Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Mary Gauthier

Transcript

Mary Gauthier · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
0:14
Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
0:17
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
0:19
Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
0:23
Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right.
0:29
Speaker 1: Enjoy the episode. Mary Goche believes that good songs can
0:36
Speaker 1: save lives. She turned to music in her thirties and
0:39
Speaker 1: became a songwriter of incredible depth and honesty with songs
0:43
Speaker 1: like Mercy Now, A Long Way to Fall, and I Drink,
0:47
Speaker 1: songs that she says helped save her life. A few
0:50
Speaker 1: years ago, Mary started collaborating with US military veterans and
0:54
Speaker 1: their spouses, helping them write songs about their own experiences.
1:00
Speaker 1: Those songs are featured on her latest album, Rifles and
1:03
Speaker 1: Rosary Beads. Recently, we sat down with Mary in Nashville
1:07
Speaker 1: asked her to play a few songs from the album
1:09
Speaker 1: and talk about this unique collaboration. I'm Bruce Headlam and
1:14
Speaker 1: this is broken record, So tell me a bit about
1:20
Speaker 1: this song. Yes, thank you. This was written with a
1:23
Speaker 1: group of military spouses from a bunch of different branches
1:27
Speaker 1: of the military, five different spouses and my fellow songwriter
1:31
Speaker 1: Beth Nilson Chapman, and we wrote this at a Songwriting
1:34
Speaker 1: with Soldiers retreat. Songwriting with Soldiers is a nonprofit that
1:37
Speaker 1: pairs civilian songwriters with veterans and military spouses so that
1:43
Speaker 1: we can make songs out of their experiences. Now you
1:47
Speaker 1: came to this, you've done this for several years, but
1:50
Speaker 1: you don't come from a military background. Your family wasn't
1:53
Speaker 1: in the military, Is that right? Well, my dad served
1:55
Speaker 1: in Korea, but we never ever heard a word about
1:58
Speaker 1: his service. There's one picture of him in uniform, and
2:01
Speaker 1: he never ever talked about his service, but he he
2:07
Speaker 1: did serve. I have zero experience with the military, and
2:10
Speaker 1: until I started working with Songwriting with Soldiers, I didn't
2:13
Speaker 1: know anyone who'd served in Afghanistan or Iraq. So take
2:16
Speaker 1: me inside the room. When you first started working with
2:20
Speaker 1: veterans and spouses. I was asked to do it by
2:24
Speaker 1: the founder of Songwriting with Soldiers, Darden Smith, because of
2:27
Speaker 1: a referral through Darryl Scott, fellow songwriter here in Nashville,
2:30
Speaker 1: who had done a program with them, and thought I
2:33
Speaker 1: would be I would be up for the task of
2:36
Speaker 1: doing one of these retreats. So Darden invited me, and
2:40
Speaker 1: the first retreat I did was all women, all female soldiers.
2:44
Speaker 1: I got paired with two women and we sat down,
2:47
Speaker 1: and I was a nervous wreck because of my limited
2:50
Speaker 1: knowledge of what they'd been through, and so I wanted
2:53
Speaker 1: to get it right and I wanted to capture what
2:56
Speaker 1: they had to say, but I didn't know what I
2:58
Speaker 1: was doing yet, and so I just kind of interviewed
3:01
Speaker 1: them and they had a lot to say, and as
3:05
Speaker 1: they spoke, I just typed it into my laptop. And
3:08
Speaker 1: I learned right away that at some point the title
3:11
Speaker 1: a song title is going to pop out of their mouth.
3:14
Speaker 1: And just put that on top of the page and
3:16
Speaker 1: start working on it. Now, you know military people, and
3:19
Speaker 1: I've done a project with veterans as well and their spouses,
3:25
Speaker 1: and they're the first to tell you that they don't
3:26
Speaker 1: always have access to those emotions and to those feelings.
3:32
Speaker 1: Was there something you had to break through? Were they guarded?
3:36
Speaker 1: What I remember is that when the music starts to
3:40
Speaker 1: come and it reflects what they're saying, it is kind
3:45
Speaker 1: of a can opener. It just opens the walls of
3:49
Speaker 1: protection that they've built around their heart. Melody is very powerful,
3:54
Speaker 1: and when it reflects you, you feel seen and heard,
4:00
Speaker 1: and that empathy bond breaks down. I think the natural
4:06
Speaker 1: self protection that someone has when they've been traumatized, and
4:11
Speaker 1: so many of our veterans do carry war trauma. So
4:14
Speaker 1: I think the answer is yes, a lot of the
4:16
Speaker 1: vets are protected, especially with civilians, because we don't know
4:20
Speaker 1: what they've been through. But also I think there's a
4:24
Speaker 1: sense that they're being heard when the music starts to come.
4:29
Speaker 1: So you were first working on the words, you said,
4:32
Speaker 1: you were at your laptop, you didn't have your guitar,
4:35
Speaker 1: that's right. When could you bring the guitar in pretty quickly?
4:38
Speaker 1: I think once I have a couple of lines and
4:40
Speaker 1: I want to see how they're going to sing, So
4:43
Speaker 1: I'll just start messing around with very simple core progressions
4:45
Speaker 1: and it starts to sing pretty quickly. And I've been
4:50
Speaker 1: doing this for six years now, so I have quite
4:53
Speaker 1: a bit of experience. But I like to look up
4:55
Speaker 1: when the music starts to come because almost always their
4:58
Speaker 1: eyes get big. Is it's music sees us in ways
5:03
Speaker 1: that there's not really an explanation for. Music goes to
5:07
Speaker 1: the deepest part of who we are, and when the
5:10
Speaker 1: music sees them, they they kind of are blown away
5:14
Speaker 1: in a way like it's like, what, like this is
5:18
Speaker 1: going to really truly reflect me? You know? That's what
5:23
Speaker 1: we as songwriters just sort of take for granted, and
5:26
Speaker 1: because this is our job, we know it as part
5:29
Speaker 1: of our everyday life. But for someone who's never experienced
5:34
Speaker 1: an original song of their story, is it is? It
5:37
Speaker 1: is quite astonishing process. And how do they react after that?
5:40
Speaker 1: Do they feel a little self conscious again or do
5:44
Speaker 1: you feel it opens up something that stays open. I
5:47
Speaker 1: think there's a real sense of intimacy that's formed and
5:51
Speaker 1: empathy in the co write in the writing room. But
5:55
Speaker 1: when we take the song back into the large group
5:58
Speaker 1: and they realize, oh my god, what I just revealed
6:01
Speaker 1: is going to be played in front of all these people,
6:04
Speaker 1: I think a lot of fear is experienced. And when
6:07
Speaker 1: we talk about it in the retreats, the founder Darden
6:10
Speaker 1: Smith always says there's two kinds of courage. At least,
6:14
Speaker 1: there's the kind of courage it takes to put the
6:15
Speaker 1: uniform on and go serve the country, and the kind
6:18
Speaker 1: of courage it takes to take the uniform off and
6:21
Speaker 1: be honest about what happened over there and what remains
6:25
Speaker 1: inside of you that's unresolved. And so this is courage time.
6:30
Speaker 1: When their song is about to be played in front
6:32
Speaker 1: of their group, I think there's a lot of fear.
6:35
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen guys from Special Forces break into
6:37
Speaker 1: a cold sweat that's running down both sides of their face.
6:41
Speaker 1: Do you remember playing this song in front of the
6:43
Speaker 1: wares after the war? Do you remember taking this song
6:46
Speaker 1: into a bigger room? Yes? Do you remember what the
6:48
Speaker 1: reaction was? Yes? All of the women who co wrote
6:50
Speaker 1: it were huddled into a group and they were holding
6:54
Speaker 1: each other's hands, and there were tears, and there was
6:57
Speaker 1: a sense of sisterhood and understanding and instant bond that
7:03
Speaker 1: a song is. It's empathy. They they know each other's experience,
7:07
Speaker 1: they've lived each other's lives. And what was the reaction
7:10
Speaker 1: in the audience was the audience was their husbands, and
7:14
Speaker 1: their husbands, if I remember right, so many of their
7:19
Speaker 1: husbands say, the true hero is my wife. Nobody knows
7:23
Speaker 1: what she's gone through. You know, people thank me for
7:26
Speaker 1: my service, but she's going through the aftermath and deserves that.
7:32
Speaker 1: I think the husbands were grateful that that this song
7:36
Speaker 1: gave voice to their hero. In many instances, it's their wife.
7:41
Speaker 1: Did did that surprise any of the men? I think
7:46
Speaker 1: it was a relief because this was a co write
7:49
Speaker 1: with a group of women, so it wasn't any couple
7:52
Speaker 1: singled out. It was five women and five men, and
7:57
Speaker 1: that the group proved. I tod cover and relief, like, Oh,
8:02
Speaker 1: we're all going through it. It's not just it's not
8:05
Speaker 1: just us, which is that's the great power of song
8:09
Speaker 1: in a nutshell songs let us know we're not alone, right,
8:13
Speaker 1: That's that's what I was drawn to all along, from
8:17
Speaker 1: the very beginning. Listening to the radio as a kid,
8:20
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, that's me coming out of
8:23
Speaker 1: that little box on the wall the intercolm. You know,
8:27
Speaker 1: do you remember the first song that did that for you,
8:29
Speaker 1: that made you feel that you shared an experience with
8:32
Speaker 1: someone else, someone you didn't know. Oh God, the radio
8:36
Speaker 1: when Casey Casem was American Top forty. I listened to
8:39
Speaker 1: it in my room, laying in my little twin bed
8:42
Speaker 1: under the intercom and Baton Rouge Louisiana in the seventies,
8:46
Speaker 1: and song after song after I tried so hard to
8:48
Speaker 1: Stay Awake for the top ten. Song after song after
8:50
Speaker 1: song it was. Bruce said it the best Springsteen. I
8:54
Speaker 1: learned more from a four minute record than I ever
8:57
Speaker 1: did in school music and songs. I've always been where
9:00
Speaker 1: I've tried to where I have I've found my story myself,
9:05
Speaker 1: my emotional reality is in songs. What surprised you the
9:10
Speaker 1: most when you started working with the veterans and with
9:14
Speaker 1: their families. I think what's been most surprising to me
9:19
Speaker 1: is the heaviness of the weight that they carry, Just
9:24
Speaker 1: how hard it is to deal with war trauma inside
9:29
Speaker 1: a family system in a war that goes on and
9:33
Speaker 1: on and on. A lot of these troops are active duty,
9:37
Speaker 1: so they're going to be called back. A lot of
9:39
Speaker 1: the vets we've worked with have multiple, multiple deployments, if
9:45
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, winner eighteenth year of the conflict in
9:49
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and Iraq, and it's falling on a very proportionally
9:54
Speaker 1: to the population, small number of people. They carry so much,
9:59
Speaker 1: and one of the shocking things for me is this
10:02
Speaker 1: could be my kids. I'm fifty, I'll be fifty seven
10:06
Speaker 1: in the next little while, and these could be my babies.
10:11
Speaker 1: It really activated a maternal impulse in me I didn't
10:15
Speaker 1: even know I had. I just want to wrap my
10:17
Speaker 1: arms around them and keep them safe. I found myself
10:22
Speaker 1: in many ways drawn to them, and in a way
10:27
Speaker 1: that is new for me, very quickly, deep deep love.
10:33
Speaker 1: I love these people. Now we should say this song,
10:37
Speaker 1: and many of the songs you're going to play today,
10:39
Speaker 1: were from your most recent album, which is Rifles and
10:43
Speaker 1: Rosary Beads, which was all the songs are co written
10:46
Speaker 1: with veterans YEP and their spouses and their spouses. Now,
10:51
Speaker 1: not to scare people away, but I think a lot
10:53
Speaker 1: of these songs, they are incredibly powerful. But you know,
10:57
Speaker 1: there's some songs that explicitly address the war experience. But
11:01
Speaker 1: there's songs like this one. It's got that great line,
11:05
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to ask you to say which
11:07
Speaker 1: one of the people wrote it, because I'm going to
11:09
Speaker 1: just assume they all did. Caught between my pain and
11:11
Speaker 1: the pain of someone else. I think that's something that
11:15
Speaker 1: even people who aren't veterans or in their families people
11:18
Speaker 1: understand that kind of experience. Were you trying to write
11:22
Speaker 1: songs that could be lifted out of its immediate circumstances
11:26
Speaker 1: like this is a song for everybody, definitely, not No.
11:29
Speaker 1: What I was trying to do is get to their
11:31
Speaker 1: deepest experience. Because of the years I've been doing this,
11:35
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that if I can get
11:36
Speaker 1: to their deepest experience, it will just be a song
11:39
Speaker 1: for everybody, because if you go past the personal to
11:42
Speaker 1: the deeply deeply personally, you hit the universal, and the
11:46
Speaker 1: universal is what makes the song great. And what we
11:50
Speaker 1: try to do is write great songs with members of
11:52
Speaker 1: the military and their spouses. The goal is to find
11:57
Speaker 1: what the song wants to say and what their souls
12:00
Speaker 1: need to say. Well, let's hear a very different song,
12:05
Speaker 1: a great song which is called Iraq, and it's about
12:11
Speaker 1: a very different experience. Thank you. We'll be back with
12:15
Speaker 1: Mary Gache's song Iraq after this break. We're back with
12:24
Speaker 1: Mary Gasche performing her song Iraq from the album Rifles
12:29
Speaker 1: and Rosary Beads. Can you tell me the story of
12:33
Speaker 1: writing this song? Yeah. I wrote this with the female
12:39
Speaker 1: large engine mechanic who served in the Army. Her name
12:44
Speaker 1: is Brandy Davidson, and she was a vibrant, incredibly charismatic,
12:52
Speaker 1: beautiful woman with a million dollar smile and beautiful clothes,
12:57
Speaker 1: and she was a class president of her high class,
13:00
Speaker 1: and she just had personality. And she feels or felt
13:06
Speaker 1: at the time that the sexual harassment she experienced in
13:10
Speaker 1: Iraq broke her down and she had to rebuild herself
13:16
Speaker 1: after she came home. And it was stunning for me
13:19
Speaker 1: to hear her say that her enemy really was in Iraq,
13:23
Speaker 1: that the battle she was fighting and the war that
13:27
Speaker 1: she was engaged in was sexual harassment. Was that the
13:31
Speaker 1: phrase she used, her enemy wasn't Iraq. That's correct. When
13:36
Speaker 1: you heard that, did you? I said, sweetie, let's call
13:39
Speaker 1: this thing Iraq. What do you think? And you know,
13:42
Speaker 1: I tried to imagine what it was like for her,
13:46
Speaker 1: and so I just asked her, you know, were you
13:48
Speaker 1: covered in Greece. Give me the names of some of
13:50
Speaker 1: the tools. I don't know what the torque wrenches or
13:53
Speaker 1: any of those things she listed, but she does. And
13:56
Speaker 1: she was one of only two large engine mechanics in
14:00
Speaker 1: the area where she served that were female, and so
14:04
Speaker 1: she was up against it and it was really hard
14:06
Speaker 1: for her. There's such beautiful lines in that song, the
14:11
Speaker 1: double meaning of I worked on my back, the image
14:15
Speaker 1: of her drawing a line, of course, your mind fills
14:18
Speaker 1: in the rest of it in the sand, in a
14:20
Speaker 1: place where the wind blows the dust. That's quite incredible.
14:24
Speaker 1: Thank you. You've written a lot about trauma in your
14:29
Speaker 1: own life and for people who don't know your story.
14:33
Speaker 1: You were adopted, You were in a foundling hospital for
14:37
Speaker 1: a year back when they called them foundling hospital. You
14:40
Speaker 1: struggled with your adopted family, ran away from home. You
14:44
Speaker 1: did open a restaurant in Boston and stopped drinking alcohol
14:47
Speaker 1: at some point. Does your trauma make it easier to
14:52
Speaker 1: relate to the trauma of someone like this who had
14:55
Speaker 1: a very different experience. No, I think so. I think
15:00
Speaker 1: it does. Although all of the songwriters that work with
15:03
Speaker 1: the Songwriting with Soldiers program are really good at what
15:05
Speaker 1: they do. I feel drawn to it in a way
15:10
Speaker 1: that feels natural to me. Once I got over my
15:13
Speaker 1: original fear around doing a good job and realized I
15:17
Speaker 1: could do this job, I have a real strong belief
15:22
Speaker 1: that it's the songs and songwriting that were my life jackets.
15:26
Speaker 1: After I got clean and sober, I needed something to
15:30
Speaker 1: hold on to. It couldn't be accumulating capital in a
15:34
Speaker 1: restaurant making Jamalaya. I needed something more, and so I
15:39
Speaker 1: walked away from the restaurant and became a full on,
15:42
Speaker 1: full time songwriter and literally worked my way through my
15:46
Speaker 1: own story in my writing, using the songs to in
15:52
Speaker 1: many ways, release the poison. What happens is empathy. You know,
15:57
Speaker 1: people say, oh my god, that's my song. You know me,
16:00
Speaker 1: you see me. I'm like, well, you know, we're made
16:03
Speaker 1: of the same stuff, and that is very powerful for
16:06
Speaker 1: both the songwriter and the person who resonates with the song.
16:10
Speaker 1: And you know, you did not take up songwriting because
16:14
Speaker 1: you wanted to be Britney Spears. You did this at
16:17
Speaker 1: age thirty five, Is that right? Yeah? I started writing
16:20
Speaker 1: songs in my mid thirties and came to Nashville at
16:23
Speaker 1: age forty. Do you remember the first song you wrote?
16:26
Speaker 1: Not really, I think it was probably pretty bad. Had
16:32
Speaker 1: you been did you play the guitar by then or
16:35
Speaker 1: was it did you just start from kind of well scratch?
16:38
Speaker 1: I kind of always had a guitar. My aunt Jenny,
16:41
Speaker 1: gave me her guitar. She was a bit of a
16:43
Speaker 1: folks singer, and she gave me one of her old
16:45
Speaker 1: guitars when I was thirteen, and then I got my
16:48
Speaker 1: own guitar a few years later from the music store
16:52
Speaker 1: round back ovation very first guitar that ever plugged in
16:57
Speaker 1: and made an acoustic electric guitar. But I didn't write
17:00
Speaker 1: songs until I got clean. So play some of my
17:04
Speaker 1: hero songs, you know, the simpler songs. But after I
17:07
Speaker 1: got clean sober, I was very much called to write,
17:12
Speaker 1: and I couldn't really explain it. I didn't know why,
17:15
Speaker 1: but it became very clear that this is what I
17:18
Speaker 1: had to do. I never expected to make a career
17:22
Speaker 1: out of it, but that just came on. It was
17:25
Speaker 1: a process, and they came on, and then I just
17:30
Speaker 1: surrendered to it and came to Nashville when I was forty.
17:32
Speaker 1: When did you first step on a stage and sing
17:35
Speaker 1: your own songs? Probably when I was thirty two thirty one.
17:40
Speaker 1: What was that like? It's probably the most frightening thing
17:43
Speaker 1: I've ever done. I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified.
17:48
Speaker 1: I remember all the spit drained out of my mouth.
17:51
Speaker 1: It was like I could have spit dust. I had nothing.
17:56
Speaker 1: I had my heart exploding in my ears, no spit.
17:59
Speaker 1: My hands were shaken, and I forgot the words, I
18:02
Speaker 1: forgot the chords. I lost it on stage. It was terrible,
18:05
Speaker 1: but something in me said, well, you're gonna have to
18:09
Speaker 1: do that again, you know, I just told myself, yeah,
18:12
Speaker 1: that was horrible, but the good news is it can't
18:16
Speaker 1: be worse than that. Do it again? Had that been
18:20
Speaker 1: I mean, you know you were a cook before then.
18:22
Speaker 1: Did you always throw yourself at things you found really hard? Apparently? Yeah?
18:28
Speaker 1: Is it getting easier? It's gotten incredibly for me to
18:31
Speaker 1: be on stage. Yeah, It's where I belong there and
18:34
Speaker 1: I can take over a stage without terror. Do you
18:38
Speaker 1: want to play another song? Happy to do it? So
18:43
Speaker 1: tell me about your co writer. Sailor in the Navy.
18:49
Speaker 1: His name is Jamie Trent. He served in Desert Storm.
18:53
Speaker 1: He wanted to write a song about how complex Veterans
18:57
Speaker 1: Day is for him, how the feeling things that he
19:01
Speaker 1: has on November the eleventh or not at all simple.
19:06
Speaker 1: In fact, he feels opposite and conflicting emotions on that
19:11
Speaker 1: day and I wanted to help him try to get
19:14
Speaker 1: to that. And as we talked, he told me that
19:18
Speaker 1: in his town on Veterans Day, if you have an
19:22
Speaker 1: active duty military ID, waffle House will give you a
19:25
Speaker 1: free breakfast. And for me, as a songwriter, that just
19:29
Speaker 1: the whole movies right there. So let's send you to
19:33
Speaker 1: waffle house on November eleventh, and you tell me what happens.
19:37
Speaker 1: And we wrote the story basically using our imagination and
19:42
Speaker 1: his experience to move the parade past the waffle house
19:46
Speaker 1: while he's sitting there with conflicted emotions. How did you
19:50
Speaker 1: get that out of him? Well, songwriting is a skill,
19:55
Speaker 1: and I've been at it quite a while, and I
19:58
Speaker 1: know that it needs to be a little a movie,
20:00
Speaker 1: and the listener needs to be able to see the
20:03
Speaker 1: scenery and put themselves into the protagonist's body and look
20:08
Speaker 1: out from their eyes. So when I ask them questions
20:12
Speaker 1: about what's going on in the little movie and they
20:14
Speaker 1: give me great answers, it's really exciting for me to
20:17
Speaker 1: ask Jamie what about when people thank you for your service?
20:21
Speaker 1: And he's like, I just don't know about that. What
20:24
Speaker 1: I got from him is that a lot of the
20:26
Speaker 1: folk who thank him for service don't understand what his
20:29
Speaker 1: service is and continues to be he's struggling. If I
20:33
Speaker 1: got text from him yesterday, he's been out of the
20:35
Speaker 1: military for quite some time and he's in hospital today.
20:38
Speaker 1: He struggling with a heart condition that was brought on
20:41
Speaker 1: direct result of his service. He calls it the gift
20:45
Speaker 1: that keeps on giving. He's dealing with probably the lifetime
20:50
Speaker 1: of health issues from what happened to him on the
20:52
Speaker 1: carry aircraft carrier that he worked on. So the movies
20:55
Speaker 1: come alive with detail. The songs are little movies, and
20:59
Speaker 1: the vet's just give me the detail if I ask
21:02
Speaker 1: them the right questions. Is that the same process you
21:05
Speaker 1: put yourself through. Absolutely, you ask yourself those questions. Yep.
21:09
Speaker 1: Do you see the movie first or do you have
21:11
Speaker 1: to build the movie? Build a movie. I never know
21:13
Speaker 1: how it's gonna end. In this song, when the last
21:17
Speaker 1: line became clear that it was gonna rain, we both screamed.
21:22
Speaker 1: It's so perfect. It's so perfect. We didn't know it
21:25
Speaker 1: was gonna rain. It was coming along and it was
21:29
Speaker 1: just we both went as it begins to rain, and
21:33
Speaker 1: we just screamed because it's just like and then the
21:35
Speaker 1: curtain closes. The songs have their own intelligence. In many ways,
21:41
Speaker 1: we're just trying to get David out of the marble,
21:43
Speaker 1: like Michael Azelo said, But in other ways, I kind
21:46
Speaker 1: of know I got the chisel and the hammer. I
21:48
Speaker 1: kind of know where to bang. Okay, I'm going to
21:52
Speaker 1: try and steal some more of your tricks for our listeners.
21:56
Speaker 1: Pretend I'm sitting here, I'm not a veteran. I've got
21:59
Speaker 1: a guitar in my hand, and I wish it were
22:01
Speaker 1: as nice as your nineteen fifty Gibson, which is really beautiful.
22:05
Speaker 1: I know three or four chords, like most people do.
22:08
Speaker 1: Where do I start? Well, you ask yourself what matters
22:14
Speaker 1: to me today, what's important to me today, what's going
22:16
Speaker 1: on inside me today? What are my concerns areas of concern? Well,
22:21
Speaker 1: I teach songwriting a lot, and my hope for each
22:24
Speaker 1: student is that they write the songs only they can write.
22:28
Speaker 1: You know, everybody wants to be their hero or sound
22:30
Speaker 1: like Bob Dylan, But Bob's got that covered. And I
22:33
Speaker 1: think that we each have songs only we can write.
22:36
Speaker 1: And so my guide would, my guidance would be to
22:40
Speaker 1: address your areas of concern, deep concern. What really matters
22:44
Speaker 1: to you today, what's really bugging you today? What's bringing
22:47
Speaker 1: great joy today? I don't know if you're can write
22:49
Speaker 1: a happy song or sad song. I don't know your
22:51
Speaker 1: mood yet, but be honest about it. In your song
22:54
Speaker 1: and just come up with three chords that sound like
22:56
Speaker 1: that feeling and let it start to be guided with
23:01
Speaker 1: an invisible hand that I don't have a name for.
23:03
Speaker 1: It exists for all of us. If we ask it
23:06
Speaker 1: to help us, it will Does every one of your
23:09
Speaker 1: songs have in the writing have that kind of Eureka
23:13
Speaker 1: moment like when you realized that it was going to
23:16
Speaker 1: rain at the end of his song. No, not all
23:19
Speaker 1: of them, but I think the good ones all do. Yeah,
23:22
Speaker 1: the good ones all contain what I call a godline,
23:25
Speaker 1: a line that is so good I couldn't have possibly
23:27
Speaker 1: written it that it came through me more than from me.
23:32
Speaker 1: And I look at the page and go, oh my god,
23:34
Speaker 1: look at that. Are you one of Because your song
23:37
Speaker 1: seems so focused and so concentrated. I think most people
23:40
Speaker 1: who listen to you imagine that that you just write
23:43
Speaker 1: these songs and that these little jewels and you uncover them.
23:46
Speaker 1: Are you that kind of writer or are you a
23:48
Speaker 1: kind of let a thousand flowers bloom? You write a
23:50
Speaker 1: lot of songs and then whittle them down a whittle
23:53
Speaker 1: hard work. Yeah, The simplicity is because I've edited it
23:58
Speaker 1: and edited it and edited it even in individual songs.
24:02
Speaker 1: How many verses would you write? Well, I write, I
24:04
Speaker 1: write more verses than you hear. But each line I
24:07
Speaker 1: could easily spend the whole day, eight hours on a
24:09
Speaker 1: line you're writing often reminds me of Leonard Cohen's. Well,
24:13
Speaker 1: Leonard's one of my heroes who wrote pages and pages
24:17
Speaker 1: of lyrics to get it down to that, to that
24:21
Speaker 1: very and you have the same quality of being able
24:24
Speaker 1: to take something very large and amorphous, a feeling and
24:27
Speaker 1: put it in very concrete language. Yeah, it starts a
24:31
Speaker 1: morphous for me too, very very large and amorphous, and
24:36
Speaker 1: the process of getting it too simple is quite complex. Actually,
24:42
Speaker 1: there's just a feeling in my gut that says you're
24:44
Speaker 1: not there yet, and I honor it and it it
24:48
Speaker 1: makes me work harder, and I don't let I don't
24:52
Speaker 1: let myself off the hook very easily. I just keep
24:54
Speaker 1: going and try to get to that truth that I
24:57
Speaker 1: know is underneath all of the almost truths. Do you
25:02
Speaker 1: write every day? No, I have zero discipline around writing. Okay,
25:07
Speaker 1: what makes you sit down and write? Then? Well, with
25:11
Speaker 1: the vets, it's urgent, I'm sating, I'm sat down in
25:14
Speaker 1: front of them and I got to get them a song,
25:16
Speaker 1: and I got two hours. These all these songs are
25:18
Speaker 1: written in less than two hours, so I don't do
25:20
Speaker 1: the hardcore witty thing with these as I would with
25:24
Speaker 1: my own. So that's urgent. I gotta do it. What
25:28
Speaker 1: gets me to write a song these days are intense
25:31
Speaker 1: emotions and the confusion co writes help. I mean, I
25:36
Speaker 1: live in Nashville. It's co writing town, and we sit
25:39
Speaker 1: down with co writer and have some coffee and talk
25:41
Speaker 1: about life, and that'll get me to a song. But
25:45
Speaker 1: I'm not. Uh. Yeah, I wish I was more disciplined
25:50
Speaker 1: around that. I wish I produced more songs. I want
25:53
Speaker 1: to ask you about something you said a couple of
25:55
Speaker 1: years ago when you released an album. You said you
26:00
Speaker 1: were at a point in your life that you wanted
26:02
Speaker 1: to de romanticize romantic love, but you were through with
26:08
Speaker 1: the idea of romantic love. I was through with the
26:11
Speaker 1: idea that romantic love was gonna save me. There's a difference. Okay.
26:18
Speaker 1: For the longest time, I thought romantic love would fix me,
26:22
Speaker 1: kind of like the way I thought booze and dope
26:25
Speaker 1: were going to make me less anxious. I thought romantic
26:30
Speaker 1: love was going to make problems go away. I think
26:34
Speaker 1: the move towards de romanticizing romantic love is a move
26:40
Speaker 1: towards adulthood. In some ways, I believe in romance. I
26:44
Speaker 1: believe in romantic love. I'm currently in love in fact,
26:49
Speaker 1: but it ain't gonna fix me. The problems that I
26:52
Speaker 1: take into romantic love will remain the problems that I
26:55
Speaker 1: have to deal with. What did you think romantic love
26:58
Speaker 1: was going to fix when you belie leaves that romantic
27:01
Speaker 1: left could fix you? Oh God, you know that's a
27:04
Speaker 1: hard question. You're going Barbara Walters on me here, I'm
27:07
Speaker 1: going to ask you what kind of tree you would be? Now? Yeah.
27:13
Speaker 1: I think for the most part of my life, I've
27:17
Speaker 1: been incredibly lonely. Music has helped ease that loneliness by
27:22
Speaker 1: connecting me to people and the process of working in
27:28
Speaker 1: therapy on a lot of the stuff that happened when
27:32
Speaker 1: I was a baby that year in the orphanage has
27:35
Speaker 1: a greater impact than if you'd have told me the
27:38
Speaker 1: impact of that when I was twenty. I mean, it
27:43
Speaker 1: would have just destroyed me because I wouldn't expect it
27:45
Speaker 1: fifty going on seven that I'd still be dealing I'm
27:48
Speaker 1: going to be dealing with that for the rest of
27:49
Speaker 1: my life. We think of as an infide as, they
27:52
Speaker 1: don't remember it, so it really isn't going to have
27:54
Speaker 1: an impact. Turns out it affects the brain chemistry and
27:59
Speaker 1: it leaves a traumatic imprint on the brain to not
28:02
Speaker 1: be held as a baby. And there is something about
28:06
Speaker 1: romantic love that I thought would replace the affection I
28:11
Speaker 1: didn't get as a baby, and I had to come
28:14
Speaker 1: to terms with the reality is I have to I
28:18
Speaker 1: have to learn how to deal with that in a
28:21
Speaker 1: way that it isn't going to make someone else my savior.
28:27
Speaker 1: So we still believe in romantic love. Absolutely, you're putting
28:29
Speaker 1: it its place. What comes along after, what sustains people.
28:34
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking particularly of a lot of the people
28:38
Speaker 1: you were working with on this most recent album, what's
28:40
Speaker 1: the stains in them? It's not romantic love. What Guther said, oh,
28:44
Speaker 1: we really are is hoping machines. And so you have
28:48
Speaker 1: to have hope. And there are many, many, many forms
28:52
Speaker 1: of love. Romantic love is only one. We kind of
28:56
Speaker 1: idealize that. I think culturally, well certainly songs have idealized that.
29:02
Speaker 1: But if you were to asked me how the veterans
29:05
Speaker 1: in that position of de romanticizing romantic love or able
29:10
Speaker 1: to keep it going. I think that's their love of
29:12
Speaker 1: each other. It's it's it's it is love, but it's
29:17
Speaker 1: the love. It's family love. It's making its family of choice,
29:23
Speaker 1: it's hope and again back to the power of grace.
29:29
Speaker 1: Can you uh, can you finish by doing mercy now?
29:32
Speaker 1: Would be my pleasure. I love Jamie's playing on that.
29:37
Speaker 1: I love that one little dissondant note. I thought, is
29:40
Speaker 1: that a mistake? But then she know she pulled it off.
29:47
Speaker 1: To learn more about Marygotier, go to Marigotier dot com
29:51
Speaker 1: to hear other Broken Record episodes and also a playlist
29:54
Speaker 1: of marygoche songs. Head to Broken Record podcast dot com.
29:59
Speaker 1: Broken re Kurt is produced by Justin Richmond and Jason Gimbrel,
30:03
Speaker 1: with help from me LaBelle, Jacob Smith, Julia Barton, and
30:07
Speaker 1: Jacob Weissberg. Our Broken Record theme music is by the
30:09
Speaker 1: Great Kenny Beats. This show is brought to you by
30:12
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. For my co hosts Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin.
30:17
Speaker 1: I'm Bruce Headlin.