Latest / Basic Folk / David Wilcox Can Heal Your Heart in Two Minutes, ep. 329

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David Wilcox Can Heal Your Heart in Two Minutes, ep. 329 · Basic Folk

0:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello and welcome.
0:14
[SPEAKER_03]: This is Basic Folk where we have honest conversations with folk musicians on the bluegrass situation.
0:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello, I am the host of this podcast Cindy House.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for finding us.
0:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Today on the pod we have...
0:27
[SPEAKER_03]: folk hero David Wilcox get to that momentarily but first have you signed up for basic folks newsletter if you listen to this podcast a lot you know that I ask this question every time and if you haven't signed up for a newsletter oh man it's so easy to do so at the link in the show notes
0:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Or you can go to basicbook.com, sign up there, and get on our email list, and we'll let you know what is happening on the pod.
0:56
[SPEAKER_03]: You can also follow us on social media.
0:58
[SPEAKER_03]: We are at basic folk, on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, where a listener supported podcast, therefore you can make a donation at basicfoke.com, or there is a link in the show notes to do so.
1:15
[SPEAKER_03]: How are you doing?
1:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh.
1:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I am feeling the fall loving it excited about it getting my cozy candles ready to go taking out my sweaters Maybe thinking about re-soling those boots that I've had for like 10 years that just basically have no traction on the bottom.
1:38
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be a good thing to do
1:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, really enjoying it.
1:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
1:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's get into the pod.
1:47
[SPEAKER_03]: David Wilcox.
1:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Asheville based songwriter David Wilcox has been through some SHIT, a difficult childhood in northeast Ohio sent him seeking answers
1:58
[SPEAKER_03]: mostly on a spicycle in an attempt to get away.
2:01
[SPEAKER_03]: He has spent his lifetime leaning into his problems and digging into their route at the source, his own heart.
2:07
[SPEAKER_03]: He decided to see what lessons his heart had been trying to teach him, and at 67 years old, he's still listening and learning.
2:15
[SPEAKER_03]: He claims to have the answer of how to heal your heart and how to do it in two minutes.
2:20
[SPEAKER_03]: He lays it out in our conversation.
2:22
[SPEAKER_03]: We also talk about his new album, The Way I Tell The Story, which continues his exploratory journey through the lens of his wife's Parkinson's diagnosis, retelling the story of his childhood, staying calm in an emergency and the aftermath of Hurricane Halene,
2:39
[SPEAKER_03]: which has devastated his community.
2:41
[SPEAKER_03]: We discuss how David has learned the ability to walk the line of acknowledging his talents without getting too caught up in the hot and fast success he experienced at the start of his career.
2:51
[SPEAKER_03]: He explains when it's best to feel the depths of sorrow versus disassociate.
2:56
[SPEAKER_03]: He talks about his life long love of cycling and how it continues to be a meditation and a life saver.
3:03
[SPEAKER_03]: David is full of gems and wisdom, and I think I'll be listening back to this one many times over.
3:09
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll take a listen to a clip from the new record.
3:13
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the title track, the way I tell the story, and then we'll get to our conversation with David Wilcox on Basic
3:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the lone survivor We landed in the field A full investigation Never was revealed Heart got covered over Never really healed The scars are on the inside The evidence was sealed But the way I know the story I just brushed off the dirt
4:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I landed in a haystack, barely tore my shirt.
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: What good would it do, make?
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Just replay the past, but accidents will happen.
4:18
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what happened fast.
4:21
[SPEAKER_03]: David Wilcox, welcome to Basic Focus, such an honor to have you here.
4:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
4:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Good to be here.
4:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Congrats on the new album, The Way I Tell The Story.
4:31
[SPEAKER_03]: um, I want to say that you come across as a pretty positive person.
4:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Where do you think that comes from?
4:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, do you feel like a positive person?
4:42
[SPEAKER_03]: What's your relationship to positivity in yourself and in others?
4:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think the answer that might serve best would be, um,
4:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a positive person by what I see, but I have learned that my hopelessness does nobody any good.
5:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I trust this process of emotional alchemy, which I think is synonymous with songwriting, that can take
5:25
[SPEAKER_01]: the the sorrows and the tragedies and the injustices and kind of take them apart and find away to live a life of dignity no matter what no matter what the situation is and make decisions that feel like
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: a good story that feel like a life worth living.
5:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not depending on the world changing to my liking, it's just depending on not being just a puppet to my own initial reactions, like fear and anger and judgment and all that.
6:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that sounds like a spiritual practice,
6:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But really, you could just say that for me, having a steady discipline of coming to this studio, this quiet room, and pretending I'm writing a song.
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, there are songs, but songs are not what I'm after.
6:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Coming to the studio as if my real goal is just saying to my heart,
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: and through the subtle discernment of writing a song, I gather a perspective which is not my own.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I gather a perspective which is
6:53
[SPEAKER_01]: more evolved than where I am.
6:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more about where I'm going to be, but I get a glimpse of it through the song.
7:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I get to sing the song and hold myself accountable to that perspective.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So, positive, I'm positive that I can live a life of dignity in this world.
7:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm, how do you get to that point where, I mean, it sounds like you're sitting down and you're like, here's where I am, but you are wanting to like pull yourself forward.
7:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you saying the act of like writing the song is pulling you forward and evolving you?
7:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and it is not the song itself, but the lifetime practice of the discernment that I learn through the process of writing, so that I not only can gather a song, which is
8:00
[SPEAKER_01]: thousands and thousands of choices that are all made by heart.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot only gather a song together, but in the process of doing that, I can trust how I know which line is better, or which riff is better, or which rhythm is better.
8:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And those are emotional questions that's coming to my heart and saying which one feels right for this, which one expresses the way my heart is trying to get me to feel.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And through that subtle discernment,
8:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I then have the ability to navigate life with a more intact GPS, internal GPS, not just my strategy and cleverness, but also the
8:50
[SPEAKER_01]: all the clues that I'm getting from my subtle intuition that I have learned to trust, even though it's tiny little inputs, I can navigate including that in my decision making.
9:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So that what I'm after is not songs, but a life that sings, a life that feels like as good as a good song.
9:16
[SPEAKER_03]: beautiful.
9:19
[SPEAKER_03]: From what I gather, you're also a very silly person.
9:23
[SPEAKER_03]: You're easy to laugh.
9:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You get pretty excited and laugh and interviews.
9:29
[SPEAKER_03]: But you're also a revered songwriter who has written about serious topics and you can be a serious person.
9:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you talk about what it's like to have
9:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hearing this lovely song by the Bob's called Mr. dichotomy.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: This is really great.
9:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the best answer to that question.
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But if I had to answer without hearing the Bob's sing, Mr. dichotomy, I would say.
10:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say,
10:06
[SPEAKER_01]: that it is a joy that comes naturally when I'm not a puppet to my initial fears.
10:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I can be seriously writing about all that's broken and needs to be fixed.
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the same time, I'm not sunk by it.
10:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's this one song on this new record, which is about
10:33
[SPEAKER_01]: the way a tiny little boat holds back the whole ocean.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can not sink in the sea of sorrow, you can be useful.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You can, you know, like stay afloat and be part of the solution, instead of just being killed by the depression.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
10:55
[SPEAKER_01]: This, I do this not because it's easy for me.
10:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I do this because I need to.
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: My family of origin stuff, just a rack, just a mess.
11:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Just, you know, everybody's depressed, everybody's medicated, everybody's like, a hospitalized for depression.
11:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And my brother just died two weeks ago.
11:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And he ridiculously unhappy all his life.
11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I looked at all that, and I said, okay, so this is my genetic sort of destination.
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to grab the wheel.
11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to go off the cliff.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I decided that I was going to do some cardio spelunking on purpose.
11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't going to put it off.
11:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't going to isolate and just, you know, pretend everything's fine.
11:51
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, going into the cave, you got a top rope and you got the world's best flashlight, which is music, and you go into the scary place as if, you know, there's going to be things that you've never seen before.
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be underground rivers.
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be,
12:10
[SPEAKER_01]: prehistoric writing.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be lessons that your hearts been trying to tell you for years.
12:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I describe it that way because you know, it's a taboo thing in our culture.
12:28
[SPEAKER_01]: for lots of contrived reasons for people to be out of touch with their own navigation.
12:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have made it taboo to have your whole GPS working, including your beautiful heart.
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this makes people buy more things and it's, you know, makes the gross national product more gross.
12:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But what it does is it keeps us from living a life that feels alive.
12:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I've decided, um,
13:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, why not just hack all that, why not just break the taboo and decide that I have the authority to feel what I want to feel and find the real juicy life, find the life that's deep and high and interesting.
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I do.
13:26
[SPEAKER_03]: This line from your bio-inspired this question where it says staying soft in a hard world isn't a liability, it's a kind of leadership.
13:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Why does softness make a good quality in a leader?
13:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, where did you learn how to be soft and how can we get back to softness?
13:48
[SPEAKER_01]: listening to each other as if it's not a zero-sum game.
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I think makes our
14:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Conversations more interesting, and it also is really good for our hearts.
14:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it is virgin on a sacred sort of practice to listen with the intent to understand.
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, like I bumped into a neighbor, we started having this conversation.
14:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We both have motorcycles in common.
14:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We were getting to be friends, and then he kind of like stopped cold and he said
14:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to know your politics because if we differ on politics, we really should not even try this.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, really, I said, why?
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, well, you know, it's just, I don't want to hear you, you know, get all riled up.
14:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And that those kind of conversations, they always just reduce themselves to yelling.
14:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, yes, because it's entertaining if people are watching and they're afraid to bring up their own opinion, so they want to watch someone else get angry.
15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't like that.
15:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's much more fun to listen in and see if I can say someone else's point of you better than they can.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's weird.
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you want to fight for your team?
15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you want to die on the battlefield of some ridiculous abstraction of an idea?
15:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, no, I'd just like to get to know you your my neighbor.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we've got to know each other and we differ and we understand better how we differ and I love to like lean into like trying to describe his point of view.
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it like this and I come up with a cool metaphor and he thinks about it and he's yeah, but it's more like that and I see.
15:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he's done it too, coming back with my point of view with some interesting little metaphor that makes it realize, oh, I can see it when you reduce it down to something simple.
16:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, it's, so I love the adventure of seeing the world through someone else's eyes.
16:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that if the goal of
16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: politics is solutions, which obviously it isn't, but if it weren't, I think it would be much more efficient to have people who actually knew how to do that, how to communicate.
16:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, most people, if you're going to hire somebody for a job, find out if they can do the job, you know?
16:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like find out if a plumber has ever plumbed before, you know?
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: drop them in a in a volatile situation and see if they can get people talking to each other.
17:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That's their job.
17:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But we don't see it that way.
17:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I'm ranting and that's probably not the depth of what you wanted.
17:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So go like you just, you just laid out the blueprints for healing the nation.
17:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
17:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
17:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, it's all completely taboo and people would freak the hell out.
17:24
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
17:25
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to feel and talk to each other.
17:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And talk to each other?
17:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear about your origin story when it comes to writing your bicycle.
17:38
[SPEAKER_03]: You grew up east of Cleveland in Metro, Ohio, right on Lake Eerie, and I heard that you were on your bicycle nearly all the time, adventuring as much as possible, and it still seems like you're writing from your new song, the reason why I write.
17:53
[SPEAKER_03]: But what were your surroundings like for your adventures growing up on your bicycle?
17:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I was mostly just getting away, but I did have this powerful sense of the future has to be better.
18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember a couple situations in my early life where I was thinking, death would be better.
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I thought, no, actually, if there's nothing to lose, like if death is like on the negotiating table, then why not just try everything else, fearlessly?
18:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we've always got that to fall back on.
18:25
[SPEAKER_01]: and so it just seemed like a scape, but also a feeling of there must be something better that I haven't seen around the corner and especially bicycling lots of different countries seeing how culture
18:41
[SPEAKER_01]: is not, you know, it can be different.
18:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not carved in stone, so to speak.
18:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, bicycling has always been a beautiful meditation for me.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just cycling in Italy a couple months ago and and there's just something about the road that follows the river and it's just so pretty.
19:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
19:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I have not spent a lot of time in Cleveland, but I did spend a lot of time in Pittsburgh living and working in Pittsburgh, which is a very challenging biking town, but have you ever written around Pittsburgh?
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I did the gap trail.
19:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice.
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Very good.
19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have lovely friends in Pittsburgh, but, you know, these names, like you said, near Lake Erie, it's actually worse than that.
19:40
[SPEAKER_01]: North of me, yes, the lake was Erie, but West of me, the river was Chagrin.
19:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And east of me, it was actually,
19:52
[SPEAKER_01]: literally, painsville.
19:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
19:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, I had to get away.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right.
20:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So you started playing guitar when you were 18, writing at age 20, and then I heard you talking about teaching guitar at like a music camp when you were around 22, and I loved what you said.
20:20
[SPEAKER_03]: You said you were a good teacher because you could isolate the variables, take a complex thing, divide it up into its parts, and make it teachable.
20:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
20:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Which sounds like a very good and translatable skill for you, especially in terms of like breaking down complex emotional situations.
20:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, does that seem true and how does that impact your approach to writing about complex issues?
20:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the best thing music has taught me.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, actually I said something else was the best thing.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Just five minutes ago, there's a lot of best things.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, figuring out how to take a complex thing apart and
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: learn each part separately so that you still regain your confidence so that it doesn't seem like a complex thing.
21:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It just seems like a lot of easily learnable, simple things that you have to do at the same time.
21:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So you learn one at a time.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It becomes easy.
21:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, I did learn that from music, but it stopped me how to learn everything.
21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm very grateful for that.
21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: There was another
21:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the other part was how does that impact your approach to writing about complex issues?
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, emotion, yes.
21:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
21:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fascinating.
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure I have any clarity on that.
21:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like when I'm going for a song,
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what I'm trying to do is gather things that have the same sort of emotional signature and gather enough of them that they all kind of are in phase sort of speak emotionally.
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They all sort of, it's as if, you know, if you needed
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: to get angry about something.
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: If you wanted to feel the most intense anger, you would fish around for the things that you are riled up by and sort of distill them all, make this really concentrated aggregate of anger.
22:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you could like amp up that emotion.
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone has experienced that, you know, when you really want to rant,
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, you could do the same thing if you needed to really grieve, if there was something in your life you needed to grieve.
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You could say, OK, I've got time.
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we go there?
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't we feel the depth of that sorrow?
22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you just find different elements, different could be musical, could be lyrical, different phrases that have that same emotional signature, that weight of emotion.
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: and you gather enough of them together, in other words, write a song, and then suddenly your heart can feel the thing you wanted to feel.
23:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's as if instead of just high, you know, dodging around the periphery of it, you go right into the center of it and the weirdest thing happens.
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of it being a hole that you fall into, the center of that emotion suddenly opens and turns into compassion.
23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: clarity, energy, vision, it's weird because it's such an easy trade as if our hearts are made to do it.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not hard to do, but nobody does because we just haven't learned it.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And it seems like that's the hack.
24:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the real sort of magical thing that changes
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, our hearts, they heal so easily.
24:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, you fall off your bike at speed and, you know, it'll take a while for the for the gravel rush to heal, it'll take a week and a half or more.
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can heal a heart in two minutes.
24:24
[SPEAKER_01]: you just go to the center of it and it changes.
24:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's weird.
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I have loved that about songwriting.
24:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I think about taking it apart, it's more for me, my perception of it.
24:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's no, with songwriting, with emotion, it's getting to the center of it.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there's, you know, like you start out, there's a frustration, and you think, oh, this is an angry song.
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And you write it deeper, and then you realize, no, it's a sad song, and then you go deeper, and you think, no, at the center of this song, there's an apology that I need to make.
25:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, you get to that, and suddenly the song is like open, and there's possibilities, there's changes.
25:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you hadn't done that, you'd have just stayed with the anger forever.
25:16
[SPEAKER_03]: How old do you have to be to get to the depths of sorrow?
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, maybe five or six.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember grieving the most.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: How old are you at about six years old?
25:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, yeah, I guess I was, for some reason I didn't get that taboo.
25:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was because of my dad.
25:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He had a bravery about that that was way ahead of his time.
25:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's put a pin on the depths of Zara.
25:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to go back to that.
25:48
[SPEAKER_03]: But first, um, then you'll thank you.
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You're really good at this.
25:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, thanks.
25:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'm enjoying.
25:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm enjoying this a lot.
25:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Good.
25:58
[SPEAKER_03]: The new album's title track, The Way I To Tell The Story, is about getting creative with how you think about the events in your past so that you aren't just living out of victim's story and comes from childhood memories of home life crashing down.
26:12
[SPEAKER_03]: and appreciating the handy skills of disassociation, which is just what you needed to get you through.
26:17
[SPEAKER_03]: So, like, in thinking about that, how do you try to remember the events of your childhood, and what was it like for you to get to that journey of your form of events?
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: What was it like to get to that my version of events?
26:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, the simple answer is, what was it like?
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like
26:45
[SPEAKER_01]: trading shit for gold.
26:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like it was a freedom and a happiness.
26:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a way of having this easy emotional alchemy that changed old pain into wonder.
27:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And the playfulness in that song is
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: you know instead of talking about childhood events the song is just talking about a small plane crash and you know you you walk out of the wreckage and you're okay and and then you realize well since you're the only one who made it out you know you can
27:27
[SPEAKER_01]: when they come running up and say, what happened, you have a lot of leeway with your story, you can make up a great one.
27:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's a playful way, that's a way of seeing a thing that happens inside where something
27:44
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some regret.
27:45
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some ache that I have in my heart.
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I mess that up.
27:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did I do it that way?
27:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of thing.
27:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And I go to it.
27:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say, do you want to just stay there for the rest of your life?
27:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you feeling this because it's leading you somewhere?
27:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the outrageous assumption.
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: The assumption that pain is not just punishment.
28:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like follow the trail this leads to freedom.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, how would you, it's a counter-intuitive assumption, following the pain into the depth of the heart leads to freedom?
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Wouldn't it seem like, oh no, you're going to, you know, get sucked into the vortex and stay there forever.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you stay there forever if you don't go in.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So, going into it, playfully,
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: the cardio-spolunking image, it gives me this sense of like, oh, yeah, well, just cool right to the heart of it.
28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll change.
28:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It won't hurt you.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fascinating thing is the thing that we're scared of is old pain.
28:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it didn't kill us the first time.
28:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And now it's been years.
28:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to kill us now.
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So, just go right in.
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And my experience of it is it's just a great adventure.
29:02
[SPEAKER_01]: you know.
29:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So the way that I come to the new version of what I want to feel is more like
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Like when you come back from a camping trip and it was difficult, you know, you were, there was some scramble and there were some rock slides.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There was, you know, there was some rain at the tent blue down and you come back and people say, how was your adventure?
29:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And you say, oh man, it was great.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And they say, what was your favorite part?
29:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And you say, well, I was standing in a thunderstorm in my underwear holding a flashlight trying to set the tent back up.
29:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And they say,
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Does your favorite part, and you say, well, it worked.
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I said the tent back up, and everyone else in the tent was really happy, and I came back inside and slept well.
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And they say, you know, the fact that you can call that the best part means that
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: what is it that you're after when you go on an adventure?
30:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the way I tell the story is like, yeah, I came from a family that could have killed me.
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It actually killed my brother.
30:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And it didn't kill me.
30:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
30:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I wasn't scared of feeling.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's too easy and answer.
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone scoffs and says, oh, you're just gonna feel it now, huh?
30:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's part of the taboo.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: That's part of the ridiculous shaming of people who want to be able to overcome their old pain.
30:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But if people knew how easy it was and how natural it is for a heart to heal, they would realize, you know, it's, it's on the verge of criminal, the way we have been taught to not do that.
31:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, it keeps people buying things.
31:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are people who want to keep us ignorant of our own hearts.
31:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So coming back to feeling the depths of sorrow versus disassociating, like, do you still feel like they're, I mean, you have laid out all the merits of feeling the depths of sorrow, perfectly, but do you still feel like there's value in having the ability to disassociate?
31:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, of course, like, and how do you know when to do what
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, for example, in emergency situations, I'm the guy you want around because I'm not going, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I'm just going walking slowly to where the fire extinguisher is and thinking, okay, pen, left hand, right hand, handle, spray at the bottom.
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm speaking in soft tones, I'm doing the right thing.
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's great to know that I'll have plenty of time to feel
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: you know.
32:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, do what needs to be done.
32:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep everybody safe.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: First you're viable.
32:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
32:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there are times, you know, when I hear some tragic news and I'm driving down the freeway, you know, okay, I gotcha.
32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: My brother is dead.
32:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand.
32:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I can be there in a week, but I can't be there right now.
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
32:35
[SPEAKER_01]: there are times to feel and it's kind of a luxury, it's like, I mean that's why we sit down to watch a movie, we want to feel something, but there's lots of movies in our own memories and in our own hearts that can give us a really cool perspective of our own story.
32:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I could talk about this for a long time.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
33:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Alright, let's keep going.
33:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So David, you were the talk of the town in the late 80s.
33:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And from what we know, you did not handle your success well.
33:13
[SPEAKER_03]: You found that being famous is a lot of work and is a job on its own.
33:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Then you go on to say that you have to be careful because you could start to believe that I'm somehow special.
33:26
[SPEAKER_03]: there has to be a balance here like how do you work to not allow yourself to be swept away with your talents and successes while still maintaining your confidence in your talents?
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That is such a beautifully crafted question.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Good for you.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: God.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: had really says it well.
33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so on the micro level, let's talk about, imagine that you have this amazing ability to stand in front of a crowd and they came to hear you and you're able to play a song that's going to make everyone in the room feel the same thing at the same time.
34:01
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a beautiful energy and you ride that wave.
34:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's like a big wave and it makes you feel so good.
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: that then there's this interesting problem that happens.
34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And it happens when you walk off stage after the encore.
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And what happens is you have this thing circulating in your bloodstream like a drug.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is an artificial self-image created by the energy of that crowd.
34:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And in our culture, we don't really have language for that.
34:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't even believe it really exists.
34:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But the people who have felt it know that it's powerful,
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And the rock stars who die die because of this, because of the let down, because when you have that bliss running through your veins, and then it goes away, and it goes away fast, you have this weird free fall.
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first choice is,
35:01
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're in that moment playing for the audience, you have a choice of how much you let that go through you.
35:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't put your hand on the positive and your other hand on the negative and let it go through your heart.
35:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't juice yourself with that energy.
35:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't take it in as if you're hungry for it.
35:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You realize, yeah, that's a lot of energy.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's energy is it?
35:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's their energy.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not mine.
35:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You hold up the mirror, you focus it, you give it back.
35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: but you don't let it buzz you, you don't let it make you high.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a discipline, and that's learned from the let down, which can be so toxic.
35:44
[SPEAKER_01]: There's this song of mine called,
35:47
[SPEAKER_01]: infinity pool, which is about how to come down safely from that bliss.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's about walking home from a gig, not taking the ride, not taking the town car to the hotel, but walking, walking down the sidewalk at night, and looking up and looking around and remembering there's all this life
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the image that I use to describe the emotional process in the song is the swimming pool that's at the very top of the hotel.
36:24
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, it is a metaphor.
36:25
[SPEAKER_01]: There wasn't that pool, but the experience feels like.
36:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You go to the top of the skyscraper and there's a pool that has this poor over edge.
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's as if the veil is thin between the mystical bliss that has sustained you and the rest of the city, it's like it's all the same thing.
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can let that bliss pour back into the city.
36:54
[SPEAKER_01]: and you don't feel hungry for it.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this infinity pool, this, one of my favorite songs, another song that really saved my life taught me how.
37:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You have this ability to let it go to kind of cleanse your system from that bliss.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: which is a brave thing to do, because isn't it the bliss that you want?
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't it the bliss that you did this all for?
37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and no, you want the sustainable bliss.
37:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't want the deadly bliss.
37:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
37:30
[SPEAKER_01]: the beautiful process of letting that go.
37:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That was really good.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a two-part thing to your question.
37:38
[SPEAKER_01]: One part was, how do you not get killed by the bliss?
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And the second part was, well, you need some of the bliss in order to have the audacity to pretend that what you're doing
37:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It says that in order to work this hard at this craft, you have to believe that people are gonna hear it and feel it and it's gonna matter.
38:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is an unsubstantiated assumption.
38:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that you just believe because you want to and it sort of works in your life.
38:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you can believe it enough when you need it and you can let it go enough.
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of like that old,
38:29
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a beautiful teaching, a spiritual teaching about two notes.
38:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You carry one in the right pocket, you carry one in the left pocket.
38:38
[SPEAKER_01]: This is old language, but read into it.
38:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of them, when you need it, when you're tipped to one side, you open this note and it says, you are made in the image of God, and you put it back in your pocket and you kind of come back to center.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you get too far the other way, you take out the other note and it says, you are dust and you go, oh yeah, that's true, too.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: and you have one in each pocket and the other perfect ballast and you use them as you need them.
39:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And this can happen like real time, like in the middle of a gig or in the middle of a conversation.
39:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be real proud of this idea you want to say.
39:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you come back to, I'm sorry, I'm performative right now.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to get real with you.
39:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And it changes your voice, it changes your pace, and you come back to, I really want to talk to you.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not just shouting to the crowd.
39:48
[SPEAKER_03]: have you okay so we just watched this movie the other night it was kind of like a horror movie actually so I don't know if you like it was a little gnarly it's called Opus John Malkovich haven't seen it
40:05
[SPEAKER_03]: There are some interesting themes of what fame and like making people feel special and making people feel like they have too much bliss going on can do to a person.
40:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
40:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It's particularly gory at one part of the film, so I don't know if you're into those or not, but John Melkovic is always doing
40:29
[SPEAKER_03]: really interesting things.
40:31
[SPEAKER_03]: But you might enjoy this movie.
40:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
40:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Minus the Gore.
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: No worries.
40:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell them how we're about it.
40:39
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's about John Malkovich plays this pop star who hasn't released.
40:45
[SPEAKER_03]: He's like a reclusive pop star who hasn't released music in 30 years.
40:51
[SPEAKER_03]: So he's going to release an album and he invites five people from the industry to his home for like a VIP listening experience like a weekend at his home.
41:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it just like goes south pretty pretty quickly.
41:07
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of like cult like themes to it, but there's one, the the star of the film.
41:16
[SPEAKER_03]: She's a young young actor who is also in the bear.
41:20
[SPEAKER_03]: She's like one of the main characters in the bear.
41:22
[SPEAKER_03]: So she's a journalist, but she hasn't gotten to write anything for this magazine yet.
41:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And
41:28
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like it's kind of like she's like I think she's in her 20s and I can see myself on her where she's like, you know I'm special and I want to do something incredibly important, but she's not very interesting So it kind of like follows her storyline and
41:48
[SPEAKER_03]: It actually turns out that John Malchovitch's character has some like real murderous evil intentions of like inviting these five particular people to his compound for the weekend.
42:07
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, it definitely was gross, but it sparked a lot of conversations about like
42:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Should be VIP and invited to this like really special exclusive thing.
42:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, it's called Opus Yeah, I think it was on it was on HBO.
42:33
[SPEAKER_03]: It was on an HBO.
42:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but
42:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, now this is asking more of like a music business side of your brain or maybe not.
42:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So you have released music independently.
42:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You've released on a major label.
42:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You've also signed with some indie labels.
42:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And when I see the list of different labels that you've been on and think about like all of the deals you must have looked over and negotiated and agreed to, I wonder how that experience impacted the type of negotiator you are and how you feel about the value of your music.
43:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Interesting question.
43:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Learning about negotiating.
43:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And what it gave me in terms of the value of my music, wow, again, the two notes, the value of my music is nothing because music is free and negotiating, I have learned a lot about, but it's more about
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, finding a way to
43:56
[SPEAKER_01]: think and speak of the goals that we have in common with the person that I'm negotiating with.
44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, if I wasn't a musician, I'd probably be a conflict resolution.
44:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love those kinds of conversations, and I love to give those kind of conversations time and do them in installments and come back with different ideas and
44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's fascinating thinking about record deals of the past.
44:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I did get to slide down the last little slope of the music industry before it emptied out onto the freeway.
44:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a fun ride, and I had the experience of seeing the incredible waste of the labels, you know, when they had all that money, because people were buying their favorite CDs that they already had on vinyl.
45:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there was big catalog sales, and
45:13
[SPEAKER_01]: the labels were just trying to give away money to keep from paying taxes so they would sign people like me.
45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was a fun ride and yet it was definitely not
45:30
[SPEAKER_01]: reality based.
45:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think I had really good mentors.
45:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I had people saying to me in the midst of that heavy time, you know, this is a blue collar job.
45:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was really good advice, and there were people who would say, you know, after I did my strategic career sabotage on purpose to make sure that I didn't overload myself with stuff I couldn't handle, I would have people reassure me that there is a sweet spot with being
46:14
[SPEAKER_01]: sort of successful enough that you can believe that what you do matters.
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Successful enough that you can afford to work at what you love and successful enough that you get enough juice to sustain you emotionally.
46:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But not overdoing it, not crossing the line where you lose your anonymity and you lose your sense of security and your house and all that because people are snooping.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had musicians who have really told me that Dave, you got it right, you did the you found the sweet spot of, and my favorite thing about being sort of what I call famous for folk, which I say with a, you know, a definitely tongue-in-cheek, because
47:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Famous for folk means not at all famous, but that's good.
47:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I like it.
47:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's you know The minor folk celebrity a minor folk celebrity means that you know like Maybe one person in the airport will say hey, well, Cox
47:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's it, and so my favorite thing is that I'm still hungry.
47:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't sort of, I have never felt like I've made my best record.
47:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I always feel like, man, I learned a lot from that.
47:51
[SPEAKER_01]: and I still have that beautiful hunger about where is music taking me.
47:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so curious each song is this like, wow, this is different.
48:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder where this is going and it would be so sad if I accidentally you know like broke open the pirates chest and found the treasure because
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, then you're out of a quest.
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And the quest is the best part.
48:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:23
[SPEAKER_03]: The custom songs that you write, you have one on the record, actually.
48:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't argue it was a custom song.
48:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
48:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So when you do these custom songs, you interview the person to find out about their situation and you said that those custom songs are a good excuse to have a great conversation.
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:45
[SPEAKER_01]: They take about an hour and I just, uh, like if we were doing a custom song, I would say, so let's imagine the song is done.
48:55
[SPEAKER_01]: My question is, who's hearing it and what are they feeling?
49:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you know,
49:04
[SPEAKER_01]: that this song is, say, for example, about saying something to somebody that you just can't find the words to say.
49:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you know what you want them to feel when they hear the song, then the questions can get really specific.
49:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
49:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So you want them to feel that as opposed to what?
49:28
[SPEAKER_01]: might they feel or what are they feeling now?
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you compare those two things and you say, so how do we get from this to that?
49:36
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the issues, what's the memories, what's the thing that happened?
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And
49:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a matter of concentrating on the goal of the song.
49:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's another outrageous assumption I have.
49:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Woody Guthrie said, you know, can't just be a good song, it has to be good for something.
50:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love that.
50:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I love thinking that a song moves you.
50:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone knows that a song can move you.
50:08
[SPEAKER_01]: My question is, well, where's it moving you to?
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And is it moving you toward the person you want to be?
50:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I really think, uh,
50:21
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, it's sort of like you are what you eat and you become what your heart envisions and music transports us to emotional destinations that we have not been to yet.
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, if we can picture it, we can get there.
50:39
[SPEAKER_01]: If we can really feel what it feels like, then we just are always sniffing for something that smells like that, because then we kind of follow it.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, you want to know where the barbecue is.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You just, oh,
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, it's over there, and so if you want to know where a life that feels like home and feels like an adventure is, then you sing the songs that take you there, and whenever some little thing in your life shows up that sort of, ooh, that reminds me of that song, then you follow it and your life becomes that kind of adventure.
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just love that
51:19
[SPEAKER_01]: When we write the songs that really call in who we want to be and we send them out into the world, they are on a reconnaissance mission.
51:28
[SPEAKER_01]: They find not only the people that are are tribe and will understand us and really be our friends.
51:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They find the people but they also find the coincidences.
51:38
[SPEAKER_01]: They find those miraculous events of timing with a capital T that
51:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, is it okay to say how old you are sure?
51:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
51:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm 67 I think I am I was born in 58 is that right?
52:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I would have to get my count.
52:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So you are of an age where you're asking yourself, what do I need to say to people in my life before it's too late?
52:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I've always talked about that.
52:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course.
52:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
52:25
[SPEAKER_03]: But now that you're this age, right, how do you approach conversations that encompass those feelings without alarm?
52:34
[SPEAKER_01]: without alarm, meaning I'm alarming the people who I'm talking to.
52:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, well, that's what songs are for.
52:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why, you know, you speak in parables.
52:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, you, uh, you give people the chance to unpack it, so that it's their idea, you know, it's sort of like when you give a gift, you gift rapid, and the person like takes it in their hand, and they shake it, and one ends heavier than the other, and they, they kind of like, think, oh, maybe, oh, what, oh, and then they pull back the paper, oh, it's, oh, yeah, thank you.
53:11
[SPEAKER_01]: so they tell you what it is they go oh look it's a
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when you do that with a song, then the song isn't just a sign, it's a symbol.
53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you Google symbol, derivation, symbol on, broken piece of pottery, a way to trust a messenger.
53:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You put the two pieces of pottery together, and you know this person actually came from your friend, and you can trust the message.
53:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
53:41
[SPEAKER_01]: When a song has a simple story that's irrefutable that is set in parallel to a bigger idea that might create confrontation, the simple story seems to have a momentum that carries you into the same conclusion for the bigger story.
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is my favorite thing.
54:00
[SPEAKER_01]: A song has to surprise you.
54:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It can't just sort of trample up with the moral of the story.
54:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's like telling the punchline of the joke first.
54:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, signs, and there's a lot of songs that are just signs, signs are like when you're going to a protest and you want to make a sign, it's got to be simple, it's got to be big, you make it fast, it's sloppy, but it says the thing, and you hold it up, and the people who agree with you go, yeah, and the people who don't, but what if you really wanted to change somebody's mind, you can't do that with a sign, a sign just
54:41
[SPEAKER_01]: If you wanted to change somebody's mind, you'd have to have a parable.
54:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd have to have a story that hides a secret message.
54:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd have to tell them a simple story that seems so obvious they go, yeah.
54:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And then two days later, they're thinking about it and they go, fuck, I know what, he was trying, oh, that's so sneaky.
55:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And suddenly you find yourself understanding a point of view that you wouldn't have got to.
55:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I love to do with songs, and that's the superpower of songs.
55:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Songs that don't do that are really missing an opportunity in my opinion.
55:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Your wife, Nance, was diagnosed with Parkinson's, which is something that you've mentioned in the conversations around this album.
55:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Specifically, you've said her diagnosis has reframed everything, your perspective, process, and your writing.
55:33
[SPEAKER_03]: So specifically, could you get into how her diagnosis has reframed your perspective?
55:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, well, first of all,
55:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a long time coming.
55:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a dozen years.
55:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I've had time to stay current with my grieving.
55:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And at first, my grieving was so infantile.
55:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like, oh, oh, my life is not going to be what I wanted, you know, and I was fighting with reality.
56:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I realized,
56:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, this is a different adventure, but it's still an adventure and it might be better.
56:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It might be better than just a bunch of passport stamps of exotic destinations.
56:19
[SPEAKER_01]: This might be actually a wilder territory.
56:27
[SPEAKER_01]: This might be a wilderness.
56:29
[SPEAKER_01]: that will feel like I've actually gone somewhere and it's changed me.
56:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the ability to acclimate and enjoy adversity
56:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And it has opened my sight to so many more people.
56:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there was a time that I used to see a condition, you know, I would see someone who had a condition, but I would just see the condition and I wouldn't see, oh, that's a human being with a condition and they're a human being.
57:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's just the way kids sometimes stare at somebody who's missing a leg or something in the,
57:17
[SPEAKER_01]: oh my look at that so at first I was like looking at what's missing but then I was realizing man
57:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get around really well and it's such a different way of seeing.
57:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there are emotional parallels, obviously, that have to do with mortality and the time that I've got left where I'll walk in that way.
57:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has helped me really appreciate life.
57:54
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, one more question, and then we'll do a quick lightning round.
57:57
[SPEAKER_01]: OK.
57:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Where does the impact of Hurricane Haleen appear on the way I tell the story?
58:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Great question.
58:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder if I know, let's see.
58:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, definitely my own mind, the storm of the century,
58:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, there's some of that in the song roses, um, man, there's so many of these songs.
58:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like, I'm looking at a list of what's on the record right now.
58:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's fascinating to me because, um, wow, uh, yeah, the song I made it rain is,
58:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Just talking about this thing that I do, I write and I play music, but describing it with this audacious, ridiculous comparison of like, oh, yeah, I'm a rainmaker.
59:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I can do a thing that's impossible.
59:08
[SPEAKER_01]: and setting those two things side by side felt so interesting in that song, as if to say, yeah, it's simple, and it's, you know, like almost meaningless.
59:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I make vibrations in the air that dissipate in our gone.
59:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, and yet, the way I tell the story about it, it's sort of like, this absolutely saved my life.
59:31
[SPEAKER_01]: This turned
59:34
[SPEAKER_01]: a life that could have been tragic and suicidal into bliss and adventure.
59:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But how did the storm show up in these songs?
59:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, I think the storm is reflected in the song Endless Summer Blue, which is a song about, you know, I have loved deeply.
59:59
[SPEAKER_01]: and somehow that stays, that's something that doesn't dissipate and endless summer blue is a song about this fresh new beautiful wondrous love as seen from the perspective of
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_01]: 40 years later and this diminishment and sorrow and somehow the love is stronger and more durable and more somehow real.
1:00:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So the storm had that same effect of like oh Asheville has been destroyed.
1:00:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, the Asheville that I love was the neighbors coming together and who's got a chain saw and who's got a generator.
1:00:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Asheville was more Asheville than ever in the middle of the hurricane, in terms of like, what is the real emotion?
1:01:07
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the real heart of this town?
1:01:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's the people who come together and help each other.
1:01:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think the song beautiful, the beautiful is, you know, like that, uh,
1:01:23
[SPEAKER_01]: beautiful thing Mr. Rogers said about what you do at 9-11 you look for the people who are helping you look for the healers and the rescuers and the song the beautiful is what sustains us in the midst of these disasters that come through.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think the best one for the storm is my own mind.
1:01:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that song.
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, if listeners are listening and they have not heard, so that song addresses trying to stay peaceful while surrounded by a alarm.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, which is a really good idea.
1:02:02
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, do you want to do a quick lightning round?
1:02:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want you to.
1:02:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
1:02:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
1:02:10
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you listening to on the bike ride?
1:02:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm listening to the sound of tires coming up behind me
1:02:22
[SPEAKER_03]: What is the most hilarious animal?
1:02:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my great question.
1:02:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Hilarious.
1:02:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:02:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the hilarious part that's really stumping me because I keep going to one image after another, and then thinking, oh, well, I don't know if that's hilarious, but, um, uh,
1:03:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm, uh, you know, it's, I'm not much of a lightning round person, apparently.
1:03:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't remember who it is.
1:03:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The deeper question.
1:03:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I should have had Paul Brady's lightning round.
1:03:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It was not good.
1:03:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the, uh, I would love to interview Paul Brady.
1:03:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that must have been fun.
1:03:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I think maybe I'm going to say the human being.
1:03:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
1:03:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
1:03:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, David, the correct answer was cats.
1:03:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for playing.
1:03:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the, the gelato, it's great.
1:04:03
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the chocolate here, you know, that there's all kinds of really great chocolate places.
1:04:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But the treat that I think I love the best is just getting up really early and getting on one of those ridge top roads on my motorcycle and watching the sky start to get light.
1:04:27
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, that is kind of seeing the town and the distance all sleepy with a little layer of fog and the sun coming over the mountain.
1:04:37
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just the thing.
1:04:39
[SPEAKER_03]: This one kind of relates, where is the most beautiful place in the world?
1:04:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And for this, I think it's not what you're looking at but how you see, so the most beautiful place in the world.
1:05:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's that line in the old James Taylor song, home, build it behind your eyes.
1:05:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that a lot.
1:05:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's the same with the most beautiful place in the world.
1:05:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's how you see and what song am I thinking?
1:05:20
[SPEAKER_01]: What Leonard Cohen song has that?
1:05:22
[SPEAKER_01]: She showed me between the garbage and the flowers Suzanne, right?
1:05:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know.
1:05:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything else?
1:05:37
[SPEAKER_03]: No, that's the lightning round.
1:05:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you're so good.
1:05:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I ask you some questions?
1:05:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
1:05:43
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your favorite part of interviewing people?
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_03]: I think when you know it's gonna go well, and it's not gonna be hard, like getting all the questions ready.
1:05:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, meticulous, nice, cool.
1:06:01
[SPEAKER_01]: favorite of paring is preparing.
1:06:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really good.
1:06:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, I like that.
1:06:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
1:06:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so tempted to sort of ask particular names about people you've interviewed.
1:06:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, because I know that
1:06:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I have felt this weird wrestling with some people doing interviews where, you know, they, where I feel like I'm being sort of, sort of, as if,
1:06:44
[SPEAKER_01]: sort of pulled around like someone I'm walking on the sidewalk with someone and they're like grabbing my shoulders and pulling me left and right they want me to kind of say particular things I can tell that they have an agenda about like what this is about and there are times when I will do one of my ridiculous like way too long answer Dave we just she just asked you what your influences
1:07:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love the people who are kind of have a grudge you can tell about the way I'm answering the questions, but eventually they kind of come around to, okay, so you apparently are not going to play by the rules, but you know, it's...
1:07:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I have like a pretty high anxiety level, so I feel like when that kind of thing, it doesn't happen to me so much anymore because I don't do live radio interviews anymore.
1:07:50
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like that feeling would come across me and I would feel it so deeply, but I don't think anybody could tell of like what was going on because I do a really good job of like masking.
1:08:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
1:08:03
[SPEAKER_03]: The fear and the terror and the like, oh no.
1:08:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a, that's a fascinating skill when you're really feeling stress, speak slower.
1:08:16
[SPEAKER_01]: As if you just like, ah, now, here's an interesting question.
1:08:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And then have an arm where you know what you're going to say, but you just go, that's such a fun skill, I love that.
1:08:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Another thing I like to do is if someone isn't speaking to the microphone, enough, I try to like lean it, maybe to like do exactly what I'm doing.
1:08:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's great.
1:08:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:08:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And um, one final question, the sailing ships on the wall.
1:08:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me, square rigors, what's up?
1:08:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we got those at the flea market.
1:08:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Ugh.
1:08:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It reminds me of the Cheryl Wheeler song, a state sale, you know?
1:09:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
1:09:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a beautiful frame, and the pictures, all right?
1:09:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we're in, so this is our, we live in Portland, Maine, and then this is our house that we have in Georgetown, which is about an hour north.
1:09:19
[SPEAKER_03]: So we bought this house, but in order to afford it, we rent it out on Airbnb.
1:09:26
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a lot of, it's like decorated really nicely.
1:09:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So we found these cool paintings,
1:09:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, my wife is like very good at placing photos if you just kind of like threw them up there on the wall so there's like No real artistic placement, but nice.
1:09:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I do like them.
1:09:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fun.
1:09:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for your time And thanks for getting the word out.
1:09:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate it.
1:09:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun talking to you.
1:09:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, thanks, and yeah I love the new record and really enjoyed this conversation.
1:09:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
1:09:55
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see you next week.
1:09:56
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
1:09:57
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
1:09:57
[SPEAKER_03]: See you
1:10:05
[SPEAKER_03]: This episode of Basic Folk was produced by CJ Nungesser, Dietrich Strauss composes our music.
1:10:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Basic Folk is a production of the Bluegrass situation.
1:10:12
[SPEAKER_03]: You can find all of our episodes there.
1:10:14
[SPEAKER_03]: You can check us out on basic folk.com, folkalli.com or folkalli's mobile app.
1:10:19
[SPEAKER_03]: You can search for Basic Folk on the Series XM app or you can listen to us wherever you get your shows.
1:10:29
[SPEAKER_03]: If you enjoyed this episode, perhaps you should share it with a friend.
1:10:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Like maybe that friend who just loves getting on their bicycle and riding around town, going on bike tours, going on biking, camping trips, and just living that biker lifestyle.
1:10:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Send it to that friend.
1:10:45
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
1:10:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Bye!