ghosts, recorded on
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a simple four track in her Bosson apartment. The album
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: introduced a songwriter who could turn personal pain into something universal.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Over the years that followed, Griffin's songs have been covered
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: by everyone from The Chicks to Solomon Burke, while her
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: own recordings have earned her multiple Grammy nominations and a
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: reputation as a songwriter songwriter. On today's episode, Bruce Sedlam
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: talks to pay Patty Griffin about the inspiration behind Crown
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of Roses and how grit has shaped her songwriting throughout
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: her career. They also discussed her early days in Boston's
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: folks Seeing and the stories behind some of her most
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: well known songs. She also reflects on how finally getting
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to know her mother at the end of her life
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: inspired her to see her mother's story in a whole
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: new light. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Here's Bruce Headlam with Patty Griffin.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: So, Patty Griffin, thank you so much.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I was looking this up. Your first album came out
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: twenty nine years ago.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Twenty nine years ago? And I, well, I can't think
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: of a better songwriter over that period of time. Thank you. Wow,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: maybe somebody else did.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well I can't so go over your list later.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: But my list starts with you. And you've got a
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: new album called Crown of Roses.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about what you were
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: thinking going into this album? What led up to you
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: doing this album?
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: This album, there's a lot going on in my life
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: for the last ten years. It just sort of tumultuous years,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: and tumultuous in the way that everything just kind of
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: turned upside down. But it doesn't look very exciting from
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: the outside. You know, this is all kinds of stuff
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: you've got to work with that's new and different and harder.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: And my mom is passing away in this period of time,
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: and so she's in there. I think I'm probably hitting
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of my old themes with this record, but
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: it's just my older person's take on it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: You know, how's your take changed.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: I don't need hope to be hopeful. Does that make
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: any sense at all? I feel like just the opposite
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: of that set up and makes me feel like like
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: knowing that you're going to struggle, things are going to
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: be hard, and that that's just part of being human
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: and you're not going to escape that, and you know,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: sort of just getting that in my bones has been
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: a really great part of my life because I think
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: it's you get to be a little more free, you
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: stop striving for certain things that are you know, you
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: sort of automatically strive for if you're born in the West.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: So it's a little apocalyptic this album, is it? Yeah,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: You've got well in the sense that the apocalypse is
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: also kind of a new beginning. And the first song
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: is yeah back at the start, you have birds disappearing,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: you have songs called the end. It's really a I'll
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: be mixing my metaphors to say it's a baptism by fire,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: but there is a sense of a lot of things
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: ending and things starting in this record.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I think that's sort of the world is in a
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: phase like that, So it makes a lot of sense
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: that I would be personally in a phase like that,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: just being a person that somebody lives on the world,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. I think that we're all
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: experiencing that kind of change right now. The animals in
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: the bottom of the sea of the plants are under siege,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: and it makes sense that I would also be experiencing
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: things that way.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: You sent a note to Ken Weinstein, whom you work with,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: something to the effect that so much of your work
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: has been focused on men and trying to understand them, right,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: and this is the first time on record you've spent
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: a lot of time telling women's stories. Yeah, what do
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: you think prompted that?
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: I got a lot more interested in women's stories through
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: hanging out with my mom? I think that just sort
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: of naturally happened. And getting to know my mother was
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: like discovering the amazing creature that had been there all
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: along that didn't know how to come out because she
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: you know, women, especially from her generation, they just kind
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: of got passed over for their own understanding of how
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: of their contributions and their power was really you know,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: just undervalued, I would say, And getting to know my mom,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: I realized she's a badass. She was a badass, and
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: she was so smart and funny and tough as shit,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: you know, and stronger than anybody had ever really met.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: She grew up in poverty, she put herself through college,
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: She got married in the fifties and went straight into
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: having seven babies in seven years and stayed pregnant for
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: seven years, and then was just overwhelmed with that for
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: a long time. And I think, you know that the
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: fine tuning motherhood thing never happened with me because I
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: was number seven, you know what I mean. So just
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: was easy for me to sort of drift off and
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: do my thing and not really worry about my mother
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: at the end, because I feel like the bond is
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: not what other people have necessary with their mothers, And so,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: you know, getting to know her in the last few years,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: it really kind of just I think I grew as
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: a woman. I just understood how great it was to
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: be a woman.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: It was just something about connecting with her, and I
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: don't even know what that is exactly, I can't pinpoint it.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: But she had a tough she had kids, she wanted
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: to go on in school.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Was that right, Well, I guess when she met my
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: dad she had been working on a master's degree. And
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: I only bring that up because we never heard that
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: at all until the last few years, Like, she never
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: even brought it up.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So what was home like for you growing up?
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: It was very crowded. It sat on the floor a lot.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: We had to crawl under the dinner table to get
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: to our seats if you were one of the smaller
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: kids in the family. Not a lot of money. But
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: we grew up like right next to the woods. And
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: my mom grew up her father worked in the woods,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: and that was like you know, many many, many, many
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: generations of French settlers that worked in the woods. So
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: you just mentioned right, yes, And she's very connected to nature.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: So like we just learned all the birds songs, and
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: learned all the names of the flowers, and learned all
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: the trees, and you know, we were just really it
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: was just part of how we lived. I didn't really
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: think of it as anything particularly special until I got
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: older and I realized that a lot of that stuff's
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: gone away.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: For a lot of people and also gave you ideas
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: for thirty years of songs, I think because there's so
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: much nature in your yeah, yeah writing, yeah, including and
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: we'll get to the new album as well. So when
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: did music enter your life when you were a kid?
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Well, my mother's voice. She comes from a family of
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: people that knew how to sing, and my father they
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: didn't have a particularly musical trained, formal musical life. My
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: father's the son of like Irish people, and so there's
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: definitely that thing in there for him too. But she
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: always had a voice that was just buttery and beautiful.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: I remember, like some of my earliest memories are her
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: standing in a doorway where there are four bunk beds in.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: My sisters and I were all in them, and she
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: was singing, and it was like magical.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Would she sing you to sleep?
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah? She sang, you know, hymns and like in French.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: She that was her first language. So we heard those
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: old things that she got when she was a kid.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: And did you have music through the Catholic church as
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: well or.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Is that not a Well yeah, that wasn't as interesting
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: to me at the time as my mom. I didn't
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: recognize like I remember realizing at one point that not
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: everybody's mom sang like that. You know, I was a
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: lot older. Oh wow, you know what, I wouldn't be
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: singing if it weren't for hearing her voice.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Did she ever teach you songs?
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah, well we would make up songs together when
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: I was really little.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so when did you start? What was your first instrument?
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: My first instrument was the flute because it was the
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: one the instrument that was available in the elementary school band.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good old days where they would just
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: send students into a room and say, just pick up something.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: My sister had one. It's so accusing, that's what it was.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: She actually wanted to play the flute, and she had
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: borrowed one or something from the high school. And so
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: I decided to try my hand at it. And I
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: could make it sing, you know, but it just didn't
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: have enough variety of sound to a flute.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: So when did the guitar start?
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: When I was a teenager, I bought a Honer guitar
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: for like half of my savings account, which was probably
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: one hundred dollars and uh.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Was it at a local music store mail order Yeah.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: It was a local music store the next town over
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: from where I grew up in Bangor, Maine, and I
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: met a guitar teacher there and started taking lessons, and
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to I knew I wanted to sing.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: That was really where I went to after the flute
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: I couldn't get. I wanted a saxophone. It was not
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: going to happen. They were none available, too expensive, and
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: so because I thought that had the kind of tones
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: that it would feel really good. So I just tried
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: to train my voice to have more of those tones,
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: you know, starting at a pretty young age, started just
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: sitting inside my closet and singing.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: You know, but you want to He wanted to have
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: an instrument, but.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: I needed an instrument to write songs too with it.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: And so I practiced the guitar as much as I could,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: you know, as one of those guitars where the strings
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: are about an inch off of the neck, you know.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It really hurt your fingers, get really strong hands. Yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: we listening to radio at this point. Was there any
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: what music was coming in that sort of fed that
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: got it?
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: The music was great all the way through growing up.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I mean we I just looked at who was out
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: there singing, and I can't believe how lucky I was,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: just starting with like motown on the radio, and I
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: was a really little you know, Smokey Robinson, and you know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: that was what I was really into. And I was
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: small and music with voices, with beautiful voices and interesting lyrics.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: And then I sort of moved on to the Beatles,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: and you know, after they broke up and Ricky Lee
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Jones made her way into that mix. You know, at
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: some point when I was a teenager, and there's a
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: list of them, you know, it would take me a
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: long time to name them all.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Now, did you think this would be a career for you?
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Did you? Was there part of you that thought, no,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: music's going to be my life.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: I remember being really little and thinking, having a very
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: direct thought, what I love to do more than anything
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: is sing and also write poems. I wrote poetry when
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I was really little, and I thought, maybe there's something there,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: you know, And I went after the singing. Because I
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: don't have a naturally powerful voice. I have to exercise it,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: you know, train like an athlete with my voice to
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: get it to work.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I always think of you as like sort of being
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: a powerhouse. I think particularly your first album.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was just being in really good. It was
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: just tuned up, you know. I built it that way.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: So you had what people consider a late start. You
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: were in your thirties. I think, Yeah, your first album
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: came that is late start. How long had you been
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: singing before your first album came out.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I'd been working on singing all through my life, you know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: and taking time to sing with certain singers on records.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: And I was in love with Whitney Houston because she
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: was like, she's like my age. I got to see
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: her when she was twenty one years old in Boston
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Common and it was like magic, you know, the voice
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: coming out of her. And there's just so many great
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: singers to study and learn different things from, and Aretha
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Franklin and Edna James and you know, the great singers
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: like that. I studied a lot when I was younger
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: and Patsy Kline. I just wanted to strengthen my voice
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: and just nothing made me feel better than that in
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: my whole life. So the stronger it got, the more
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: it flowed, the more I could do with it, the
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: better I felt in the world.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: When was the first time you went out on stage.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: The first time I was still in high school. I
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: think my guitar teacher. He was playing at a ramata
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: inn in Bangor, Maine, and I got up and I
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: did chuck, he's in love with him?
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, uh huh so okay, yeah? And then when did
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: you start doing it solo?
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: Not until my later twenties. It was really hard for
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: me to do that, you know good. I went to
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: an open mic night and because I was just so
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: afraid of saying it.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: What was this in Boston?
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: What did you tell yourself to be able to get
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: up there and do that?
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Well? I had a guitar teacher that another guitar teacher
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: that I would show up at, you know, a guitar lesson.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I'd play him a new song. You go, that's really great,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: you should get gigs, and then I go. But I
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: really wanted him to come with me, and so I
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: finally wore him down and he did so he kind
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: of launched the duo with me with a duo, and
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: then I just started doing it on my own after
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: a while. John Curtis was his name.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: You must have been doing something right. You got scouted
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: fair soon after you were you started playing, yeah, and
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: signed a record deal.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Well, I had been playing, and then at a certain point,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: I feel like the songwriting kind of kicked in. Like,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: you know, you're just sort of practicing, practicing, practicing, you're
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: you know, like you go to art school and you
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: learn how to paint. You do these things over and
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again, and suddenly something comes
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: into the painting. You know. It's sort of like that's
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: how it was with the music. I felt like I
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: wasn't I was starting to understand how these songs that
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: I really loved might have occurred.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: You mean other people's songs.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I always go back to Tears of a Clown. It's
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: like a miraculous song, which was co written with Stevie
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Wonder actually and Smoke Your RUMs and but there's like
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: such a way that that flows melodically and then lyrically
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: it's magical as well. I mean, it's a painting, it's
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: a beautiful painting. Like how the hell do people do that?
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And I don't really know
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: how you do that, but I understand how something can
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: just kind of come out of you, right, you know,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: and it just for me, it just took years and
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: years and years of going through the motions of and
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: you know, trying and you know, trying and trying and trying,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: and then it just kind of started they started showing up.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Now, well you I'm fascinated by this. Would you try
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: and break down that song? Like, what does the melody
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: do here? Wasn't anything formal like that?
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: No, No, I do a little bit of that now.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: I mean now I listened to Tears of the Clown
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: for example, probably one of my favorite songs. I'm blown
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: away by the structure. You just can't believe how incredible
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: the choices are for melody, and and it just kind
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: of probably came out of them like that. You know,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: they just probably now it goes here, and now it
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: goes here, and now the words say this, and you know,
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: it's just I would love to know how that was
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: when they wrote that song.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Patty Griffin after the break.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Now, thinking about your first album, your first song is
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: on that album as Moses, And immediately when people hear that,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: you start on a suspended chord? Did you study theory?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Did you know that? But it's got a it's got
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: a very particular I mean, it showcases your voice, but
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: you're not starting on a chord tone.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a lot. Probably one of the
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: good things is that I don't know a lot of
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: what I'm doing, so I end up doing things Buddy
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Miller once said to me. Great. Buddy Miller said, Patty,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: I love watching you play guitar because everything you do
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: is so wrong and it gives me all kinds of
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: great idea. And I'm like, Okay, that's that's that's a compliment.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: I think it's a high compliment. Actually, okay, I.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Think I think you know a little more than you're
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: letting on.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: I think I really don't. I really don't. I can
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: find a G, I can find an E, I can
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: find an F and an A, and you know what
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: I mean. I just but as far as the theory goes,
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I'm just always like hunt and peck on that stuff.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: But you're often finding those those tones, those notes that
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: aren't in the chord, that like really color the chord.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: And it's literally the first note you sang on that
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: on that record. It's just so powerful. I didn't know
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: that you didn't.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: No, I think it's neat you. Well, I mean my mother.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Actually back to my mom explained to me that when
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I was younger and she would be singing, that I
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: would automatically find harmonies to her voice when I would
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: sing with her, which I didn't know I was doing,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: but apparently apparently I did. So I love to dig around.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I love to fish around and find my own harmonies.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: I'm not too crazy about doing like classic harmonies because
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: you know, you have to stick to stick to one
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: little line and you know you're over here and you
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: stay there on the fourth, you know the fifth, And
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not as good at that. I don't enjoy it
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: as much. And it's also studied and you have to
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: be able to I really don't have an understanding of
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: how one would even go about learning that.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, what was it like for you? And I'm going
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: to jump ahead, because you sang with Emilu Harris, you
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: sing Trapez what was because she is the gold standard
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: for duet singing. What was that like?
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Well, I know by then I'd known Emmy for a
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: really long time and we'd already sung on a bunch
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: of the others things, So it was just like having
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: my buddy come to the studio.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And sing so as natural.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you just like, you know, just let her go.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: She does her thing and just let her roll back
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: when she wants to roll back and do things over.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: You know, just let her do her thing. She really
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: she has an idea of what she wants to wants
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: it to be. I think she's feeling her way through it.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: You just let her.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, stay out of her way.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: That first album, you did a whole produced album, and
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I think with Nile Rogers, the producer.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: No. Well, I did a project with Nile Rogers here
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: in the nineties which went absolutely nowhere. He had a
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: record label for like two minutes called ear Candy. He
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: wanted me to make records for that label, and I
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: was just in way over my head and I was
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: not prepared to work with someone of his kind of
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: technical caliber, and I didn't we didn't know how to
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: communicate in the studio with each other, and so that
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: didn't go very well. But then I made a record
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: with Malcolm Burn, who is you know from that whole
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: New Orleans Danny Lenwill Mark Howard Camp and that was,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: you know, trial by fire. That was really like I
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: don't know what I'm doing either, and I'm like living
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: in a studio in New Orleans for a month with
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: all these people, and by the time that record was
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: finished and mixed, my record company had had it. They
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: didn't like any of the things that he did. And
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: that wasn't really crazy about it either, because I had
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: been so tired and confused making the record the whole time.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: They just didn't hear me on it.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: David Anderley was the head of A and R at
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: A and M Records, and I got called out to
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: California quite a few times in those early days. Here's
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: how this, here's how we see this. You know, they
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: really were great at trying to help you get there,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: because I think a lot of people would have went, well,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: that record's final, just put it out and then nobody's
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: going to care about it, and then we'll just drop
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: her and then we'll be on our way. But he
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: actually wanted to help me get my feet on the
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: ground as a working artist, and he knew it was
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: new for me, I think, and he really I think
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: he did me favor when he rejected that record, because
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: it made me go out as vulnerable as it possibly could.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: You know, it was kind of experiencing a big depression
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: at the end of that thing, and I just said,
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know how I'm going to make another record.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: It's going to cost me like another you know whatever
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: to do it. And you love these demos, Why we
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: not just put demos out? You know, put these demos
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: that you love so much, these things that you know
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: they play him on the radio on small radio. Why
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: can't you just So he did what nobody was doing,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: and he put a record out of new artists just
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: doing guitar and voice. And it really was the most
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: honest way to put me out there. And it was
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: really great for me to have to tour solo for
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: years and I got my legs on stage doing that.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: It's a great way to you really have to get
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: your shit together unless you want people to throw things
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: at you, you know. So it was one of the
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: best things that ever happened to me.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: But it must have been terrifying at the time.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: It was weird. Yeah, it was weird to be And now,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: you know, I know musician friends who listen to the
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: first record and I go, oh, I totally get what
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: you should have done with that. Where were you back then?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: You know you should have done with it. I mean
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: that's an incredible first record. Though the songs on it are.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: They were definitely meant to be produced. They're written to
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: be arranged, but I didn't know how to do that
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: at the time.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Did you want to learn how to arrange after that?
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: I did, and I and I do, and I think
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: I have really good ideas, but I think there are
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: when it comes to my own stuff, I need someone
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: from the outside to come and help me, because you know,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: I can't hold that perspective you know that you need.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And there are I mean, there are great songs on it.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: There's let Them Fly, which a lot of people have covered.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Time Will Do the Talking, which I love, and then
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: there's a couple songs. There's one about your mother, Sweet Lorraine. Yeah,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if poor Man's House is about
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: you growing up particularly, but it's it's an amazing song.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Tell me about those songs.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Poor Man's House. That one was written. I was living
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: in Jamaica Plane in Boston, and that was just about
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: about a mile away from where my grandparents. My Irish
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: grandparents were servants on an estate. I think they worked
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: for the Roebucks, like the series of Robuts family and yeah,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: and I realized, like so much of the way I was,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I was now working in Boston serving people, and I
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: just thought, that's funny. I wonder if they knew that
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: was going to happen. I was going to be a
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: mile away. Their granddaughter would be a mile away from
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: where they had lived and died. And I realized that,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: you know, when the object is to sort of survive
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: and get your family to survives that you have, there
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: are people whose entire lives are that bare minimum. I
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: was sort of born into this very rare moment. I
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: think where I could start and place where I could
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: really think about what I really wanted to do and
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: try to do it and maybe managed to do it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: And I realized what a contrast that was. And there
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: was also this thing in me that didn't feel like
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: I felt like I was just spending a lot of
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: time with fluff because of that, and I wasn't really
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: out there trying to make a family and you know,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: trying to do all the things that they had lived
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, you thought you were just doing fluff.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: I noticed that we weren't allowed in our you know,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: if you're from that background, you're not necessarily you don't
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: feel like you're necessarily allowed into this world of the
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: arts and this world of entertainment especially. It's something that
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: other people do that have maybe more advantages than you,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: and you know, don't have to worry so much about money,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: and you know what I mean, and you are your
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: job is to be the person that serves them, you know.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: I realized that that my family's mindset was that through
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: the experiences that they'd had for so many generations on
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: both sides of my family, of being really poor. So
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: that was what poor Man's House grew out. It was
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: a sudden you know. I went to see the estate
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: where they had worked, and that just haunted me for
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: weeks and weeks and being there, just the experience of
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: being there and seeing the servants quarters, and it was
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: just the sadness that haunted me.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: So when you say you had trouble getting up on stage,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: was some of that feeling.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: I would inform that.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you should, you should. Your job is to go
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: and hand people things and that they need. And then
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: by then I'd been waiting on people for quite a while.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: And I love service, by the way, I love it.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: The only thing I don't love about service is the
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: way that you are vulnerable to being treated by others
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: because people don't recognize it as a really wonderful thing
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: to do and know how to do well.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I'll bet you you're a good tipper to this day.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: I am.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to really really mess up for me
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: to get you down to twenty percent.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And then tell me about sweet Lorraine.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Well, that came out of a conversation that I had
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: with my mom. I was getting divorced around that time,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: and she talked to me for the first time about
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: her wedding day. The day before. She had her father,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: who was this woodsman. He came in from the woods
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: every so often and kind of turned everybody's world upside
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: down and then went back to the woods, very heavy
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: drinker and a wild kind of guy. And she met
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: my dad and then started seeing my dad and then
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: very quickly got married. And he made some comment to
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: her at their sort of rehearsal dinner, I guess that
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: she must be pregnant, and then he went into calling
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: her some really bad names and they should never say
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: to your daughter. And the day of the wedding, my
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: dad tried to get out of it because he was
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: terrified getting married. So she's like, I mean, it's funny
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: now because I wasn't there. It wasn't me. But like,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: she's gone through, she's made her wedding dress, she's gone
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: through all of this stuff. Should do this thing that
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: she wasn't even sure she wanted to do because she
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: was really doing all right on her own. And then
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: the next thing, you know, this guy who says really
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: horrible things to her is the guy that gives her
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: away to this guy who wants to get out of it,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: you know. So it's like she just went there's no
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: way we're not doing this now because she just had it.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: You know, with men, we're definitely getting married. You're gonna
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: marry me, and that's too bad, you know. So you
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: know my mom now looking back now, especially because I
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: know her in a different way, I know her as
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: a force of nature. Now, that was quite something for
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: a force of nature to be given away by a
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: drunk guy to somebody who was too scared to even
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: do what he'd asked her to do in the first place.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: And she'd gone all to this great trouble of bringing herself.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: To Was she telling you this because in some way
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: she admired you for being forgetting a divorce.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: No, she didn't. She was. She's Catholic. My parents were
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Catholic and they really she was against the divorce. I
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: was not Catholic at this point, so I didn't have
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: any problem getting divorced. But she really thought you stay
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: in your marriage.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: So the next few albums you did Flaming Red, A
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Thousand Kisses, Impossible Dream, you know, those albums to me,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: captured that alternative country sound. Did you hear in so
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: many you know? You hear in the Robert Plant that
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: kind of t bone Burnett, you know, the kind of
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: softer percussion, a lot of feedback. Those are the records
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: to me that really solidified that sound. That's rights where
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: that sound? Is that something you wanted? Is that? How
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: involved were you with that production?
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: I was very involved with all of those productions. Jay
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Joyce did Flaming Red, then I did A Thousand Kisses
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: with Doug Lancio and that by a Thousand Kisses, I
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: was off record labels, so I was I had to
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: make something on the cheap, which is why we shrunk
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: everything down to the bare minimum. We got an ensemble,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: you know, and did a classic kind of ensemble kind
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: of record like they would have done in the fifties,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, our forties. We're just everybody's
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: you know, we have a xylophone, you know what I mean.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: And we're going to use this through the whole record
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: because we had a very very tight budget. I haven't
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: ever set out to do anything that I've done. I
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: do set out to try to do things. I never
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm my authentic me, you know.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Really it's got to come to you.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Was it a lot of live playing in the studio? Yeah,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: and then were you was doing the singing on top
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: later or No.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: We did a lot of stuff, especially A thousand kisses.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: We did everything, guitar voice, you know. I did it
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: in like a couple of days. You know, it's it's
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: not a big long record, and I had lots of
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: time to get ready for it because I wasn't on
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: a label anymore. So it was just I just had
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: myself together because I knew we need to not spend
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of money. I went in there and just
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: kind of put the basics down and then Doug painted
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: over that. But Jay Joyce, that was a whole other
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: can of worms. The way he works, but it also
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: very quickly recorded.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: You had been playing for so long solo or maybe
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: with one other guitarist to sing with a band, as
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: you started with on Flaming Red, what was that like?
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: I honestly felt like I was more powerful by myself,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Like you have to sing differently with the band because
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: they're doing the passion, so you have to step back.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: To me, my mind always went, oh, that vocal now
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: has to step back a little bit, and they take
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: the emotional thing and they play it. So if we're
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: all doing that, it's going to be it'lbeit shit show,
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: you know. So I always felt like I had more
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: less control over how it was going to go on
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: stage until very recently. Yeah, I've been working with and
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: that's that's not anything on the bands that I worked
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: with had. I worked with this great guitar player, Doug Lancey,
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: who was my band leader for years, and he would
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: just chase me around like if I wasn't in tune,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: he'd get out of tune and find, you know, and
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: just follow me everywhere. But I still didn't really get
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: into learning how to be play with people until the
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: last probably ten or fifteen years with David Polkingham. He's
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: really been the guy that has been just patiently helped
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: me figure out how to ask for what I want
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: and try to achieve it.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: You know, that's interesting. So when you some of those songs,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: if you went out by yourself, it was almost a
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: relief to sing them. Yeah, when you're doing solo yeah.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: And now it's the other way around.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: I really want to want to hide behind those guys.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: After this last break, we'll be back with Patty Griffin.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: You know what I mentioned at people I was talking
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: to you, everybody said, please ask her about, Please ask
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: her about. So I do have some greatest hits. I
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: have to ask you about long Ride Home. I always
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: thought that was from a man's point of view. It is,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: it is. You're very good at singing from a man's
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: point of view.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: I know something wrong with me.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: No, No, like like your cover of the Springsteen song
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Stolen Cars is perfect.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Well there, you know, And there's a whole world of
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: gender fluid out there which has a whole other take
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: on that too, I'm sure, but I never felt like
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: there should be it should be limited to your gender
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: as as far as characters go. You know, you don't
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: ask writers you're writing fiction, to only write if they're man,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: only write about man at the women to write you
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: know what I mean.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Oh recently, yes, they have asked that, but general.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe that's a good idea.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Actually, was that was any of that taken from an experience?
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Or that was that was just a story you imagined.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: I bought a guitar from Groom's Guitar store in Nashville.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: It was still my main guitar. It's Gibson nineteen sixty
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: five J fifty and I just bought it, went sat
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: down at a kitchen table in Nashville and wrote that song.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: It just kind of came out of the guitar. And
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: it's definitely based on you know, people that some people
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: I know, and what was happening in my life at
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: the time.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Are you the kind that works every day, like you
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: sit down every day with no, no.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: No, Not anymore. I used to. I used to be
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: like kind of obsessive about that, and I needed a
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: break from that. And I haven't really resumed the work level.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure I will. I mean, I'm older now too,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: and there's a lot I want to do.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: In the world besides songwriting.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Beside songwriting and it's very you know, it does take
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: up a lot of space when you do it. I
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: really enjoyed writing these last songs for this record because
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: I took a lot of songs that are on this
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: record or things that I had written and chucked out
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: and I just thought, oh, that's terrible, it's terrible, and
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: checked another one out. And then I kind of went
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: through the voice memos at a certain point and went,
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: that's not why to throw that out, Like I'd want
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: to hear how this turns out, you know what I mean?
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: So so I didn't. When I finished writing this record,
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: it was really just sort of almost like facing myself.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: Everybody gets stuck in things, and sometimes you know you're
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: stuck in something and you're willing to stay stuck.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Damn it. You know, we're definitely was it in your
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: writing you felt stuck?
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I didn't want to write cleverly. I wanted things
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: to be really basic and straight from my gut.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: You're writing reminds me a lot of Leonard Cohen's right, Wow,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: have you heard that?
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: No?
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Thank you? Okay, and you're a Canadian, so thank you.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: That's really absolutely I'm an honor.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like saying you Wow, stick handle, like Wayne
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Gretzky's can I Ask You about? A couple more songs
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: to get to the new album Okay, Useless Desires, which
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: I think is just a fabulous song.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: That was me experimenting with. I was working a lot
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: in Nashville. I was hearing all kinds of music that
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I'd never heard before, and I was working with Emilu
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: Harris and she's amazing, but I didn't grow up listening
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: to Emulu, So I was like she. I was getting
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: exposed to this kind of music that I'd never really
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: listened to before and enjoying it. And I was actually
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: just trying to find a spot in my voice to
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: see what would feel like to sing, And that's the
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: song that kind of rolled out on me. It was
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: really more about a feeling I wanted to have in
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: my voice.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: When you're writing, the melodies come first before the chords before.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: The most of the time, I would say most of
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: the time, but not all the time.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: We should mention you did Band of Joy, which was
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: step which is stepping back a little bit and being
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: part of an ensemble. What was was that a good experience?
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: What was that like?
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: It was really good. I really he just wanted to
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: not have pressure on me of running the show and
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: just be part of the band, and I think that's
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: really where my personality is best suited as being on
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: a team. I met a movie director once and I said,
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: can I come and hang out and watch the guts
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: of a film? I just want to see what was
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: like back and he let me do that. I love
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: behind the scenes. I like being part of something that
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: supports I'm a better service person, more naturally suited to
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: it personality wise, I think. But at the same time,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: I have my own stories that I want to tell.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: So I didn't know where to go next musically, and
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: I really knew I wanted to make a change, and
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: I didn't know how to get there. And band a
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: joy without realizing it. Looking back, I think it was
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: me kind of just trying to shake myself up a
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: little bit and start moving into other directions, looking for
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: other things to do. And it was really really fun
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: and the band was amazing.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: So I do want to talk about the new album,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: which a lot is about your mother, as you've written,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: and when I was listening to it, I kept thinking
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: about I think my favorite song of yours, which is Mary,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: thank you, and I'm going to start up? Can you
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: actually finish the chorus for me? I couldn't stay another day.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I couldn't stay another day longer. He flies right by
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: and leaves a kiss upon her face while the angels
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: were I can't see that crazy seeing his praises in
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: a blaze of glory. Mary stayed behind and started cleaning up,
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: cleaning up the place. Yeah, that's definitely a theme.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: But that is so I remember hearing that song for
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: the first time just being so.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Like, who's gonna, you know, who's sticking around to really
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: put life back together?
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah? No, And when I when I mentioned Leonard Cohen,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: that's had he ever actually cleaned up, he might have
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: written yeah, but it is. It is such a great,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: beautiful sort of encapsulation of that that role.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a tricky spot for women too. That since
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: I've written it, I've thought about this a few times,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: like if you put women like in this quiet kind
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: of stoic you know, we're just going to clean up
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: after you kind of stuff, you know. And I guess
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: when I wrote it, it was sort of like why why,
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: over and over again? Is this the pattern? I question it.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: I think it just because things have always been the
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: way they've always been doesn't mean they have to stay
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: their destructive way, you.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Know, right. But you look back on your mother in
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: this record, in All the Way Home, which has a
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: line not the Life my Mother chose, Well.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: That song is not about my mom?
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Oh was that not?
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: No? No, no, that's like made up story, that's it?
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Was that, right?
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: I just assumed it was about your mother. Yeah. I
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: do want to ask you. I think they're all beautiful songs.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Back at the start at the end, she said, sort
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: of slightly apocalyptic. Born in a Cage is a beautiful song.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: And you were talking about birds in your youth.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: That grew the lyrics grew out of talking to my mom.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: My mom noticed that she grew up in Maine, and
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: I remember there were like, you know, a bird feeder
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: would be out in the wintertime and there would just
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: be hundreds of little beautiful birds. And they have really
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: kind of their populations have really really diminished. She's just
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: not seeing some of the birds that she was used
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: to seeing twenty years before were just not coming back around.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: And the Earth's taking a beating from us, and I
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: kind of put that in my mind with yet another
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: one of those moments that women are aware of and
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: kind of just accepting on a regular basis, But we
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: probably need to not be accepting it that the amount
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: of women disappearing on a regular basis daily in the world,
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: just disappearing, it's really similar. It's connected to the birds disappearing.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: It's the same disease to me.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: So the last song on the album A word. How
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: about the last line on the album, which is but
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: I Will never stop loving you, which is a is
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: a surprise in the song because it doesn't start as
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: a love song. So who's that about everybody?
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Life? It really isn't about anybody in particular. It's really
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: about why I'm here. Just really done a lot of
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: thinking about why I'm here on earth, you know, in
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: the last few years, spending time with my mom. You know,
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: it's real honored to be with somebody when they're dying,
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: because they you end up kind of thinking about your
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: own stuff. And I just want to not be an asshole.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: I want to support love. And sometimes I can go
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: through a day and really see how beautiful just about
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: everybody is and everything is. You know, some days sometimes
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: I can't do that at all. But that's my goal,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: is to understand how precious it is and connected we
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: all are and everything is. And I know it sounds
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: awful woo woo, I'm sure, but it's really is actually
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: this thing that I try to.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Do that seems like a perfect place to start. Okay,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: that was wonderful. Thank you so much, Thank you very much.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: That was really wonderful.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Nice to talk to you.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: And the episode description you'll find a link to Patti
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Griffin's new album, Crown of Roses, as well as the
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: collection of songs over the course of her career. Be
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Podcast to see all of our video interviews, and be
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
• 44:04
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• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is
• 44:12
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• 44:16
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• 44:34
  Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.