Latest / Basic Folk / Kora Feder is the Future of Political Folk Songwriting, but also Has Too Many Craft Projects, ep. 319

Transcript

Kora Feder is the Future of Political Folk Songwriting, but also Has Too Many Craft Projects, ep. 319 · Basic Folk

0:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, and welcome to Basic Folk, where we have honest conversations with folk musicians on the Bluegrass situation.
0:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Cindy House.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for joining us today.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Very pumped to talk to Chora Feeder about her new album, some kind of truth.
0:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Get to that momentarily.
0:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But first, have you signed up for Basic Folk's newsletter.
0:32
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0:40
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0:47
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0:57
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0:58
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1:00
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1:07
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1:08
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1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
1:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Core of feeder.
1:18
[SPEAKER_01]: On this episode, Kora talks about her new album, some kind of truth, as well as reflecting on the incredible changes and growth she's experienced since we last spoke in February of twenty twenty.
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the impacts of the pandemic on her music career was the necessity of exploring other artistic ventures, like crafting hats and lino cutting.
1:41
[SPEAKER_01]: She relocated from Philly to California, finally settling in Detroit.
1:46
[SPEAKER_01]: daughter of songwriter Rita Husking, Cora went slightly viral during the height of COVID lockdowns thanks to her song, any young person's body.
1:55
[SPEAKER_01]: In the poignant composition, she pays tribute to John Pryne and old friends she hasn't spoken to in years.
2:02
[SPEAKER_01]: and captured that lone feeling of the pandemic incredibly well.
2:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Elsewhere in our conversation, Korra also discusses the passing of her grandparents, who she moved back to California to be with before they died.
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Their lives and deaths deeply influenced the new record.
2:17
[SPEAKER_01]: She opens up about the nuances of her gender identity, the importance of historical friendships that allow for unfiltered creativity, and her approach to writing both personal and political songs.
2:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We go through many of the tracks on the new project, including what I think is the best break-up song I've ever heard, Paragraphs.
2:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Quora Feeder is a really incredible, leave-you-breathless songwriter, particularly with her political writing.
2:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You're hoping she doesn't wait five more years to really so record because we're gonna need her.
2:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll hear clips from her new album, some kind of truth, throughout the episode.
2:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Please enjoy Core of Feeder on Basic Folk.
3:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Corea, yes!
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to Basic Folk.
3:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me.
3:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You are thirty.
3:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, how did you know?
3:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
3:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because I've been, I've been looking at your stuff all day, and I saw, so the last time we spoke, which I listened to that interview today from twenty twenty.
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we knew what was ahead, Coro was on basic folk, February of twenty twenty.
3:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Was that February?
3:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
3:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
3:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember doing that.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, yeah.
3:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a late February.
3:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We were right on the precipice of what was going to happen.
3:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And you had just turned twenty five.
3:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I saw an Instagram that you had just turned thirty.
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of my commentary in our previous interview is how much I hated my twenties.
3:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But how is it going?
4:00
[SPEAKER_01]: How are the rest of those like glorious uncertain twenties?
4:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, what a whirlwind, what a different end of my twenties than I thought I was going to get since we talked.
4:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, let's see, I guess, I mean, COVID definitely changed everything.
4:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I was, music was my full-time thing in early, twenty-twenty and twenty-nineteen.
4:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I had some side gigs in there, but it was, you know, driving force of my life.
4:30
[SPEAKER_03]: with all the shows canceling and just the industry kind of canceling.
4:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I had to figure out other things to do.
4:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So I've been doing a lot of other career paths, but also just artist things that are not music.
4:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Like making hats and doing lino cutting and beating things.
4:49
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm the kind of person who has to have like fifteen crafts happening at one time.
4:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's been a lot of that for the last five years.
4:54
[SPEAKER_03]: But also songwriting and
4:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I haven't put out any music in the last five years until this last March.
5:04
[SPEAKER_03]: But let's see, I'm scattered brand right now about what happened in the last five years.
5:09
[SPEAKER_03]: I was living in Philly, I moved to California, lived near my grandparents.
5:15
[SPEAKER_03]: most of which passed away kind of while I was there which was you know they were very old and had good lives but that was a big part of the last five years was just saying by the people who were huge parts of my life and that's definitely reflected in
5:30
[SPEAKER_03]: My art and the songs that I wrote, and so it's reflected on this record, and then moved to Detroit a couple years ago, where I'm living now and loving being in the Midwest event.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're still, you don't steal all my thunder for my questions.
5:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, yeah, so my pandemic thing is that I wasn't Pittsburgh for a really long time.
5:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I moved there in two thousand seven.
5:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I moved to Boston in twenty eighteen and then
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I moved back to Pittsburgh because of the pandemic because I wanted to be with my partner who I am now married to.
6:13
[SPEAKER_01]: She and I got married in twenty twenty two congrats and then I moved back.
6:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I moved back to Pittsburgh and I was like listen lady.
6:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm moving back here and I don't like it.
6:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is very temporary and we were there for four years.
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
6:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we live in Portland, Maine.
6:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I didn't realize you were up in Portland.
6:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess, yeah, okay, that's cool.
6:36
[SPEAKER_03]: That's, yeah, come on up.
6:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I love Portland.
6:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Good donuts.
6:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, yeah, Portland's, but it's fine.
6:42
[SPEAKER_03]: But I like the potato donuts in Portland, Maine.
6:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, the holy donut.
6:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So the last time that we spoke, we were talking about the fact that you did not really grow up with the television, which is fascinating to me, and I am actually pretty jealous.
7:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Our conversation, as I just mentioned, came out right before the pandemic, which was like very screen time heavy.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So what was it like for you to use all the screens during the pandemic and like what are screens like for you now?
7:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm, interesting question.
7:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I grew up with not a zero screen policy, but I went to a hippie wilder school where there's no screens and then my parent had a TV with three channels that we barely watched.
7:31
[SPEAKER_03]: But I did watch a lot of the same VHS tapes over and over again, like the sound of music.
7:35
[SPEAKER_00]: What were they?
7:36
[SPEAKER_03]: The sound of music.
7:37
[SPEAKER_03]: The sound of music.
7:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Parent trap.
7:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Lindsay Lohan version.
7:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Cinderella too.
7:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Cinderella too.
7:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Which I can't even tell you what happens, but there's a lot of mice who talk.
7:45
[SPEAKER_03]: That's all I know.
7:48
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, screen, it definitely binge watched a lot like everyone in the twenty-twenties.
7:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I mean, I'm pretty much a full screen person now.
8:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I still don't have a TV in my house.
8:02
[SPEAKER_03]: So I try to keep it to work and phone scrolling.
8:08
[SPEAKER_03]: But I still find ways to binge Netflix on my computer without a TV.
8:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know how much really means to not have the TV on the wall if you're still doing it.
8:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I do graphic design and web design stuff for work partly too, so that's on the screen.
8:24
[SPEAKER_03]: So unfortunately, far more online than my parents probably ever dreamed for me.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, who could have guessed the world could have looked like this.
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So also in our last interview, we talked a lot about how you have a global studies degree and that has sort of like framed your perspective in a lot of ways.
8:48
[SPEAKER_01]: In a recent social media post, you said, actually, I think it was your birthday post.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You said I'm excited to make art and live in the moment this decade.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So, to you, what are the elements necessary to write a song for this moment?
9:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And, like, yes, I am specifically talking about this moment in America, in the world, and with political songs.
9:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I think you are very good at it.
9:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I would love to hear, like, what hopes you have for the future of political songwriting, or, like, of the moments on writing.
9:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Like with any song, it has to be grounded in details and some form of your own experience, even if you didn't experience it directly.
9:32
[SPEAKER_03]: But the emotions that you feel when you think about it, whatever that topic is, for a song in a young person's body on this new record, which was very much a COVID song that kind of got a little political.
9:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a good example of a song that
9:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't set out for it to be a politics song, but then of course part of the experience of living in a pandemic is like, what are your leaders doing?
10:01
[SPEAKER_03]: What are your local, local government and local heroes able to do?
10:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And how does that impact your day today?
10:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And so there are lyrics in that song that's alluded to the government not doing a great job.
10:18
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, the state of the world being scary.
10:21
[SPEAKER_03]: But then it's also about the drinking coffee with no bra on in my apartment in Philly and, you know, drinking whiskey and John Prime dying and how sad that is and thinking about my grandpa and all these things.
10:34
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know.
10:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess the more I write, the more I
10:38
[SPEAKER_03]: feel myself writing very like confessionally and and very just like detail oriented.
10:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And so when.
10:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like a spreadsheet or like like a journal that's just like a little chaotic, you know.
10:58
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like show not tell, which is such a cheesy thing, but that's, I think that's like the key to, so I'm writing about anything, but definitely about politics and state of the world stuff, too, is like, don't say the world is scary.
11:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Say, I looked out my window and there was a bunch of gray clouds.
11:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I looked at my cupboard and there were no potato donuts.
11:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
11:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
11:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Does that answer your question?
11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see.
11:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's yet to be seen.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I enjoyed that answer.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Then for the rest of the interview, I want to dig into the songs on this new record, some kind of truth.
11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It came out March Ateenth, which was, I think, not a Friday.
11:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It came out on a Thursday.
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, it was a Tuesday.
11:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I meant to say Tuesday.
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I've noticed so you and somebody else released records recently not on a Friday and they released it on a Thursday.
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So you released this record on a Tuesday.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you why did you do that to me?
12:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I mean, this used to be how it was, right?
12:09
[SPEAKER_03]: This was, this was the industry.
12:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm just bringing it back.
12:14
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, some people are collecting vinyl.
12:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm releasing records on Tuesdays.
12:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, no, I, the woman who I'm working with to send it out to radio was
12:25
[SPEAKER_03]: interested in doing it on a Tuesday because there'd be more time in the week to email DJs and remind them that it was out.
12:33
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the real reason.
12:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And then also it's like nobody else is doing it right now for the most part.
12:37
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have people's attention.
12:40
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no faster hard rule that says like what day you can release music.
12:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like what everybody is agreed on.
12:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, although we'll say I have like young cousins who are
12:50
[SPEAKER_03]: in their late teens who couldn't wrap their head around that it was even possible or allowed to release music not on a Friday, so I did have to explain that to some youngsters.
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like core feeder and a couple people from the UK.
13:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
13:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Ground breaking, releasing music on a Tuesday.
13:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Time to figure out what the West Coast did to me I will never look like a kosher one I can see I am not the only little girl I used to be I am a rambling man
13:36
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, this opening track is so good, rambling man, you wrote a little track by track that I am gonna be quoting some stuff from.
13:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So rambling man is about self confidence as quite rebellion.
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love this line.
13:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm truly myself on a, I'm alone in a crowded suit, no one knows if I'm a woman or a vegetable or a fruit.
13:59
[SPEAKER_01]: How does referring to yourself as a man give you confidence?
14:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never felt very feminine or aligned with being super, superwomeny.
14:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never felt the need to change my pronouns or make anything official, but I've always kind of felt like somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of gender.
14:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is kind of a nod to that.
14:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think you need to be a rambling man to embody a rambling man if that makes sense.
14:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Is gender that important to you?
14:39
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
14:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think that's part of it like for myself.
14:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't know.
14:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's important that it's not super important, but I really don't think about it that much.
14:48
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think more like in high school when I was becoming a person, I definitely felt like really far from either gender and especially like did not feel connected to most of the girls in my circle and just like the things they were interested in, the clothes they were wearing and all that.
15:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So I always felt a little bit different in that realm.
15:11
[SPEAKER_03]: and this song is about going home to California and kind of confronting that version of myself as I was thinking about moving back to this place where I hadn't lived since that sort of high school era.
15:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think I was thinking about gender more as I was writing it, just as thinking about myself going back to California and what it meant for me to be there in the version of myself that I'm much more confident in and much more secure and and happy in and how to sort of be that and not let
15:40
[SPEAKER_03]: my memories of myself in, you know, two thousand ten take over.
16:09
[SPEAKER_02]: The next song is Detroit Summer and you moved to Detroit in twenty twenty two and the song is all about
16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: what you were seeing and learning in your new neighborhood that summer so you have had like a few new city experiences.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: In addition to your time living outside the US you have mentioned in this interview that you lived in Philly you also lived in New York and now Detroit.
16:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I myself have had like new neighborhood experiences a lot of times versus new city like I think it Pittsburgh I moved like eight times
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I was there, but I had my own little like ritual for like getting to know the new hood.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So what is it like for you to explore a new neighborhood meet your neighbors, make new friends and embed yourself in a community?
17:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we
17:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like in past moves, it's been more like, alright, now I'm in an apartment between three other apartment mates, you know, up and down, who I'll probably meet once in the next year, and it's kind of hard to build community.
17:31
[SPEAKER_03]: In Brooklyn, for example, I barely knew anyone in my building or street, or Philly, where I was living in again, like an apartment building.
17:42
[SPEAKER_03]: But in Detroit, my partner and I moved into the bottom floor of a house.
17:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe it's just the Midwest charm, too, and just that stereotypical kindness that everyone here has that is less a thing in New York.
18:01
[SPEAKER_03]: But within an hour of us moving in, we knew
18:06
[SPEAKER_03]: neighbors on both sides of our house.
18:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And one was one was this little kid.
18:11
[SPEAKER_03]: He's probably like eight or nine and he came over without his parents and just introduced himself and offered to sell us some of his art within like a few hours came back with water balloons and was like throwing them at our window and doing little dances.
18:26
[SPEAKER_03]: So we got to know him really quick and then the other side was an older guy who had been in the neighborhood.
18:31
[SPEAKER_03]: for his whole life and had just like all sorts of stories to tell about the city.
18:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was we didn't have to go far off of our porch to learn a ton.
18:41
[SPEAKER_01]: right, they came to you.
18:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
18:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's interesting like living in Pittsburgh for so long and sort of like Pittsburgh is not the Midwest, but to me, it kind of is like being Boston.
18:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody was like that, like you knew the neighbors.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like it was so funny.
18:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I lived in Boston for for college.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I lived in summerville, mass a few years after, which are very like transient.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: cities and like I knew no neighbors yeah but like going to Pittsburgh I'm there for fifteen years and then moving back to summerville like I was like all right who wants to be friends and like would I could not get any neighbor to hang out with me it was hilarious totally yeah I consider Pittsburgh
19:27
[SPEAKER_03]: of the same, the same vibe as Detroit.
19:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So that makes sense.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the rust.
19:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
19:31
[SPEAKER_01]: The well Pittsburgh is like the rust belt.
19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of belt is Detroit?
19:35
[SPEAKER_01]: The auto belt.
19:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess so.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Motown.
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Motor belt.
19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
19:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, I know you feel very strongly about this.
19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it like to be close to the Great Lakes again?
19:46
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so good.
19:47
[SPEAKER_03]: The Great Lakes are my favorite large body of water, which I think we covered in the last blast interview.
19:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I grew up going to a little summer cottage in the north channel of Lake Huron, my entire life.
19:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it's my favorite place in the world.
20:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's part of why we're here is to be able to take advantage of that fresh, shark-free, salt-free water.
20:09
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel about that band, Lord Huron?
20:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I, that's a good question.
20:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I haven't listened to them or thought about them in a very long time.
20:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Check them out because they're named after your favorite Great Lakes.
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Such a good point.
20:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
20:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably like, listen, get back to me.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me know if it's like, I won't completely resonating with you or if you hate it.
20:30
[SPEAKER_03]: There are lots of musicians who write songs about Michigan and just about this region.
20:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like more than a lot of states.
20:37
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a beautiful state.
20:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
20:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Fifty ways to leave your lover was ringing in my head.
21:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Eight months later, still couldn't tell you exactly why I lived.
21:06
[SPEAKER_02]: But I know that you knew deep down someday, the end was coming.
21:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Just maybe not that way.
21:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe not that summer Where something about the future and the sweet and sour Brooklyn air had me coming up for breath Wishing I was anywhere there Something about my changing Country, my changing heart Something about being twenty-four And a little dude from the start
21:38
[SPEAKER_01]: The next song is paragraph.
21:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have to say about this song, what the fuck?
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like the sweetest breakup song I have ever heard.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of those songs like as a listener, where if you're in it, this song is saving your life every day.
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: A little bit more about me.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I have never been the heartbreaker, like the person who I think is in this song, who actually might be you.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: As one who has been the heart broken, I can really appreciate a good heart breaker that seems like take responsibility as you are in this song.
22:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So how difficult was it to convey that in the song paragraph so honestly?
22:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is my favorite song on the record because it just feels like the truest thing I've ever written.
22:34
[SPEAKER_03]: It really encapsulates everything I was feeling and is what I wish I could have said to that person.
22:42
[SPEAKER_03]: But obviously, you can't say all of this in a breakup conversation.
22:50
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a song that just came out really quickly and smoothly after not being able to write about it for a long time.
22:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was just trying, I was just thinking about what I would say to this person if we had the space to talk and I had the space to write down my notes before talking.
23:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And really wanted to
23:13
[SPEAKER_03]: pay a modest to a relationship that was like wonderful and a big part of my early twenties and that needed to end, but was never bad, you know, like was a loving good time.
23:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, just how painful that was.
23:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And I
23:31
[SPEAKER_03]: It's interesting that you say that you're not the one, you're not the break rapper.
23:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I've got a, yeah, I got a really nice email from a music writer who
23:45
[SPEAKER_03]: had the same thing to say and he was like many generations older and he was like I don't know why but this song just hit me and it gave me empathy for a person who broke up with me like many many years ago and I sent it to that person and like it instigated him sending her this song and them having a conversation which was just so cool and I love that it's connecting with people so much
24:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mean, I mean, when I'm in my seventies, the probably not.
24:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I know, I was like, that is brave to just, yeah.
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
24:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, listen, I feel like when you're in your seventies, you're like, what do I have to lose?
24:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
24:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, it seems like paragraphs ends with a little bit of like, oh, Hollywood ending.
24:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, perhaps there's going to be a sequel, wink, wink.
24:37
[SPEAKER_03]: He was a very good cook and I felt like it was a big part of our relationship was like him cooking good meals and me eating them.
24:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it felt like a good way to end it.
24:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't see any future with him in a relationship.
24:53
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think I think we'll be... I think we'll be... I think we'll be... I think we'll be... You know, maybe buddies someday and cook something up.
25:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
25:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, maybe for the sake of the Hollywood ending.
25:04
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, alluding to a little more.
25:06
[SPEAKER_03]: But, or maybe in that moment I felt that way, because I did write this quite a while ago.
25:33
[SPEAKER_02]: The next song is Elementary Queen, which is another great song.
25:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about an old friend from your hometown who seems like
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: This person seems like the friend.
26:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when you were younger.
26:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So how has your friendship evolved and how has this version of friendship helped to inform your other friendships?
26:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm.
26:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is about my friend Hazel.
26:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually just spent a week with her in Portland, Oregon.
26:22
[SPEAKER_03]: So we are still friends.
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, awesome.
26:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and of course our friendship has, I've been followed and we haven't always been super close, but she's definitely of my childhood friends, one of the closest and I feel like we've, I think, part about our relationship is that we're kind of the same as we've always been.
26:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we always used to write little songs and poems about people in our class and
26:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And what we were learning about and we would invent crazy stories and tell them to people and like get people to believe crazy stuff.
26:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Like one time we left a postcard in my parents mailbox that was from her parents that we had written that was inviting them over to a secret dinner that they weren't allowed to tell anyone about and they like totally believed it and almost went but we had to tell them last minute that it wasn't real.
27:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And we invented a religion that worshiped a popcorn kernel called Bebo, which referenced in the song.
27:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And we actually got a bunch of people in the school, like really invested in this religion about the popcorn kernel and it turned into like a civil war and it had to be shut down by the school.
27:34
[SPEAKER_03]: It was like a whole thing.
27:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're still, we're still just like, she's someone I can go to and just have like the weirdest, funnest ideas and conversations.
27:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And we were just, we watched some of the Twilight series because we had, you know, that was another throwback to a different era of our friendship.
27:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And we hadn't thought about it in many years.
27:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we were like writing songs about it.
27:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Bella and Edward and Jacob together, just like insane songs that I would never show the world, but that I would only write with her.
28:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the song is a letter to her, but also just kind of a reminder to be silly and stick with those people who you can be silly with.
28:35
[SPEAKER_02]: The song, this is the song that we all love, it's called any young person's body.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You started writing this song the night that John Prime died in, it was during lockdown in your small, fully apartment, where you were feeling like I was aging a decade a minute.
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But, Coro, we all know that you've always been an old lady.
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's true.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So you put this song on YouTube.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was for NPR Tiny Desk Contest Entry.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And it got some pretty big attention from NPR from the Washington Post.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Eliza Gilcusen, who I love and hope that you get to hang out with her one day.
29:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never hung out with her in person, but we did an interview for basic folk and wow.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys would have a great time.
29:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Eliza said, I've yet to hear anyone reach this deep to find it and sing it.
29:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Just excellent.
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So lots of attention, lots of social media, YouTube, very nice, but maybe vapid and maybe superficial attention.
30:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So for better or worse, what was it like for you to get that kind of attention for the song?
30:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, at the time I was just, you know, living with
30:23
[SPEAKER_03]: all my shows and plans cancelled in my little apartment with nothing going for me so this was a great ego boost at the time and it was just really fun to
30:36
[SPEAKER_03]: hear from a bunch of people that it was you know made them cry for the first time about COVID or gave them kind of a release of like oh yeah this is what I'm experiencing too and I hadn't really thought of it that way which is always super satisfying so I mean it was it was pretty great to have people listening and sharing no negative feelings I mean
31:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not the rise.
31:01
[SPEAKER_03]: The rise.
31:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you still up there?
31:05
[SPEAKER_03]: You tell me, I probably not.
31:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I mean, it did rise in fall pretty quick.
31:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, the era was changing a lot.
31:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was kind of one moment of it.
31:19
[SPEAKER_03]: That actually a John Prime died on August, April, seventh, five years ago.
31:23
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was a couple days ago was the anniversary.
31:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the funniest part was the Washington Post talking about it and they called me and we talked for like forty minutes or an hour or something.
31:35
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a pretty long interview and then they used one quote in their whole article for me and it was about how I was not wearing a bra around the house.
31:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, oh, thank you.
31:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Great.
31:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
31:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Looking back at me.
32:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Things like today, everything is crystal clear.
32:16
[SPEAKER_02]: The waves keep on breaking, but the coast feels no fear.
32:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Grandpa's orange trees fading in the January sun.
32:25
[SPEAKER_02]: He's up in his bed, he can hear anyone.
32:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the last song I want to talk about is orange treats about moving back home to be your near your grandparents that you spoke of earlier.
32:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And you said I was able to befriend my grandparents in an everyday close-knit way that I'm grateful for.
33:00
[SPEAKER_01]: How did that change your relationship to your grandparents?
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: How did it change your relationships to their generation and also what you see of your grandparents in yourself?
33:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I knew them as a kid who had old grandparents for most of my life and then in living
33:23
[SPEAKER_03]: close to them for a couple years.
33:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to know them more as friends and that's really special and something that I am so happy that I got to have and definitely shaped my feelings about them, especially my grandpa who was much more alert in himself for those years.
33:46
[SPEAKER_03]: We were always close, but we just got to like go bring dinner to his house and
33:54
[SPEAKER_03]: introduce him to shows we were watching and play.
33:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Jin Rummy and just like do kind of regular everyday things and he kind of became because it was such a closed off kind of twenty twenty two-ish or still early enough in COVID time that you couldn't do a lot with a lot of people.
34:11
[SPEAKER_03]: He and other grandparents were kind of like our closest friends.
34:15
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was pretty cool.
34:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And then yeah, watching them pass was also really I saw two of them like two of their dead bodies after they passed.
34:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, which is like kind of dramatic thing to say, but that had just a big impact on my understanding of life and death and made it a lot easier to process them being gone because I knew them better towards the end and saw them go and
34:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I definitely see myself in all of them, or see them and all of them in myself now.
34:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Were you in the room when they died?
34:53
[SPEAKER_03]: For my grandpa, Anne Grandma, I was like in a few yards away and then came in right after they died and saw their body basically.
35:02
[SPEAKER_03]: It just looked so happened that in both cases I was not in the room, but I was close enough to be there immediately after.
35:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
35:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Which side of your family has the Cornish mining?
35:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my mom's side.
35:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Your mom's side.
35:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
35:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Another thing I did today, after I listened to our interview from twenty-twenty is I watched that video of that you made for your mom.
35:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
35:30
[SPEAKER_01]: When she went down and sang in the mine.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So crazy.
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
35:37
[SPEAKER_01]: have you been to Cornwall?
35:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I have my mom's musician and nice to tour her a little bit and she toured in the UK a few times and one of the times I went with her we went to Cornwall and looked for a bunch of gravestones and
35:59
[SPEAKER_03]: family spots so yeah I have been there in as a teen with her it was really really beautiful and her last name is Husking which is like a sort of like Smith there it's like everyone's name even more so it's like everyone's the name there is Husking there are whole times where everyone's name is Husking it feels like no way so it was also just cool to be
36:21
[SPEAKER_03]: A husking amongst a bunch of husks.
36:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
36:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
36:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to England a couple years ago and my wife and I went for a wedding and we were just like, okay, whatever we're going to England for a wedding and we loved it.
36:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we didn't get to go to Cornwall because it was too far away from everything because it really is like six hours from London.
36:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
36:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that's correct or not, but that sounds like... That sounds like way too far, but the places we went were so cute and very witchy and I feel like Cornwall is like the witchiest of them all.
37:04
[SPEAKER_03]: It's where pirates are from, parts of... Yeah.
37:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And my grandpa who was the Cornish one,
37:12
[SPEAKER_03]: There was like family lore that the Huskings were pirates and it totally checks out to me that my mom and him would be of pirate descent.
37:20
[SPEAKER_03]: They just have that vibe.
37:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh.
37:23
[SPEAKER_03]: What can you talk about more about your mom's pirate vibe?
37:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, her and her dad both just can get anything done and you don't, you know, they're very nice people but you wouldn't want to be on their bad side.
37:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I feel like there's probably a lot of other reasons, but it just when you think piracy think like you were saying like cute old wooden ship with lots of little knick knacks and like eating fish and having enemies.
37:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It just something about it works in my brain that that have you watched our flag means death.
38:04
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
38:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's a good one.
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's on max.
38:08
[SPEAKER_01]: what they call HBO, just days.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really good.
38:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's by the same guy who did flights at the Concord.
38:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I haven't seen that either because I haven't seen anything, but yes.
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know what it is.
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll email you.
38:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll email you so you don't forget it.
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
38:45
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, before I let you go, will you do?
38:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember this?
38:49
[SPEAKER_01]: The lightning round?
38:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, yes.
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, all right.
38:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: What is one beauty product?
38:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You will always bring on tour with you.
38:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Glitter.
39:05
[SPEAKER_01]: What is one beauty trend?
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll never try again.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Try again.
39:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Lip stain.
39:17
[SPEAKER_03]: What is your sound checks on?
39:19
[SPEAKER_03]: My mom always does, I don't even know, I think it's like a traditional song of some sort.
39:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, I've been a moonshine for many, long years.
39:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I've started it way too low.
39:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I spend all of my money on whiskey and beer, so I often sing that to sing loud.
39:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Much louder than I just sang.
39:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And then sometimes I'll do parts of... I don't even know.
39:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It's whatever I'm writing at that time, honestly.
39:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: What is your smallest phobia?
39:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't like anyone talking about anything that happened to their feet.
39:59
[SPEAKER_01]: What is your biggest pet peeve in music?
40:03
[SPEAKER_03]: in music.
40:04
[SPEAKER_03]: People who are who don't like Taylor Swift or who think she doesn't deserve the songwriting credit that she deserves.
40:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew this would come up.
40:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I've passionate about this topic.
40:17
[SPEAKER_03]: What is your favorite fruit?
40:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Mango.
40:20
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the last one.
40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were to design an encouraging bumper sticker, what would it say?
40:28
[SPEAKER_03]: encouraging.
40:29
[SPEAKER_03]: We're all just little tiny baby specs, so calm down.
40:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Really good.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
40:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Core feeder.
40:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for coming back on basic folk who grads on the new record some kind of truth.
40:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Come to Maine.
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, I will.
40:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Come to Maine and make sure that I can go to the show before you confirm the booking.
40:51
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, all right, come to Detroit.
40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Fine, I will.
41:06
[SPEAKER_01]: This episode was produced by CJ Nungesser.
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Dietrich Strauss composes our music.
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Basic folk is a production of Bluegrass situation.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find all of our episodes there.
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You can check us out on the Series XM app by searching for basic folk.
41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to folkalliesmobile app or folkallie.com.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Basic folk.com or listen wherever you get podcasts.
41:27
[SPEAKER_01]: If you enjoyed this episode, I suggest sharing it with your crafty friend.
41:32
[SPEAKER_01]: For a feeder's music is a great soundtrack to a really fun day of crafting, perhaps your next craft or noon.
41:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right, send it to your craft sisters.
41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening all the way to the end and we'll talk to you next time.
41:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.