Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Such a podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Mary Chapin Carpenter, who has a
Speaker 1: new album, Personal History. Mary Chapin, what was the inspiration
Speaker 1: for this album?
Speaker 2: Boy, that's a giant first question. Well, let's see, there
Speaker 2: was not one subject or topic or emotion or inspiration
Speaker 2: for the whole album, but rather it was a look
Speaker 2: back at life, sort of trying to take stock of
Speaker 2: a life's work, with the idea of course that there's
Speaker 2: much more life to come. And it was about time
Speaker 2: and place and the importance of memory and all of
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 1: Okay, So in today's world where you're your own record company,
Speaker 1: how do you decide to make a record? Do you
Speaker 1: say I want to make a record to come up
Speaker 1: with tunes, or do you know, write tunes, say it's
Speaker 1: an album, or you sit down and say I want
Speaker 1: to write an album.
Speaker 2: I think I've always been pretty deliberate about things, and
Speaker 2: I've always also been a slow worker. And so if
Speaker 2: I look back at all of the records I've made,
Speaker 2: it seems to be on average about three or four
Speaker 2: years between records. And it would be easy enough to say, oh,
Speaker 2: it's you know, each record is sort of a document
Speaker 2: of life, life between records, but I think this one
Speaker 2: stretches way the lens, if you will, of this one
Speaker 2: stretches way way back, and I can talk about some
Speaker 2: of the songs that really go as far back as
Speaker 2: being a teenager and the things that were going on
Speaker 2: in my life at that time. I always think of
Speaker 2: personal history when I read like a column in the
Speaker 2: New Yorker or wherever I've seen that banner. It's specific,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, it's very wide open. And
Speaker 2: that title gave me this sense of possibility to just
Speaker 2: talk about so much, or rather write and sing about
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go a little bit more micro. You're cleaning
Speaker 1: the house, you're driving for groceries. Did you come up
Speaker 1: with the idle first? Or you know, how did this start?
Speaker 2: I can be very specific with you about that. The
Speaker 2: title came along when we were in those first months
Speaker 2: of the pandemic and we were all staying inside of
Speaker 2: our homes, and I like, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people were spending a lot of time thinking like, Oh
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, what is going to happen? When will we
Speaker 2: be able to resume our lives? Again, when will I
Speaker 2: feel like myself again? Because that time I can only
Speaker 2: speak for myself, but that time was so isolating and
Speaker 2: full of fear, and I was not experiencing loss personally,
Speaker 2: but I certainly knew a lot of people who were,
Speaker 2: and it was just so much to think about, so
Speaker 2: much to ponder, so much to worry about. And so
Speaker 2: I started writing this song that ended up being the
Speaker 2: titular song of the record, and the first song that
Speaker 2: I finished that felt like, ah, I think I'm beginning
Speaker 2: something here. And the song was called what Did You Miss?
Speaker 2: And it was taking stock of the things that I
Speaker 2: missed in the present, while at the same time going
Speaker 2: backwards and remembering things from being a much younger person,
Speaker 2: and kind of riffing off of that. And at the
Speaker 2: end the last verse, I refer to all of these
Speaker 2: songs that have accumulated over the last thirty forty years
Speaker 2: as a personal history. And that was to me the
Speaker 2: obvious title.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the pandemic. I had immune issues,
Speaker 1: so I was locked up longer than the average person.
Speaker 1: But you know, they shut the doors in the middle
Speaker 1: of March twenty twenty. We really didn't know what was
Speaker 1: going on, we paid close attention, came out the other side.
Speaker 1: I am positively shocked how things are different after the pandemic. Hey,
Speaker 1: I got older, which of course everybody does, but your
Speaker 1: perspective changes, and even lifestyle things in terms of people
Speaker 1: wanting to go out to lunch whatever. It ended up
Speaker 1: being a bigger deal than I thought. So how did
Speaker 1: you experience.
Speaker 2: How did I experience being sort of locked in?
Speaker 1: No, I was going to ask the other question first. Now,
Speaker 1: looking back, what do you think about this time? Was
Speaker 1: it just a blip on the radar screen? Or do
Speaker 1: you find there's definitely a before and after and your
Speaker 1: perspective and feelings are different.
Speaker 2: Oh, for me, it's definitely a before and after. I
Speaker 2: do remember thinking in those first six months or so
Speaker 2: that I would never ever again complain about being in
Speaker 2: a crowded airport. Other I felt so starved of company
Speaker 2: of people. Of And yet, and the thing about that
Speaker 2: that's kind of funny is that I think of myself
Speaker 2: as a hermit anyway. So I am not a very
Speaker 2: social person. I live in a very rural area. I
Speaker 2: don't see a lot of people. And yet, and as
Speaker 2: I said to one of my sisters, when we started
Speaker 2: staying home, and my sisters and I we'd have a
Speaker 2: call with each other once or twice a month or
Speaker 2: week every other week, and one of my sisters says,
Speaker 2: how are you doing? How are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And this is she's talking, of course, to me, the hermit.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't help it. I said, I feel as
Speaker 2: if I've been training for this my entire life, you know.
Speaker 2: And I did. I felt like, oh, this is fine.
Speaker 2: I'm handling this. I'm handling this. But you know, that
Speaker 2: was a feeling of the moment, and it certainly didn't
Speaker 2: last for six months. And I don't I don't have
Speaker 2: a health issue like you did, Bob, to be very
Speaker 2: careful with. But I personally did not feel safe going
Speaker 2: out and being and traveling and resuming work for a
Speaker 2: really long time. And even so now, I mean, it
Speaker 2: definitely affects me. I somebody sneezes twenty feet away and
Speaker 2: I'm just out of there. You know. It's just it's
Speaker 2: not something I take for granted.
Speaker 1: So tell me about being a hermit.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, how long do you have?
Speaker 1: I have plenty of time lay it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've always been I've always been a shy person.
Speaker 2: I've always been a quiet person, and I've always been
Speaker 2: sort of I think cursed on a certain level, with
Speaker 2: a stubborn loneliness that is just there even when I'm
Speaker 2: in a room full of people, and in a way,
Speaker 2: I just prefer It's like I'd rather be my own company.
Speaker 2: In that way. I have a few very close friends,
Speaker 2: but we all live in different places. And the life
Speaker 2: that I have and have had for the last fifteen
Speaker 2: years or so, has allowed me to indulge that hermit
Speaker 2: life because I live, as I said, in a very
Speaker 2: rural area and it suits me. I don't know what
Speaker 2: it is about my personality that has led me to this,
Speaker 2: but here I am.
Speaker 1: How much of it is social anxiety?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, probably a lot, I imagine. I mean, I
Speaker 2: can't break it down in percentages, but I'm sure that
Speaker 2: figures into it. I just I don't make small talk
Speaker 2: very easily. It's not that I, you know, abhor it.
Speaker 2: It's just I'm not good at it. And you know,
Speaker 2: days can go by where I don't talk to a
Speaker 2: single person except maybe the guy at the checkout stand,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it really gets to me, but other times
Speaker 2: it just as I said, it seems to suit me.
Speaker 1: Okay, Let's say, for whatever reason, you're in a location
Speaker 1: and I come by and I say, oh, there's going
Speaker 1: to be this party. You're going to know a couple
Speaker 1: of people. There's going to be like thirty people there.
Speaker 1: Come on, let's go. What would you.
Speaker 2: Say, Yeah, I'd say I'll come for ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say I accept that. Will you actually show up?
Speaker 2: Yes, I yes, I will. I won't bail on you.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I'm not going to be one of
Speaker 2: those people who bail at the last minute. And if
Speaker 2: I'm having a good time, I'll stay longer than ten minutes.
Speaker 2: But in general, I'll do the Irish good bye.
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't heard that term that means what?
Speaker 2: You've never heard that?
Speaker 1: No, I haven't. That learns something every day?
Speaker 2: Yes, well today you're going to learn that an Irish
Speaker 2: goodbye is you just you don't say goodbye to people.
Speaker 2: It's not that you're rude, it's just your slipping of what.
Speaker 2: You're slipping out. You're just disappearing. It's it's you're not
Speaker 2: having you're not making a big deal of leaving. You're
Speaker 2: just slipping out the door.
Speaker 1: I sort of had to learn to not do the
Speaker 1: Irish goodbye. But what might happen at a party such
Speaker 1: that you would stay?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, my car broke down? Maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's pretty serious. I'm talking about what's happening inside the walls.
Speaker 2: Of the Yeah, I know, I know. Well, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, if my car's not working, I can't leave.
Speaker 2: But uh, what would have to happen? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Just good conversation, lovely people, and not too late.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like I'm ready to go to sleep by eight
Speaker 2: o'clock at night.
Speaker 1: So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're early? Now? Have
Speaker 1: you always been early? Yes?
Speaker 2: I have, well maybe not, maybe not as a teenager,
Speaker 2: but certainly now and for a long time, and living
Speaker 2: out where I live there, I live in a really
Speaker 2: beautiful place, and there is a lot to be gained
Speaker 2: from getting up to see the sunrise.
Speaker 1: So okay, what is to be gained?
Speaker 2: Beauty, peace, imagination, gratitude, quiet, just things that can be
Speaker 2: a very lovely way to start your day.
Speaker 1: Okay. So the average day, you wake up at what.
Speaker 2: Time, probably about five five point thirty okay, and.
Speaker 1: Then what do you do other than observe the sun.
Speaker 2: Coming up, I make the best cup of coffee on
Speaker 2: the planet, and after I have wait.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait, wait wait wait wait, don't wait wait
Speaker 1: wait wait wait. I don't happen to be a coffee drinker,
Speaker 1: but I'm aware of this side. Let's start.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning. How do you literally make it?
Speaker 2: Well, I have this coffee maker that grinds the beans.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if this means anything to you.
Speaker 2: So if you're not a coffee coffee drinker, you know,
Speaker 2: you might find this pretty boring. But it's just a
Speaker 2: really great coffee maker that kind of grinds the beans
Speaker 2: and creates a crema on top, the way you do
Speaker 2: with espresso, the way people make espresso. So it's just
Speaker 2: very rich, very delicious. I like half and half in
Speaker 2: my coffee, and it's just as my friend of mine says,
Speaker 2: it's the best part of my day. And everything is
Speaker 2: all downhill from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's the same machine that grinds the beans and
Speaker 1: also makes the cup of coffee, that's correct. And what's
Speaker 1: the name of that machine?
Speaker 2: Oh shit, it's called Jura j U r A. And
Speaker 2: I bought. I bought this coffee maker from my mother
Speaker 2: a million years ago, and she said, I cannot be
Speaker 2: bothered with this. I just need these little you know,
Speaker 2: these cups that you yeah, yeah, she she just said,
Speaker 2: I can't be bothered with this. So I took it
Speaker 2: home and it's my favorite thing.
Speaker 1: Assuming one where to buy it at retail? How expensive
Speaker 1: a unit.
Speaker 2: Is this, Bob? I don't think, I want to say?
Speaker 1: Okay. The only reason I ask, as I say, I
Speaker 1: have an interest is even though I don't drink coffee.
Speaker 1: Is of the standard machines, they say, the best one
Speaker 1: is the Mocha Master, which is not cheap.
Speaker 2: Never heard of it? Oh, but that doesn't that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, the Moca Master, I forget what country and Europe.
Speaker 1: You know you're gonna you can get it for less
Speaker 1: than three hundred dollars. But you're spending that kind of money?
Speaker 1: Are you saying? The machine you have is one step
Speaker 1: beyond that?
Speaker 2: Indeed, it's a made in Switzerland, I believe, and they're pricey.
Speaker 2: But again, as I said, I bought it for my mother,
Speaker 2: so I would have spent any amount of money on
Speaker 2: my mom because she was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Okay, in what area do you indulge yourself financially?
Speaker 2: God, oh my god, that's a I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think I'm a kind of frugal person, so you know, uh,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Whatever it takes to keep my dog
Speaker 2: and cat healthy, you know, that can be very that
Speaker 2: can be very expensive. Probably the guitars that I play.
Speaker 2: I would indulge myself in those instruments because they're pretty
Speaker 2: wonderful things and they're the tools of my trade. So
Speaker 2: I think that's worth worth it. Oh, I know. I so,
Speaker 2: a couple of summers ago, or a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: I took the year off because I had terrible arthritis
Speaker 2: in my hand. So I took the year off to
Speaker 2: get my hand fixed, as I put it. And it
Speaker 2: was the year that the Olympics were on and all
Speaker 2: the sports and whatever. Anyway, I knew I was going
Speaker 2: to be spending a lot of time sitting on the sofa.
Speaker 2: So I went out and I bought a big television.
Speaker 2: And I felt like such a Oh I felt like
Speaker 2: such a slob doing that, But now, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I love it so much.
Speaker 1: So how much television do you watch? Now?
Speaker 2: I only watch TV. So I'm weird this way. Hopefully
Speaker 2: maybe I'm not so weird if your listeners relate to this.
Speaker 2: During the day, I never turned the television on, and
Speaker 2: I rarely allow myself to to.
Speaker 1: Sort of.
Speaker 2: Retire to the sofa and read. It's like, I only
Speaker 2: watch television if it's in the evening, and I'll only
Speaker 2: read if it's in the evening. It's as if day
Speaker 2: is over now it's time to lose yourself in a
Speaker 2: show or a great book or whatever it is. But
Speaker 2: during the day, I feel like I have to be
Speaker 2: working and producing and walking my dog and doing admin
Speaker 2: and just taking care of things. It's like I just
Speaker 2: can't allow myself to watch television during the day or whatever.
Speaker 2: It would make me feel like such a slacker, which is
Speaker 2: so judgy and stupid. But that's just the way I am.
Speaker 1: Okay, if you go to bed at eight, when you're
Speaker 1: in control, and what time does the admin and the
Speaker 1: walking the door? What time is what's the cutoff time?
Speaker 2: About four o'clock?
Speaker 1: Okay, so four o'clock. Yeah, when would you decide to
Speaker 1: read or watch.
Speaker 2: Television anytime after that?
Speaker 1: No? No, when would it be reading as opposed to
Speaker 1: television or television as opposed to reading.
Speaker 2: Just depends on my mood. It's a moody thing.
Speaker 1: And when you read, what do you read? Oh?
Speaker 2: I love novels, what I love history. My stack of
Speaker 2: books on my bedside table is just hot gets higher
Speaker 2: and higher. You know that term sundoku, it's a Japanese term.
Speaker 1: I do not.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is the second thing exactly.
Speaker 1: Where it'll be coming three, So I'm waiting for the third.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll get to it. Sundoku is a term loosely translated,
Speaker 2: it's it's about abundance of books that you may never
Speaker 2: get to. But it's the act of collecting them that
Speaker 2: is the point. And so it's okay if you never
Speaker 2: get to them, but it's it's it's the act of
Speaker 2: collecting books that you may or may not read.
Speaker 1: Okay, I understand the concept. Where did you encounter the.
Speaker 2: Word waash know on amaiwa Meddi chip and Carpenter, I don't.
Speaker 2: That's me saying my name is Mary Chapin Carpenter and Japanese.
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, we lived over in Japan
Speaker 2: for a few years because of my father's jow But
Speaker 2: I don't think I learned it there. I think I
Speaker 2: learned it years ago, just by accident because someone I knew,
Speaker 2: or people would remark, on, Jesus Christ, how many books
Speaker 2: do you have that you're just sitting on, you know,
Speaker 2: and someone would have enlightened me as to that there's
Speaker 2: an actual term for that.
Speaker 1: So this is not a test, because I hate when
Speaker 1: people confront me this way. Yeah, within the last ten years,
Speaker 1: can you name a couple of books that had an
Speaker 1: impact that you thought were great for whatever reason? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Anything by Elizabeth Strout.
Speaker 1: Oh, those are all good, each one of them.
Speaker 2: She's so great and I love and I can just
Speaker 2: detour for a second. It's like a guiding kind of
Speaker 2: declaration for me. There's this She has a novel called
Speaker 2: My Name is Lucy Burton, and the narrator in that
Speaker 2: book talks about how she takes she's taking a creative
Speaker 2: writing course, and the instructor says to her, then, I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 2: of course, because I can't remember exactly. But she hands
Speaker 2: in an assignment or whatever or gets stuck on her
Speaker 2: her writing assignment, and the instructor says, don't worry about
Speaker 2: the story. We all have just one story. And we
Speaker 2: tell it, Yes, we tell it many different ways. And
Speaker 2: I remember in the moment that I was in bed
Speaker 2: reading that line and I said out loud like, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: that's what the songs are. It's like, that's it, that
Speaker 2: was it, and that I know I'm reaching, but but
Speaker 2: I'm not really back to the very first thing we
Speaker 2: were talking about about, you know, the songs and personal
Speaker 2: history and what does it come from. That really in
Speaker 2: that whole thought informed to me the idea that this
Speaker 2: record was like songs as memoir. It's like all these
Speaker 2: different lives that we that we inhabit over the course
Speaker 2: of our one life, but we tell them. We tell
Speaker 2: these stories so many different ways. And that moment in
Speaker 2: my name is Lucy Barton, to me, it was sort
Speaker 2: of like a bingo moment. It just was like, ah,
Speaker 2: that that is exactly how I feel. So anyway, I
Speaker 2: digress anything by Elizabeth Strout, anything by Lauren Growth, anything
Speaker 2: by Ian McEwan, Oh my gosh. And then there's you know, oh,
Speaker 2: there's just a lot. There's a lot.
Speaker 1: You know. I keep bringing this up with people. Did
Speaker 1: you read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow?
Speaker 2: I'm the only person probably who hasn't, but it's been
Speaker 2: recommended to me so many times. Really again, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: And so I'm sort of slightly ashamed because.
Speaker 1: Now I feel like, you know, I don't feel like
Speaker 1: such an individual since everybody's recommending it. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: It sound like that's the only book I ever read.
Speaker 1: But let's just flip it. If you're watching television, what
Speaker 1: are you watching on television?
Speaker 2: Oh god, that's a whole nother thing that really does.
Speaker 2: That decision is truly informed by mood. Like you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but there are days or
Speaker 2: evenings I should say when I just I just feel blank,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to have to work too hard
Speaker 2: to just chill out, and so I'll watch like stupid shit,
Speaker 2: you know, just like like a home show on HGTV.
Speaker 2: But right now, for example, it's very exciting after four
Speaker 2: o'clock these evenings because I'm watching The American Revolution by
Speaker 2: Ken Burns. So that's very rich and broad and you
Speaker 2: have to pay very close attention because there's so much
Speaker 2: that they're telling you. So that's not for a blank night,
Speaker 2: that's for an engaged night. But I love it. It's
Speaker 2: like I love having something to look forward to in
Speaker 2: the queue.
Speaker 1: Are you a Ken Burns person? And have you watched
Speaker 1: jazz and baseball and all this stuff?
Speaker 2: No? Not not a not a you know, a true follower.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm cherry pick.
Speaker 1: And how about Netflix series stuff like that? Do you
Speaker 1: watch any of that.
Speaker 2: If it's British crime dramas?
Speaker 1: Yes? Okay, So what's what's the best British crime drama?
Speaker 2: Line of Duty?
Speaker 1: Line of Duty's phenomenal, phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: have you seen Blue Lights?
Speaker 1: Of course I haven't seen the new season, but I've
Speaker 1: seen Blue.
Speaker 2: I haven't either. I'm It's like, I'm way, I've got
Speaker 2: it in my queue and I'm waiting. Rather, I should say,
Speaker 2: I'm hoarding.
Speaker 1: What's your name? How come I Sarah Lancasher?
Speaker 2: What's yes, Sarah Lancash? What's Sally? Uh? The creator of
Speaker 2: right Jesus Sally? I can't like do my thing, but
Speaker 2: she's the writer of like Happy.
Speaker 1: Valley, Happy Valley. That's what I was saying. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the latest season of Happy Valley wasn't good, but the
Speaker 1: ones before that I thought were the best.
Speaker 2: So in other words, the one where he meets his end.
Speaker 2: You didn't think that was good? Okay, Well I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't think I disagree with you about that. I
Speaker 2: mean the earlier seasons they were remarkable, unbelieving.
Speaker 1: That was my number. That was my tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
Speaker 1: of television.
Speaker 2: I hear you, I hear you.
Speaker 1: And what about broad Church? You watch broad Church?
Speaker 2: Loved broad Church, loved it. I just think British TV
Speaker 2: in general is so much better than Americans. It's like,
Speaker 2: I don't even remember the last time I got stuck
Speaker 2: in to some sort of US mystery series or crime drummer.
Speaker 2: It's like I just don't even go there anymore. It's
Speaker 2: like I I wait for the good British shows. You know?
Speaker 1: How about you know they say the Danes in the
Speaker 1: Israelis make the best TV. So if you watched any
Speaker 1: of the Scandinavian noir and.
Speaker 2: That stuff, I what was the one with Kenneth Brawna,
Speaker 2: didn't he sort of adapt a Danish drama for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I can't remember what it is. Yeah?
Speaker 2: I thought that was pretty good. But in general, I
Speaker 2: don't think I have followed the Danes or Israeli ad adaptation.
Speaker 1: Well, when the next, you know, lockdown comes, you got
Speaker 1: a lot to look forward to.
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus, let's hope not.
Speaker 1: Okay. So also on the new album, I find a
Speaker 1: through line of reflection on aging. Is that something you're
Speaker 1: thinking about?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's, you know, front and center on this record
Speaker 2: as a theme and a connecting thread. It was very
Speaker 2: deliberate actually for the very last song on the record,
Speaker 2: which is.
Speaker 1: Which is probably the best song other than one of
Speaker 1: You and Your Dog. Those two are the best songs
Speaker 1: on the record, but.
Speaker 2: Continue, well, appreciate your opinion.
Speaker 1: Probably don't agree, but that's my opinion.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not in a position at all to tell
Speaker 2: to say to anyone, oh, this is the best song
Speaker 2: or it's like And also I can't quite you know,
Speaker 2: I can't sort of divide it up that way. It's like,
Speaker 2: to me, it's a it's a whole it's a it's
Speaker 2: a whole, complete thing. If one of those songs fell out,
Speaker 2: I would feel like there's a hole in the midst
Speaker 2: of this, you know, painting whatever. But anyway, coda, you know,
Speaker 2: to me, it speaks absolutely about the idea of growing
Speaker 2: older and how to sort of navigate that. And and
Speaker 2: then in the end, it's sort of like this, this
Speaker 2: moment of sort of facing yourself and just saying it's
Speaker 2: about gratitude for what you have. But to me, it
Speaker 2: was very important that that song be open ended. And
Speaker 2: it's like it's not saying it's over, it's done, it's
Speaker 2: life is finished, but rather there is more to come.
Speaker 2: But this is an acknowledgment of where I am right
Speaker 2: now in my life and and I'm incredibly grateful for it.
Speaker 1: Well, people from the baby boomer era, of which both
Speaker 1: of us are members, don't talk about aging. Everybody I
Speaker 1: know seems to feel like they're going to live forever.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is? Why don't Why do
Speaker 2: you think it is that? Because that's one of the
Speaker 2: things I did want to talk about on this record.
Speaker 2: And it's as if but it's like for me, it
Speaker 2: leads into a lot of other sort of connected conversations
Speaker 2: about like agism in the music business and agism in life,
Speaker 2: and it's just it's like there's it's as if people
Speaker 2: are afraid to talk about it or it's a taboo
Speaker 2: or something like that. I don't, well, I think.
Speaker 1: Everything you're seeing is true. You know, growing up, our
Speaker 1: parents did not want to be kids. There were definitely
Speaker 1: the adults in the room, not that they couldn't be
Speaker 1: a reverend. Everybody today, you know, not literally everybody, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people. They're working out, they're wearing kids clothes.
Speaker 1: They don't want to admit that they're roled, even though
Speaker 1: I mean one of the.
Speaker 2: Older they're older, right, but.
Speaker 1: The amazing thing about being two amazing thing is one
Speaker 1: you're happier and b you have perspective. They would rather
Speaker 1: keep their heads in the sands. Like most people I know,
Speaker 1: they say, I want to die in my sleep. I
Speaker 1: don't want to die in my sleep. I want to
Speaker 1: be like Steve Jeff. I want to see it coming.
Speaker 1: I want to know this is the end.
Speaker 2: Really, oh, very see I fear that in a profound way.
Speaker 2: It's like, I'm very aware of this in myself. Living
Speaker 2: in suspense, if you will, being in suspense, some would say, oh,
Speaker 2: that means not being in control, or however you want
Speaker 2: to analyze it, but being in suspense, not knowing what's coming,
Speaker 2: or rather if you had an illness, shall we say that,
Speaker 2: Like you say you want to see it coming, right,
Speaker 2: I think I don't think I'm cut out for that,
Speaker 2: I want to be unaware that I'm nearly gone or something.
Speaker 2: I think I would grieve too hard. I think I
Speaker 2: would grieve terribly, and I don't want to go through that.
Speaker 1: Let's go the other way. You can live another ten minutes,
Speaker 1: you could live another thirty years. Okay, Right, If let's
Speaker 1: just say we're talking, you died a year from now,
Speaker 1: would you feel ripped off? And we say, well, that
Speaker 1: a pretty good life, you know that's the end.
Speaker 2: I don't think i'd feel ripped off. I feel very.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Again. There's so many things to this conversation. The first
Speaker 2: thing I would say is, as far as this record goes,
Speaker 2: there's no way I could have written this record thirty
Speaker 2: years ago, or in my thirties, in my forties, in
Speaker 2: my fifties. This is a work that is completely of
Speaker 2: who I am now. So I have a real appreciation
Speaker 2: for the passage of time and what it has given me.
Speaker 2: The thing about not wanting to know that there's like
Speaker 2: the end is coming next year or whatever, it's just
Speaker 2: I think I would just I would miss It's like
Speaker 2: I just all I would. I think I would be
Speaker 2: obsessed with what I was going to miss, even though
Speaker 2: as people say, oh, well you're not alive to miss anything,
Speaker 2: but well, my brain doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I think some of this is a function of aging.
Speaker 1: Right thirty, everybody's freaked out about is no big deal?
Speaker 1: Forty fund me up? Pretty good, fifty, no big deal?
Speaker 1: Hits sixty really weird because I felt like I'd seen
Speaker 1: the trick. It's like when you're within a grocery store
Speaker 1: and your little kid. I want this. I want that.
Speaker 1: They're all that I've to going. If something's good, I'll
Speaker 1: find out about it. In addition, a lot of this
Speaker 1: is hype when you turn seventy. This is something we're
Speaker 1: seeing in America at large with these political figures trend sevy.
Speaker 1: It's just you're aware the end is somewhere, and you're
Speaker 1: aware that nobody matters, so you can theoretically evaluate the
Speaker 1: path forward, which I find most people do not. And
Speaker 1: then you have these congress people you know in their
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties refuse to retire, and especially with all
Speaker 1: the technological developments of the past thirty years, they're completely
Speaker 1: out of touch. I mean, if you're somebody in your
Speaker 1: twenties or thirties, you're not even speaking the same language,
Speaker 1: and they're very pompously saying we know, okay, So on
Speaker 1: some level I feel sorry for them because they're so
Speaker 1: busy doing I'll use it a music business example. I
Speaker 1: know these guys who have this magazine, they've been doing
Speaker 1: the same thing for forty years. The only thing that
Speaker 1: is change is the name of the acts. How do
Speaker 1: you do that? I mean, there's a lot of money involved,
Speaker 1: but it's like it be brain dead. You know. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like talking to Kenny Chestney and he says,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I had a big hit with you know,
Speaker 1: she's in love with my tractor whatever the hell of
Speaker 1: the song is, says, thank god I didn't continue to
Speaker 1: write that song. You know that I could grow, whereas
Speaker 1: a lot of people they do the same thing. I
Speaker 1: just don't know how they do it. And the same
Speaker 1: thing with aging, and you know, I thought it was
Speaker 1: great that you addressed it. But it's illegal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really just a riffing here. But it's like mostly
Speaker 1: the male acts they get plastic surgery to look young.
Speaker 1: The audience looks old, in some cases terrible, and nobody
Speaker 1: under the age of forty or fifty even cares or
Speaker 1: goes but they die there here they get plastics or
Speaker 1: they're like, who you fooling?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think also, I mean, I remember this so well.
Speaker 2: It was years and years and years ago. I was
Speaker 2: signed as I was on Sony and I'd had a
Speaker 2: I had had a big song, and it was I
Speaker 2: was in the midst of making my next record, and
Speaker 2: the A and R gentleman called me up, and I
Speaker 2: think they were sort of like, where is where's the record?
Speaker 2: We're waiting for it, you know, And I said, I'm
Speaker 2: working on it. And he said the song that I
Speaker 2: the so called hit that i'd had was a song
Speaker 2: called down at the Twist and Shout and he he said,
Speaker 2: and I do quote exactly. He said, well, don't you
Speaker 2: have another twist and shout and I and I just
Speaker 2: stopped and I just said, why would I want to
Speaker 2: do the same thing over and over again? And it
Speaker 2: was like he didn't, he didn't give a shit. He
Speaker 2: just wanted to know what was coming down the pipeline
Speaker 2: so he could figure out what his bonus was going
Speaker 2: to be or something. I mean, it was just, you know,
Speaker 2: it was the enemy of creativity.
Speaker 1: There you go, Well, let's flip it over. You were
Speaker 1: part of the major label system and had great success,
Speaker 1: and there were two things going on at the same time.
Speaker 1: You have an arc of a career but also changes
Speaker 1: in the business. So when you add success in the nineties,
Speaker 1: assuming you had success, I mean anybody, everybody in that
Speaker 1: world would know who you are, know what was going on,
Speaker 1: whereas today most of the hit acts, people are unaware
Speaker 1: of their music. Maybe they know their name. It's like
Speaker 1: for all that talk about Taylor Swift, I go place,
Speaker 1: people can't name two songs, or if you hit young people,
Speaker 1: they can't sing them. Whereas it used to be if
Speaker 1: it was a hit, everybody knew it. So in this
Speaker 1: world you're in total control because you can make the
Speaker 1: music you want whatever. But does it frustrate you that
Speaker 1: it's harder to reach a mass audience.
Speaker 2: I don't think frustration is the is the word I
Speaker 2: would use. It's it's a consequence of I mean that
Speaker 2: just the fire hose of of of of content, you know, music, content, whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just it's like you put a record out on
Speaker 2: a Friday and it's forgotten by Monday. If you're lucky, right,
Speaker 2: you know, if even if it even made it through
Speaker 2: the weekend, right, and there are some exceptions to that,
Speaker 2: but generally I think that's the way it is now, right,
Speaker 2: And you know, it's it's like, I wouldn't call it frustrating.
Speaker 2: Well maybe it would. Yeah, maybe i'd say it's frustrating.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, there's a part of me
Speaker 2: that feels really strongly about well, no one is entitled
Speaker 2: to It's like, you know, it can't. It's not like
Speaker 2: I deserve to be heard by more people or something.
Speaker 2: It's like, it's just that's just not the way it works.
Speaker 2: But it's just it is different from when I started out.
Speaker 2: But also the fact that I had any kind of
Speaker 2: no Arriet or whatever to me is still a complete shock.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, in addition to this arc of technology, the arc
Speaker 1: of a career is you've been to the mountaintop. There
Speaker 1: are a few exceptions, the Eagles, Paul McCartney, even whatever,
Speaker 1: But the other acts been into the mountaintop. Audience decreases
Speaker 1: to some point. You know, they're not telling as many tickets,
Speaker 1: people are not listening to the music as much. How
Speaker 1: does one metabolize or coope with that?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it would be helpful if the
Speaker 2: people that you are fortunate enough to spend some time
Speaker 2: talking to in the journalists, the people who are writing
Speaker 2: about X new record or whatever it is. I'm still
Speaker 2: thinking about this. It was someone I spoke with last
Speaker 2: summer about the record, and he asked me, why are
Speaker 2: you still doing this? I was astonished by that question,
Speaker 2: first of all, just and I once I stopped laughing
Speaker 2: and sort of how I had a lot of responses.
Speaker 2: I felt like it was rude. I felt like it
Speaker 2: was kind of thoughtless and clueless. And and then I,
Speaker 2: you know, moved into the next phase, which was not
Speaker 2: to in any way suggest that I'm on the same
Speaker 2: level as this person. But if he was talking to
Speaker 2: Bruce Springsteen, would he say, Bruce, why are you still
Speaker 2: doing this?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: It's just again it just felt like what And so
Speaker 2: the only answer I had for him really was I
Speaker 2: didn't realize there was like a deadline I had met
Speaker 2: and it was touched my shelf life was over whatever.
Speaker 2: I I intend to keep doing this as long as
Speaker 2: I have something to say. Art is not, you know,
Speaker 2: being a songwriter, being an artist in this world that
Speaker 2: we inhabit, it's not you know. I don't want to
Speaker 2: get all pompous about it. But it's not a nine
Speaker 2: to five job that I'm going to eventually, you know,
Speaker 2: collect retirement for It's just it's a calling. It's something
Speaker 2: I feel like I need to do, and I've always
Speaker 2: felt that way about it, whether I had an audience
Speaker 2: or not. I'm deeply grateful and fortunate that I did
Speaker 2: find an audience and that I still have one. But
Speaker 2: it's like again, and that to me, is part of
Speaker 2: that sort of agism that exists, and it's not as
Speaker 2: you know, to me thinking about it. The gentleman who
Speaker 2: asked me that question, he's a much younger person and
Speaker 2: than I am, and you know, he's just come up
Speaker 2: in a different world, and I don't know. I'm still
Speaker 2: sort of kind of shaking my head about it.
Speaker 1: Okay. You know, I don't want to defend any music
Speaker 1: journalists for numerous reasons. However, just to state facts, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of acts from the so called classic
Speaker 1: rock era who was refused to make new music because
Speaker 1: they believe no one's going to hear it. Now. Obviously
Speaker 1: we can go deeper and analyze who they are, what
Speaker 1: their motivations, artistic whatever, But I'm leading into The next
Speaker 1: question is when they do put out music, there's the
Speaker 1: issue of how much new music they can play in
Speaker 1: a show. Is that something you think about.
Speaker 2: It's something I feel when I put a set list together,
Speaker 2: when it's time to tour a new record whatever, I'm
Speaker 2: very I try to be very thoughtful about how much
Speaker 2: new music I inject into the set list. Where to
Speaker 2: find the balance, I mean, you know, and again it
Speaker 2: also depends on how long has the record been out,
Speaker 2: how have people even had a chance to digest it,
Speaker 2: you know. I think that's that's important as well. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I just feel like I'm really thoughtful about it. I
Speaker 2: don't have any desire to play the record front to
Speaker 2: back in a set. If anything, I want to be
Speaker 2: able to just show that there are connecting threads between
Speaker 2: this new music and what you're familiar with prior. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like it's all coming from me, and it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's just very it's just very clear to me that
Speaker 2: it's all part of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess let's assume you're doing a show by yourself.
Speaker 1: You may have side musicians, but you're not working with
Speaker 1: the numerous people you do work with to what degree
Speaker 1: every night is different. It's just like legitimate theater. They
Speaker 1: do the same lines, but every night is different. To
Speaker 1: what degree are you conscious of the audience in trying
Speaker 1: to win them over to your side? You know?
Speaker 2: I think when I was a much younger artist, I
Speaker 2: may have felt that way upon walking on stage, like
Speaker 2: I'm on a mission here, I want to win these
Speaker 2: people over. I feel like after all these years since then,
Speaker 2: now maybe I'm wrong to make this assumption, but I
Speaker 2: feel like it's much less about that and more just
Speaker 2: this appreciation and recognition of it's a community inside this space.
Speaker 2: We're all together here. People are here because they want
Speaker 2: to be as opposed to having their arms crossed sort
Speaker 2: of indicating show me. It's like they know what they're
Speaker 2: here for. Because I've been around long enough, I guess
Speaker 2: you know that it's not a mystery to them. They're
Speaker 2: not being introduced to someone new. So I think it's
Speaker 2: a you know, kind of a logical thing to feel
Speaker 2: like I want to I want to be here with
Speaker 2: everyone here in this audience, and I want us all
Speaker 2: to feel connected. That's that's to me what I feel.
Speaker 2: What I I'm deeply grateful for every every time I
Speaker 2: step on stage.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the agism. There's absolutely agism in
Speaker 1: the music business, and we could talk about that a lot,
Speaker 1: but to what deg we You experience agism in your
Speaker 1: non music business life.
Speaker 2: When people talk to you in such a way that
Speaker 2: they think you're hard of hearing, right, or they call
Speaker 2: you honey, maybe honey like they're talking to their nana,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, just things like that. You know, It's
Speaker 2: just you just detect things, you know, and sometimes it's
Speaker 2: like and I'll just sometimes walk away going what the fuck.
Speaker 1: Right? It's like, what right? Right? Right?
Speaker 2: What the fuck? What do I look? Do I look
Speaker 2: like I'm eighty five years old or something. I know
Speaker 2: a lot of eighty five year old women and they're
Speaker 2: rock stars.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But again, I like to with the exception of some people,
Speaker 2: I like to believe the best about people, and I
Speaker 2: think that when I do get the sort of Nana treatment,
Speaker 2: it's just people are just wanting to be helpful and
Speaker 2: compassionate and and they're trying to be thoughtful. So you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to punch anybody out.
Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting thought. I remember I was in
Speaker 1: the mountains and I didn't take a bus, you had
Speaker 1: to buy it. I was talking to the guy and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out which bus and where it's going.
Speaker 1: Figure goes, Okay, the senior.
Speaker 2: Rate is Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's like, oh yeah, all I
Speaker 1: did was ask you these questions. But as a woman
Speaker 1: in society, we hear all of this attention based on looks.
Speaker 1: What has your experience been with ageism as.
Speaker 2: A woman in the music business and in life?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well mostly in life in life music business.
Speaker 2: Well, for example, my neighbor, one of my neighbors, years ago,
Speaker 2: we were taking a walk. She this beautiful artist, and
Speaker 2: she had beautiful, thick colored gray hair, just like the
Speaker 2: most beautiful gray hair you've ever seen in your life,
Speaker 2: Like I would kill for that hair. And her name
Speaker 2: was Elsa, and she one day we're just talking about
Speaker 2: and I must we're talking about agism. We encounter et cetera.
Speaker 2: And she pointed to her hair and she said, the
Speaker 2: minute my hair became this, I became invisible in life.
Speaker 2: And it broke my heart. And that she said that.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's just the coolest lady. She's so she's
Speaker 2: a total super nova. And again it just I actually would.
Speaker 2: During the summer when I was on tour, I was
Speaker 2: sort of riffing about this when I was introducing girl
Speaker 2: and her dog and talking about how I know so
Speaker 2: many women who older women who have said to me
Speaker 2: at so many different times. You know, I turned six
Speaker 2: and I became invisible, and I'm like, what the fuck
Speaker 2: does that mean? It's like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: And then slowly but surely it started to happen to
Speaker 2: me in those ways, and I got it, I understood,
Speaker 2: and it was both dreadful and hilarious.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like you just you sort of realize, well, I've
Speaker 2: reached that place where the people have been telling me
Speaker 2: about all this time and I didn't believe it, but
Speaker 2: here I am, you know, And you know, I just
Speaker 2: don't want to be I don't want to be cranky
Speaker 2: about it all the time and say and not talk
Speaker 2: about anything else. But it really does inform so much
Speaker 2: in life and in art, you know, and this record
Speaker 2: certainly testifies to that.
Speaker 1: Okay, would you ever contemplate any because medic procedures.
Speaker 2: No, And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: I knew that was a bad ask. No.
Speaker 2: So when we were talking about impending death and illnesses
Speaker 2: and things like that. I didn't mention, but years ago
Speaker 2: I suffered a pulmonary embolism and I came very close
Speaker 2: to not being here, and it was a very traumatic experience.
Speaker 2: And once you have a blood clot, you can be
Speaker 2: you're at risk further risk for getting another one. And
Speaker 2: my feeling about elective procedures is I don't want to
Speaker 2: do anything that would put me in at risk for
Speaker 2: having another blood cloth. So there you go.
Speaker 1: How did you realize that you had a blood clock?
Speaker 2: I couldn't breathe a little bit slower?
Speaker 1: Was it one event or in retrospect, had it been building?
Speaker 1: And where was it when you have it.
Speaker 2: Had been building? I'll tell you exactly what happened. I
Speaker 2: had been on Well, actually I don't know if I
Speaker 2: want to tell you exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Uh. Well, now I'm more interested in why you don't
Speaker 1: want to tell me.
Speaker 2: I don't have to tell me because it's like I'm
Speaker 2: just kind of opening my health file to you, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if I want to do that to
Speaker 2: the wider world.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, let just to stop. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I talk about health issues all the time do it. Yes,
Speaker 1: maybe I've had more than the average person. Everywhere I
Speaker 1: go now people ask me about they health. I have found.
Speaker 1: The only difference is the other people don't talk about it.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got something that's right. And it's like, I have
Speaker 1: this macular degeneration, now whatever, and her all of a
Speaker 1: sudden he reveals, Oh, this is much worse. He just
Speaker 1: never told you. Okay, I find a ton of that shit.
Speaker 1: I'm not listen. You don't have to tell me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that if people were only more on it, it's
Speaker 1: part of that image we're talking about where you can't
Speaker 1: embrace aging. You know, it's like I was under the
Speaker 1: illusic something stupid. Maybe my parents were. You know, you're
Speaker 1: one hundred percent together and you die. That is not
Speaker 1: the way it lays out, that's right. Unless you die
Speaker 1: before your time, there's a deterioration and emotionally very difficult.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I am in that movie right now, and
Speaker 2: I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you.
Speaker 2: And it's really hard, it's really really hard, Okay, just
Speaker 2: to satisfy your curiosity. I had so I had this
Speaker 2: blood clot and the reason I got it, we believe
Speaker 2: is because I have always suffered from migrain headaches and
Speaker 2: I was taking this medication that actually it was a
Speaker 2: birth control pills that would What I understand about it
Speaker 2: was that it was, uh it would I wouldn't get
Speaker 2: so much estrogen that would create the headaches. But the
Speaker 2: birth control pills they now have a black box warning
Speaker 2: on them, but at the time that I was taking them,
Speaker 2: they did not. But they were the cause of this
Speaker 2: blood clot and yeah, it was pretty terrifying. It was horrible.
Speaker 1: Actually, so you have the surgery, they you know, put
Speaker 1: a clip usually whatever, blah blah blah. Have you had
Speaker 1: any after effects of that problem in resulting surgery?
Speaker 2: I mentally it was like I was afraid too, so
Speaker 2: that you know, you're put on blood centers for a
Speaker 2: period of time and then you weaned off of that.
Speaker 2: I remember marching into my doctor's office nearly nearly two
Speaker 2: years after the event saying and he said, I think
Speaker 2: it's time for us to start tapering off the blood
Speaker 2: thinners and everything. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: don't ask me to get on a plane.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't, I can't, I can't. You know, just like
Speaker 2: all these sort of things that were terrifying to me,
Speaker 2: like that they if I got on a plane and
Speaker 2: if I didn't move around enough, then I'd get another
Speaker 2: blood clot. If I got off the blood thinners, I'm
Speaker 2: going to get another blood clot, you know, just like
Speaker 2: you know my doctor. He was amazing and so kind
Speaker 2: and compassionate and helpful. But fear is fear, and it's
Speaker 2: really hard to deal with. But I eventually got through it.
Speaker 1: Well. When people have these issues, frequently they go to
Speaker 1: a therapist. Have you been to a therapist?
Speaker 2: Have I been to a therapist? My middle name is therapy, no,
Speaker 2: my paid friend. Yes, I've been to a number of
Speaker 2: therapists over the years, and they're all incredibly patient.
Speaker 1: Have you found it helpful?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely. I remember one of one thing that one
Speaker 2: of my therapists said when I was electing to as,
Speaker 2: I said, fly solo for a while, and he said,
Speaker 2: you know, just give me a call when you're ready
Speaker 2: to come back, if you're ever ready to come back,
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I hope I don't have to,
Speaker 2: and he was like, you know what. I have a
Speaker 2: number of patients who have said to me that they
Speaker 2: consider it a privilege to be able to sit and
Speaker 2: talk with someone when they need to. It's not a
Speaker 2: beginning and an end. It's an ongoing journey through life.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was wonderful and it changed how
Speaker 2: I thought about the whole process. And yeah, so I
Speaker 2: consider myself so fortunate that I can afford it, and
Speaker 2: that I can do it, and that I have such great,
Speaker 2: great people to be my paid friends.
Speaker 1: Paid friends got a derogatory tone, though.
Speaker 2: No, I mean it with affection and humor.
Speaker 1: Okay, you mentioned birth control pills. You don't have children.
Speaker 1: Was that a choice? Do you have any regret? Is
Speaker 1: this exactly what you wanted.
Speaker 2: By the time I got married for the first and
Speaker 2: only time, I was little, I had aged out of
Speaker 2: that particular situation. So it was basically I would have
Speaker 2: loved to have had a family, had kids, but I
Speaker 2: was I just you know, I just never was in
Speaker 2: a place in my life where I could make sense
Speaker 2: of how to do it by myself. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: just didn't happen. It just wasn't in the cards for me.
Speaker 2: I would have loved it if it had beened.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a reference to put a benignly to an
Speaker 1: X in one of the songs and essentially saying they're
Speaker 1: not trustworthy A was that your personal experience?
Speaker 2: I need to know what the song is, but I
Speaker 2: need to know what the song is.
Speaker 1: I'd have to go through all the lyrics. There's a
Speaker 1: guy there I could do it. And it was essentially.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's one song called Bitter Ender, which is
Speaker 2: really just it's a portrait of me being one of
Speaker 2: those people. It's like, oh my god, why am I
Speaker 2: still hanging around here? The writing is on the wall.
Speaker 2: I need to leave this relationship or I need to
Speaker 2: end this or whatever, and I'm just always hanging on
Speaker 2: for dear life, like thinking, oh, it's going to fix itself,
Speaker 2: it's going to be better, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 2: And so that's the whole song. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a different perspective. There's another one. Truth
Speaker 1: is I've always gone down with the ship. But that
Speaker 1: is different from the behavior of the person. The signs
Speaker 1: you're willing to miss when you're cut to the quick.
Speaker 1: Let me let me you were married once, right, you
Speaker 1: say you live alone in the middle of nowhere and
Speaker 1: you were somewhat of a harmit. Yeah, so However, contrasting
Speaker 1: that you have this very public life and you do
Speaker 1: travel a certain amount. So what about romance at this
Speaker 1: point in your life.
Speaker 2: I'm open to it if it were to happen, but
Speaker 2: I'm also really con I'm really comfortable and content with
Speaker 2: the life that I have created for myself. You know,
Speaker 2: I just, first of all, I don't feel like I
Speaker 2: ever need to get married again. I didn't really want
Speaker 2: to get married in the first place. But the person
Speaker 2: that I ended up getting married to just for a
Speaker 2: lot of different reasons, he wanted it to be legal whatever.
Speaker 2: But I don't. I don't feel that way now for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just I'm I'm I'm sound like something out of
Speaker 2: a Jane Austen novel. But I'm quite content.
Speaker 1: You know, let's look at a different way. You were married. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you also say you're a hermit, and this has
Speaker 1: been something your whole life. You know, there are people
Speaker 1: who are serial monogamous. They're always in a relationship. There's
Speaker 1: somebody in a book right now that I'm reading didn't
Speaker 1: have a relationship till she was twenty four, and that
Speaker 1: was the only relationship you ever had. We're on the continuum.
Speaker 1: Do you lie.
Speaker 2: Gosh, you know, I just I feel like I just
Speaker 2: never met the right person. You know, I dated lots
Speaker 2: of different people and just not throwing shade at them,
Speaker 2: but it's just I was. It's like I remember talking
Speaker 2: to my therapist saying, I don't think I have relationship
Speaker 2: DNA in me. I just didn't think I you know,
Speaker 2: I just I don't know. And it's just like now
Speaker 2: when I think of what I might have to do
Speaker 2: to accommodate like a relationship, like I think I have
Speaker 2: always said actually and I mean it. I say it humorously,
Speaker 2: but you know, there are no jokes, doctor Freud. The
Speaker 2: idea that, to me, the perfect relationship at this point
Speaker 2: in my life would be somebody who lives like down
Speaker 2: the road, you know, and we can meet up when
Speaker 2: we want to. But it's like I want my own space,
Speaker 2: I want my own home, I want my place, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to share it.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of people who actually live that,
Speaker 1: some even married. I think it's fabulous, But I if
Speaker 1: you had met the perfect person, what would they have
Speaker 1: looked like?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 1: Hmm?
Speaker 2: I think they'd be tall.
Speaker 1: Well, I wasn't talking physically.
Speaker 2: But okay, Okay, what were you talking about.
Speaker 1: Well, when you're talking about you've never met somebody, I
Speaker 1: think of the clique as opposed to what this spark, right.
Speaker 2: The spark. Yeah, yeah, they'd have to be really funny.
Speaker 2: That's a huge spark. It's just like humor. That's the greatest.
Speaker 2: That's the most seductive thing in the world. Is someone
Speaker 2: who makes you laugh, like genuine belly aching laugh. You know,
Speaker 2: there's nothing more seductive to me about it than that
Speaker 2: someone who's thoughtful and curious, is interested in in what
Speaker 2: you do, but not obsequious about it, you know, not
Speaker 2: like they're They would be proud of you and what
Speaker 2: you've accomplished in your life, but they're not interested in
Speaker 2: piggybacking on top of it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: They're just they have their own life and their own
Speaker 2: interests and their own passions. They like to read, they
Speaker 2: like to listen to choral music as much as I do.
Speaker 1: Wow, how'd you get into choral music? Oh?
Speaker 2: My god, I don't know. My mom, I guess she
Speaker 2: would blast. It's not choral music, but she would blast
Speaker 2: Texico Opera Theater on Saturday afternoons out of the met
Speaker 2: every Saturday at two o'clock blasting in the house. But
Speaker 2: she also just you know, I don't know, I just
Speaker 2: always loved, like the last year that she was alive,
Speaker 2: myself and my pals Don Dixon and Marty Jones, and
Speaker 2: we went over to Cambridge in the UK and stood
Speaker 2: in line for nine hours to get tickets for the
Speaker 2: Christmas Eve served at King's College, Cambridge, where you will
Speaker 2: hear the most beautiful choral music you've ever heard in
Speaker 2: your life, and we did that because it's Nirvana and
Speaker 2: my mom it was her last year that she was
Speaker 2: like and it's like, you're not supposed to use your
Speaker 2: phone in the chapel, but I was like taking pictures
Speaker 2: of the stained glass windows and sending them, texting them
Speaker 2: to my mom in real time. So she was like
Speaker 2: there with me, and we had the program so she
Speaker 2: knew the songs which were coming. And then when the
Speaker 2: service was over, raced back to the hotel, called Mom
Speaker 2: on the phone and we went through the whole thing together,
Speaker 2: the whole service, and it was the best time of
Speaker 2: my life. And I heard all these great, incredible pieces
Speaker 2: of music, and to this day, choral music is just
Speaker 2: my favorite thing in my life. It's just my favorite thing.
Speaker 2: And I don't know why, but she gave.
Speaker 1: That to me, and would you play it in the house.
Speaker 2: Twenty four to seven? I turned it off so I
Speaker 2: could do this interview with you.
Speaker 1: That's definitive. Let's jump backwards. How'd you end up going
Speaker 1: to Brown? God?
Speaker 2: Truthfully, yeah, it was the closest college that I applied
Speaker 2: to my home in DC with my parents when I
Speaker 2: was in high school, when it was time to apply
Speaker 2: to colleges, I didn't. I was the third out of
Speaker 2: four kids. By the time it was my turn. My
Speaker 2: parents were like, we're not taking you to go look
Speaker 2: at colleges. You figure it.
Speaker 1: Out, you know.
Speaker 2: I was just like, oh God, And I just knew
Speaker 2: that I wanted to be able to go home whenever
Speaker 2: I wanted, as opposed to just on Thanksgiving or spring
Speaker 2: break because from you know, if it was too far away.
Speaker 2: So I applied to all these school in California, school
Speaker 2: in Vermont, school in Colorado, and I School and to Brown,
Speaker 2: and I got into all of them. And Brown was
Speaker 2: the closest one to DC. So that's the one I
Speaker 2: went to.
Speaker 1: Okay, at some point in this narrative, and I can't
Speaker 1: tell you when I believe it's when you're there. Brown
Speaker 1: is known for this very innovative academic program, which when
Speaker 1: I applied to college a few years before you, they
Speaker 1: did not have it. No one applied to Brown, and
Speaker 1: then everybody wanted to go to Brown. Was that part
Speaker 1: of the attraction.
Speaker 2: No, I mean I think they called it sort of
Speaker 2: the open curriculum or something like that like that, I
Speaker 2: don't know, Like, in other words, they didn't require you
Speaker 2: to have, I don't know, a certain amount of credit, can.
Speaker 1: Try to make your own major or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could make it up. No, that
Speaker 2: was not the reason, because I don't think I even
Speaker 2: knew what that was the time. Honestly, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, you went. How was the experience?
Speaker 2: Well, I loved being in classrooms. I got a great
Speaker 2: education I did. I was an American civilization major, which
Speaker 2: at the time was again a very broad palette of things,
Speaker 2: which just allowed me to indulge myself, like you know,
Speaker 2: literature courses and sociology courses and art history and you
Speaker 2: know whatever.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I just I just loved being in the classroom.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, college is inherently social. First, you're living
Speaker 1: in the dorm. I don't know how long you lived
Speaker 1: in the dorm. Were your hermit tendencies and evidence there
Speaker 1: or were they not?
Speaker 2: The I was, you know, I've just always been it's
Speaker 2: hard to make friends, I think, and I've just always
Speaker 2: been that way, and I'm shy, and I didn't like
Speaker 2: to go to parties, and well no, I think I
Speaker 2: did like to go to parties, but I just didn't know.
Speaker 2: I just didn't know a lot of people. So after
Speaker 2: so I was in a dorm just for one year,
Speaker 2: and then after that, let the remaining three years I
Speaker 2: lived in a group house with a rotating cast of friends.
Speaker 1: Was it a rotating cast or was it a rotating
Speaker 1: cast of friends?
Speaker 2: It was a rotating cast and mostly friends. Well, I
Speaker 2: mean there was a few a few strangers that I
Speaker 2: did not know.
Speaker 1: And get what I'm trying to say is you're living
Speaker 1: in a group house. We're all going to college, got
Speaker 1: the common purpose, but everybody's got a different schedule. Yes,
Speaker 1: so are you sitting in the living room bullshitting or
Speaker 1: is everybody hey, nice to see I'm going back to
Speaker 1: my room and studying. I'm going out to class.
Speaker 2: It was both, It was both, and we I think
Speaker 2: we were kind of mature in this way where we
Speaker 2: everybody took a night. It was a big house. Everybody
Speaker 2: would pick a night and would cook for that night.
Speaker 2: So you'd cook for everybody. So you had like one
Speaker 2: night a week where you had to you were responsible
Speaker 2: for dinner. But it gave us all a reason to
Speaker 2: be together. It's kind of a family thing, you know,
Speaker 2: And that was pretty civilized, I think.
Speaker 1: So do you know how to cook?
Speaker 2: I love to cook. And the what I remember quite
Speaker 2: fondly from my night to cook at college was the
Speaker 2: Moose Would Cookbook, the famous Moose Would cook Book, which
Speaker 2: is all vegetarian and so and I still have my
Speaker 2: copy that's covered in grease and dirt and you know,
Speaker 2: stains from food. Anyway, I love to cook, but I'll
Speaker 2: be honest with you and say that I'm a little
Speaker 2: lazy about cooking just for myself.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of that because I'm hermit.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you are alone. You do have to eat? Yes,
Speaker 1: what are you just freshing at? What's the refrigerator? Do
Speaker 1: you plan a meal? What does it look like?
Speaker 2: I plan it like I I like to be able
Speaker 2: to be like I have about three different you know
Speaker 2: go tos that I don't have to think about. And
Speaker 2: then other days when I really want something different, I'll
Speaker 2: make the effort to like make something new. But you know,
Speaker 2: I just like to make my salmon with my Asian
Speaker 2: marinade and peanut butter, sesame noodles, or like to make
Speaker 2: my home homemade chicken noodles, soup, or you know, just
Speaker 2: you know, just stuff, you know, comfort food Ininegarten, barefoot contessa,
Speaker 2: easy peasy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, we're talking around the time of the holidays.
Speaker 1: What will you do for the holidays.
Speaker 2: I will have family come to the farm where it's
Speaker 2: a it's a Thanksgiving pot luck in that sense, like
Speaker 2: everybody brings a dish whatever. And some of my sisters
Speaker 2: have giant children, so they eat a lot, so you know,
Speaker 2: they they they're giant people and they eat a lot
Speaker 2: of food. So like that sister, the mother of those
Speaker 2: particular giant children, will bring like the giant turkey.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's sort of divvied up that way anyway. But everybody comes.
Speaker 2: Everybody comes to my house and and we eat, and
Speaker 2: then we take a long walk with the dogs. And
Speaker 2: then before it's dark everybody starts to pack up in their.
Speaker 1: Clone, and how many people will come this year?
Speaker 2: It'll be twelve, I think twelve or thirteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, so everybody in your family lives within driving distance.
Speaker 2: Not everyone, but in this particular case. Yes, these are sisters, spouses, nieces, nephews,
Speaker 2: no grandchildren yet.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're three out of four in the family.
Speaker 1: You have your personality, we've established. What are the other
Speaker 1: three like?
Speaker 2: Thank god they're different from me. Now, I think we're
Speaker 2: all I think we're all somewhat similar. I don't know,
Speaker 2: i'd sort of I feel like I'm not the best
Speaker 2: judge of this. I don't really know.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're your siblings. You grew up in the
Speaker 1: house and there's four kids. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on. I grew up with three kids. You know,
Speaker 1: the parents are on hands on me. It's not like
Speaker 1: if there's one kid. So there's one kid who's the outgoing,
Speaker 1: one of the sports person one of all. He sits
Speaker 1: on the sidelines. Their connections, their wars or arguments. What
Speaker 1: are the young what are the other three up to?
Speaker 1: What did their lives look like?
Speaker 2: Okay, you really want to know all? Yeah, you're very thorough.
Speaker 2: My youngest sister is an elite athlete. It's like, how
Speaker 2: how how how the hell am I related to her?
Speaker 2: I do not know? And that she's first of all,
Speaker 2: she's tall. I'm so short. She's super tall. And she
Speaker 2: has been a runner, an elite runner for many years.
Speaker 2: She's one of those people that runs like one hundred
Speaker 2: mile races.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, ultra maritha ultra.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's an ultra athlete. And you know they start
Speaker 2: at midnight through the woods in the Shenandoah Valley and
Speaker 2: then that's a famous race.
Speaker 1: I know about it, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I mean it's amazing, it's amazing what
Speaker 2: she does. So anyway she does that. Then my other sister,
Speaker 2: who's closest in age to me, and she's older, she
Speaker 2: is so smart it scares me. She's just like brilliant
Speaker 2: and she's retired now from her job, but she she's
Speaker 2: just like she knows, she just knows things, and she's
Speaker 2: just she's so smart about art and science and music
Speaker 2: and all sorts of things, and she's just she's just
Speaker 2: incredibly smart. And then my oldest, oldest sister, and she
Speaker 2: is also retired from her job, but she was a
Speaker 2: journalist and you know, just is one awards and just
Speaker 2: super smart too. It's like we're all We're all different
Speaker 2: in terms of what we've pursued, but I guess we
Speaker 2: have we share some things. I don't know what.
Speaker 1: So all girls, all girls? And are the other ones
Speaker 1: married with children or not?
Speaker 2: My youngest sister is married. My two older sisters are divorced.
Speaker 1: Were there any children in any of these stories?
Speaker 2: Yes, they all have children.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you're growing up. Are people referring to you
Speaker 1: as Mary Chapin or Mary from the beginning?
Speaker 2: It was a double name, right, as I understand, Yes,
Speaker 2: it's always been a double name, like Mary Beth or
Speaker 2: Mary Anne, but it's.
Speaker 1: Married chap Okay, your siblings have double names.
Speaker 2: No, my mother was Mary Bowie. She was from the South,
Speaker 2: and the South have this tradition, as I understand that
Speaker 2: double first names. Anyway, So she was Mary Bowie. My
Speaker 2: father's first name is Chapin, so and they named me
Speaker 2: Mary Chapin.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're going to school. Are you the smartest kid
Speaker 1: in your class? No?
Speaker 2: And I always felt and still do or fear like
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not the smartest person you know, remember broadcast news. Yeah,
Speaker 2: movie Holly Hunter and that famous scene where he says
Speaker 2: to her, it must be so he's being facetious. Of course,
Speaker 2: he must be so hard to always be the smartest
Speaker 2: person in the room, right, And she looks at him
Speaker 2: so earnestly and says, it is. It is, Holly Hunter.
Speaker 2: Love it anyway? So no, I never feel like the
Speaker 2: smartest person in the room.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, let's call a spade of spade. Unless you're
Speaker 1: like a internationally famous juggler or something, you have to
Speaker 1: be very smart to get into Brown. You can talk
Speaker 1: it down all you want. Did you go to public
Speaker 1: school or parochial school?
Speaker 2: I went to a private school, private school, and I went.
Speaker 2: I went to private school, and then the last two
Speaker 2: years of high school I was in boarding school.
Speaker 1: Where'd you go to boarding school? Taft? You went to Taft? Really?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir?
Speaker 1: I did? Good or bad experience? Oh good? Why did
Speaker 1: your parents send your way?
Speaker 2: They were getting divorced and I wanted to get the
Speaker 2: hell out of Dodge?
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, okay, my parents fought plenty, but they were
Speaker 1: not divorced. Did you know that they were heading in
Speaker 1: this direction?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely? It was yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: What was the thought amongst the kids, this is horrifying,
Speaker 1: is going to break up the family? Or thank God?
Speaker 1: Or what?
Speaker 2: I think it was both? You know, I think it
Speaker 2: was I think it was a relief that it was
Speaker 2: like something was finally going to shift, because it was
Speaker 2: really toxic to be there. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: you know, it's an unknown and you don't know what's
Speaker 2: going to happen, and you're fifteen years old and you're scared,
Speaker 2: you know, and you're lonely and you're depressed, and you
Speaker 2: don't know what to do that not to not to
Speaker 2: tie this up with a bow and make it all tidy.
Speaker 2: But that to me, what I just said is, you know,
Speaker 2: talk about motivation for wanting to play the guitar and
Speaker 2: write songs and just be in your room and comfort yourself. Somehow,
Speaker 2: that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, do either of them find someone.
Speaker 2: New my father? Did my father?
Speaker 1: Was that a cause of the divorce?
Speaker 2: No? No, no, no, no, okay.
Speaker 1: So when when do you first start playing an instrument?
Speaker 1: I mean, did you take piano lessons or how did
Speaker 1: it happen?
Speaker 2: I my mother? You know, you've heard people joke about
Speaker 2: the Great Folks Scare of the early sixties.
Speaker 1: Oh, I remember with a nylon string guitar and the
Speaker 1: sing Peter, Paul and Mary. Believe me, I know.
Speaker 2: Which is what, Bob, You have just landed on it,
Speaker 2: that's right. So my mother had the Goya gut string
Speaker 2: guitar that she would get together with her friends like
Speaker 2: one night a week or something, and they'd all sit
Speaker 2: in a circle and play Kingston Trio whatever. They'd look
Speaker 2: at the chord chart and put their fingers on the
Speaker 2: front board and all that stuff. And then that lasted
Speaker 2: I don't know how long. But then that guitar sat
Speaker 2: in the corner gathering dust, and it's like, I want
Speaker 2: to play that. But also I had a bass ukulele,
Speaker 2: which is the first four strings of the guitar. So
Speaker 2: I started playing bass ukulele and stealing all those songbooks
Speaker 2: and just you know, teaching myself. And then when that
Speaker 2: guitar sat collecting dust, and it was like, okay to
Speaker 2: take mom's guitar. And then that's I started playing her guitar.
Speaker 2: And I remember being in second grade and it was
Speaker 2: time for school assembly and I played Salito Lindo on
Speaker 2: the guitar. I just remember being in second grade, so
Speaker 2: it certainly goes pretty far back.
Speaker 1: Did you ever take any lessons?
Speaker 2: No, not on the guitar. I tried to take piano
Speaker 2: lessons when I was in high school, and I sucked
Speaker 2: so bad I couldn't and I had used my you know,
Speaker 2: I I would teach, you know, learn by listening, you know,
Speaker 2: self taught that way, and I tried to learn how
Speaker 2: to read music. I remember, in particular Bach's minuet and
Speaker 2: g dun't d d d dunt dun you know, but
Speaker 2: I memorized it so I wouldn't read the notes, which
Speaker 2: sabotaged my ability to read music because I would never practice.
Speaker 2: So that was a failure.
Speaker 1: We all saw that movie from that generation. But you
Speaker 1: peak in second grade. Where do you go from second grade?
Speaker 2: You just keep listening and learning, and then the next
Speaker 2: thing felt like, well, I want to write my own songs,
Speaker 2: and I would they. I don't remember any of them,
Speaker 2: but I remember being very deliberate, being like in fifth
Speaker 2: grade or whatever it was, and writing songs, my songs,
Speaker 2: you know, my version of a song.
Speaker 1: Okay, there was you know, the folk of the early sixties,
Speaker 1: then the Meatles hit in sixty four. Most parents were
Speaker 1: not fans of that music.
Speaker 2: Somewhere, but oh my parents loved it.
Speaker 1: Oh really? So, oh were you listening to Top forty radio?
Speaker 1: Were you knowing? Yes, so you were a fan of.
Speaker 2: The music w ABC cousin Brucey.
Speaker 1: Oh the Countdown Tuesday Night, dan Ingram number one in
Speaker 1: the nation in the absolutely.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, as you'll remember, is that you
Speaker 2: could hear Strawberry Fields forever, and then the next thing
Speaker 2: would be the Mom's in the Papas, and then the
Speaker 2: next thing would be the Turtles or Rolling Stones or
Speaker 2: Motown or something like that. So you could hear it all.
Speaker 2: And we had our transistor radios.
Speaker 1: As I always say, I can sing every lick of
Speaker 1: Louie Armstrong solo Dolly because I was waiting for the Beatles,
Speaker 1: because you had to listen to stuff I like today
Speaker 1: that you didn't like. Okay, so you're writing your own
Speaker 1: songs when you are high school with the people in
Speaker 1: the high school say, oh, that's Mary Chape and she's
Speaker 1: the person who plays the guitar or is it a secret?
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't a secret. I when you asked me
Speaker 2: if I liked being a boarding school or you know whatever.
Speaker 2: The first thing I thought of was the small group
Speaker 2: of friends that we'd all hang out, sitting out on
Speaker 2: the grass with our guitars, playing Paul Simon songs. You know,
Speaker 2: just we had our own thing, and it was all
Speaker 2: just I loved hang out with my friends who wanted
Speaker 2: to sing and play like me.
Speaker 1: So, now you go to college, you bring your guitar.
Speaker 1: What does that look like?
Speaker 2: Well, first I took a year off because I could
Speaker 2: not fathom being in college.
Speaker 1: O whit wait, wait, that's a very hip thing now,
Speaker 1: But it wasn't then.
Speaker 2: It wasn't.
Speaker 1: No gap year was a lot of thing would you
Speaker 1: do during your gap year?
Speaker 2: I did a Colorado outward bound ski mountaineering course. I
Speaker 2: drove myself. My grandmother had a car that she couldn't
Speaker 2: drive anymore, so I drove her car out to Colorado
Speaker 2: to Leadville, Colorado. But before that, I well, the whole
Speaker 2: reason that I had her car was because so I
Speaker 2: graduated from high school. And then that summer nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: I was on the grounds crew of the National Folk
Speaker 2: Life Festival. It was just the only job I could get,
Speaker 2: and every penny I earned from that, I put it
Speaker 2: in a savings account, and then when that job ended,
Speaker 2: I found a Volkswagen camper bus from a guy I
Speaker 2: was living in DC with my dad, and from a
Speaker 2: guy at the New Zealand Embassy who was selling it
Speaker 2: because he was going back to New Zealand. And I
Speaker 2: spent all the money I had made, which was two
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, and my plan was that I was going
Speaker 2: to spend the rest of my year off just traveling.
Speaker 2: And I had my camper and all these grand plans.
Speaker 2: And then the engine blew up a week after I
Speaker 2: bought it, and he was gone on and I couldn't
Speaker 2: afford to fix it, so I sold it for scrap.
Speaker 2: And then that's when I decided to drive out to
Speaker 2: Colorado in my grandmother's car.
Speaker 1: Traditionally, outward bound courses are relatively brief. How long was
Speaker 1: the one you were in?
Speaker 2: A month?
Speaker 1: Are you an outdoorsy person?
Speaker 2: I'd say so, yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Okay, So all this gap year, you're still playing the guitar,
Speaker 1: still writing songs?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: So now you show up at college yep? From minute one,
Speaker 1: are you the girl who plays a guitar and writes
Speaker 1: her own songs.
Speaker 2: I'm that person who's sitting in the stairwell or in
Speaker 2: the bathroom that has good acoustics, you know, playing and singing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, we're in this narrative. Now, let me ask
Speaker 1: a different way. When you're playing, whether it be in
Speaker 1: taffed or brown, is there any thought, well, this is
Speaker 1: what I want to do as a career.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I don't think I ever allowed myself to think
Speaker 2: about that because it just was too far fetched.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: No, never never thought for a second.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're at college for four years. Are you
Speaker 1: performing outside of the bathroom and hallway?
Speaker 2: So what would happened? What happened was I'd be in
Speaker 2: college what fall, winter, and spring, and then I'd go
Speaker 2: home on the summers. I was living with my dad
Speaker 2: right off of Connecticut Avenue and DC, and he one
Speaker 2: night he came into my room and he said, why
Speaker 2: don't you go down to that bar that's down the
Speaker 2: street where they have an open mic night? And I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't, Oh, maybe maybe I could. I
Speaker 2: don't know. Well I did. I went down there, signed up.
Speaker 2: Never been so terrified in my life, but I did it,
Speaker 2: and then played a song or two and thought, well,
Speaker 2: this is okay, this is nice.
Speaker 1: I like this.
Speaker 2: And so every summer between college years, I would come home.
Speaker 2: The lady who ran that bar gave me a job
Speaker 2: on Thursday nights for forty bucks a night, and I
Speaker 2: could not believe it. I was getting paid to play music.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go down. Hey, why are you staying with
Speaker 1: your father as opposed to your mother?
Speaker 2: Because I just felt like that was where I needed
Speaker 2: to be. My mom lived a few blocks away, and
Speaker 2: I just didn't feel like I was getting along with her.
Speaker 1: Okay, you go to the club at your father's, you know,
Speaker 1: bringing it up. Hey do you play original or covers?
Speaker 1: You say, hey, this is cool? Is there any reaction?
Speaker 1: The other people say, hey, that girls pretty good. Oh.
Speaker 2: I don't know what they said, but they didn't boom me.
Speaker 2: So I think I came away feeling like it was
Speaker 2: a a terrifying but positive experience.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, Thursday night, you are the sole musician on
Speaker 1: Thursday night?
Speaker 2: Yeah, eventually, eventually, not right away.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so how do you get from open mic
Speaker 1: to your own night?
Speaker 2: So I started going to this open mic more and
Speaker 2: more frequently, and to a few others around town, and
Speaker 2: it gave me a certain amount it had to. It
Speaker 2: gave me a certain amount of confidence, I guess. And
Speaker 2: then like the next that I was home for the summer,
Speaker 2: I remember going up to the proprietor of that bar,
Speaker 2: that first bar that i'd gone to, the open mic,
Speaker 2: and just asking, right because I knew that they had
Speaker 2: music every night, you know, different players, And I said,
Speaker 2: would you ever hire me to play you know, three
Speaker 2: sets or whatever it was? And she said, yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: give you Thursday nights. She just said yeah. And it's like,
Speaker 2: I just it's funny. I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 2: what I expected her to say, but I don't think
Speaker 2: I expected her or to say yes right right, you know,
Speaker 2: I just didn't and but she did, and that.
Speaker 1: That just that was lovely, Okay? Is that your personality?
Speaker 1: We are? However mildly you'll reach out for something or
Speaker 1: do you wait for things to come to you?
Speaker 2: I don't think that I wait for things to come
Speaker 2: to me. I think that I well, I do have
Speaker 2: a bit of a saying that I use in different situations.
Speaker 2: This is not precisely the same the right situation, but
Speaker 2: I would I use the saying replace worry with action.
Speaker 2: It's just like, you know, it's just yeah, I just
Speaker 2: think that I I mean, I'll think about something for
Speaker 2: a while, I'll consider something for a long time, but
Speaker 2: then at a certain point it's like I'm going to
Speaker 2: just ask the question now, or I'm going to make
Speaker 2: the inquiry. I'm going to find out.
Speaker 1: So you're playing on Thursday night? Two sets? Are these
Speaker 1: originals covers? Mix? What is it?
Speaker 2: It's a mix? It's like I I would sort of
Speaker 2: I would describe it as playing sort of acoustic top
Speaker 2: forty with a few originals sprinkled in and hope nobody
Speaker 2: would notice, which they didn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that is after you graduate, or that's the
Speaker 1: last summer.
Speaker 2: That's that's the that's the summers throughout college.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now you is there other than showing up
Speaker 1: getting your forty bucks? Is there anything happening anybody saying hey,
Speaker 1: I want to play with you or you know networking?
Speaker 1: Are you just there?
Speaker 2: There were a couple of people who were that I
Speaker 2: made friends with during the open mics that we would play,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, sort of have casual sort of
Speaker 2: like a duo or whatever, or or just get around
Speaker 2: and you know, sit around tables and play together, but
Speaker 2: nothing in a formal sense.
Speaker 1: So now you graduate, then what well?
Speaker 2: I do remember? I actually remember this. I remember another
Speaker 2: person I knew at college who was visiting DC and
Speaker 2: he came to the bar on the night that I
Speaker 2: was playing, and he was from I don't know where
Speaker 2: he was from originally, but he was all about he
Speaker 2: was living in LA or something, and he said, why
Speaker 2: aren't you moving to LA? And I remember going, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't want to live in LA. And
Speaker 2: he sort of made me whatever he said. I remember
Speaker 2: coming away from the conversation where it's sort of like,
Speaker 2: you know, he just believed he's one of those people
Speaker 2: that says you have to go to these places to
Speaker 2: be discovered or to get traction, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I kind of like what I like being where I
Speaker 2: am and I don't think I have it in me
Speaker 2: to move to a strange city. I just didn't never. Never,
Speaker 2: it was never something I felt like doing or wanted
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: So once again, you graduate from college, then would you Yeah?
Speaker 2: And then I was living in another group house in
Speaker 2: DC and just making my rent with open mics and
Speaker 2: one bar in particular where I would play on Friday
Speaker 2: nights and pass the hat, and I'd play from six
Speaker 2: to midnight passing the hat, and I could make my
Speaker 2: rent money on those nights. And so I did that
Speaker 2: for a long time, and then I reached a point
Speaker 2: where I like, after a couple of years, I'd say,
Speaker 2: I just in the my friends that I was sharing
Speaker 2: the group house with, they all had they sort of
Speaker 2: had careers that were starting to like real careers, and
Speaker 2: I was just kind of playing the open mics and
Speaker 2: doing temp jobs. And I realized at a certain point
Speaker 2: I was really depressed.
Speaker 1: I just.
Speaker 2: It's not like I had some vision of what was
Speaker 2: supposed at what my life was supposed to look like,
Speaker 2: but I just didn't really know what I wanted in
Speaker 2: my life. And I think I just saw I just decided, well,
Speaker 2: this is just what I am. Whatever I am doing
Speaker 2: is not making me happy, so I need to do
Speaker 2: something else. And so I this was back in the
Speaker 2: day when you would get out the want ads at
Speaker 2: the Washington Post, you know, turn the pages. And I
Speaker 2: remember looking for like a job, like a real job,
Speaker 2: and there was some consulting firm on K Street that
Speaker 2: gave me an interview as a researcher. You know, I
Speaker 2: could type, you know, all that stuff, and I had
Speaker 2: a brain. And I remember sitting with the woman who
Speaker 2: was interviewing me, and she said, if we were to
Speaker 2: offer you this job, how likely is it that you
Speaker 2: would take it? And I looked at her and I said,
Speaker 2: it's very likely. You know, I I'm ready to do this.
Speaker 2: And and then a week later, it was a Friday,
Speaker 2: she called me on the phone and she offered me
Speaker 2: the job formally, and I panicked, and I said, could
Speaker 2: I have the weekend to think about it? And I
Speaker 2: could hear how annoyed she was in her voice, but
Speaker 2: she said, okay, right, fine, And that weekend I just
Speaker 2: sort of had this come to Jesus kind of reckoning
Speaker 2: with myself, like I don't know, I don't know what
Speaker 2: I'm doing, but I just know that I'm not ready
Speaker 2: to do what that job is.
Speaker 1: And it was.
Speaker 2: Around that time that I had met this person named
Speaker 2: John Jennings, and you know, sidebar, he and I had
Speaker 2: dated for a while that didn't work out, but we
Speaker 2: remained friends. And he was a great musician and he
Speaker 2: had a studio in his basement and I remember it
Speaker 2: was very soon after I turned that job down that
Speaker 2: John said, well, let's just you know, let's make you
Speaker 2: let's make a demo tape. Let's make it, or no,
Speaker 2: let's make a tape that you can sell out of
Speaker 2: your back pocket at gigs. It's like an album, you know,
Speaker 2: you just make a cassette tape. Because people were doing that.
Speaker 2: It was the beginning of indie, you know. And so
Speaker 2: with his help and generosity and guidance and just beautiful spirit,
Speaker 2: he helped me make a record. And you know, fast
Speaker 2: forward a few a year or two, that record ended
Speaker 2: up in the hands of A and R gentleman. It's
Speaker 2: Sony in Nashville, and I got a record deal. Go figure.
Speaker 1: Okay, just to drill down a little bit, here, you
Speaker 1: make the tape you hear from the guy in Nashville
Speaker 1: from Sony. These things are never smooth. Time goes by,
Speaker 1: there's up and down, there's angst. I mean, what was
Speaker 1: really the experience from first hearing from him to putting
Speaker 1: your ink on paper.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't remember there being a period of time
Speaker 2: where it was like in doubt or close in doubt again,
Speaker 2: or close or it's gonna happen, or it's not going
Speaker 2: to happen. I just don't remember any sort of tumultuous
Speaker 2: period of time between the time they offered me a
Speaker 2: record deal and the time I signed. I just don't
Speaker 2: remember it.
Speaker 1: Okay, the guys in Nashville. Country music is morphed through
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Yes, since the nineties. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: a girl from the East coast, goes with ivylea college
Speaker 1: guy signing out of Nashville. In the back of your
Speaker 1: mind said well, you know, this is country music.
Speaker 2: So I think part of the reason it happened is
Speaker 2: because he was new to Nashville. He had been an
Speaker 2: A and R person for Sony in the pop work,
Speaker 2: and he was I think they were starting to try
Speaker 2: to see that there was a lot of different things
Speaker 2: under the big umbrella of country music, and people like
Speaker 2: Steve Earle and Roseanne Cash and Lyle love It, Rodney
Speaker 2: Crowe and Guy Clark certainly, and just there was a
Speaker 2: lot of different strains, right, And I think they hired
Speaker 2: him because they I mean, I don't know, but I
Speaker 2: think they, you know, he was going to broaden the
Speaker 2: horizons of Sony music. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I still don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're working with Sony, you make a record.
Speaker 1: Certainly at that time, and still with major labels today,
Speaker 1: they tend to put you to work. They tend to
Speaker 1: say do this, do that whatever. So before you had
Speaker 1: any commercial success, were you driven and were you you know,
Speaker 1: were you working showing up at radio stations, playing gigs?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: To few people, well, what did that period look like?
Speaker 2: First of all, I didn't quit my day job for
Speaker 2: two after I had made two records, and then I quit.
Speaker 1: My day job. And the day job at that point
Speaker 1: was what it was.
Speaker 2: I was an administration assistant at a foundation at DuPont Cervo,
Speaker 2: and as long as I got my work done, you know,
Speaker 2: Like I just remember this one. We got a gig
Speaker 2: to open for Lyle love It in Chicago, so we
Speaker 2: all sort of like got in our cars and made
Speaker 2: a long weekend of it, drove out there, did the gig,
Speaker 2: came back, and I was back at the job on
Speaker 2: Monday morning. You know, it's like you figure out ways
Speaker 2: to make it work.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the myth of the major label deal
Speaker 2: that you sign on the dotted line and they give
Speaker 2: you a tour bus and a budget, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, no, that was not my experience. And so,
Speaker 2: like I said, I didn't quit my job until and
Speaker 2: I didn't quit my job because of my record deal.
Speaker 2: I quit my job because I finally got a publishing deal.
Speaker 2: They paid me a small amount of money per week
Speaker 2: as long as I handed in whatever it was at
Speaker 2: that time, like ten songs over the course of a
Speaker 2: year or something like that. That's what allowed me to
Speaker 2: quit my job.
Speaker 1: That begs a question who owns those songs today?
Speaker 2: I can't remember the name of the company.
Speaker 1: Now let me let me put it in a couple
Speaker 1: of ways. Normally, you make a publishing deal. Modern publishing deals,
Speaker 1: they take half of the publisher's share, leaving you with
Speaker 1: seventy five percent. Now, these things tend to terminate where
Speaker 1: the artist after period of time owns one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: But certainly back then that might not be the case,
Speaker 1: where the publisher would continue to own an administer for
Speaker 1: the life and the copyright. So in terms forgetting the
Speaker 1: administrator the songs themselves, do you share them with a
Speaker 1: company or do you own them one hundred percent?
Speaker 2: I don't own them anymore.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me ask you a question. So in this
Speaker 1: craziness of the last five years you so called soldier catalog.
Speaker 1: What was the motivation there?
Speaker 2: Security just feeling like it was the right time and
Speaker 2: the right decision for my life, and certainly upon the
Speaker 2: advice of some really trusted people. It was certainly not
Speaker 2: an impulsive move. It was considered over a very long
Speaker 2: period of time.
Speaker 1: And did you make the kind of deal where you're done,
Speaker 1: done done, or do you still have any interest in
Speaker 1: the catalog?
Speaker 2: How would I have interest to me?
Speaker 1: Sometimes you sell seventy five percent.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I think I'm done, done done.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what'd you do with the money?
Speaker 2: None of your business?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean musicians are legendarily not good with money.
Speaker 1: So I know someone who made a very lucrative deal
Speaker 1: household name, and within two and a half years blew
Speaker 1: through all the money in lifestyle.
Speaker 2: This is someone that's crazy.
Speaker 1: So everybody knows this person. Then there are other people
Speaker 1: who say, well, I'm going to have a diversified thing,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have stocks, I'm going to have real estates,
Speaker 1: I'm bonds. Then there are other people say, oh, I
Speaker 1: always wanted a vacation house. So the real question is
Speaker 1: wherever the money was invested. Are these long term investments
Speaker 1: such that you don't worry about money you have to
Speaker 1: pay attention to the investments or did you say I
Speaker 1: mean I could tell already you didn't buy some big
Speaker 1: thing because that's not your lifestyle. But you know, did
Speaker 1: you hire a financial advisor and say, hey, I got
Speaker 1: X and you know, let's split it up.
Speaker 2: No, I'm very fortunate that I've had financial advice and
Speaker 2: guidance from my first record onward with a wonderful firm
Speaker 2: that are I truly believe I would have nothing without
Speaker 2: their guidance over these years. And so they've just been
Speaker 2: and they're very conservative, and you know, so I've just
Speaker 2: been very fortunate and grateful for them just being my shepherd,
Speaker 2: you know. And so it's just a it's you know,
Speaker 2: it sort of parked the money and it's you know,
Speaker 2: doing what it does us to keep me secure and
Speaker 2: allowed me to take care of others as well. And
Speaker 2: so it's just that's where it is.
Speaker 1: Okay, you don't have any children, and you do have
Speaker 1: relatives when you are gone, you want to spend it
Speaker 1: before you're gone, You want to leave some relatives. You
Speaker 1: want to have a foundation. You know, what's your perspective.
Speaker 2: I I know one person who used to say to me,
Speaker 2: a shroud has no pockets, and then I have another
Speaker 2: person who says to me, what the fuck do you
Speaker 2: work so hard and so long for to not enjoy
Speaker 2: it now? And I'm just caught between those two viewpoints.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm just I've just always found it hard
Speaker 2: to figure it out, and so I just kind of
Speaker 2: don't do anything about it. I just kind of try
Speaker 2: to live life in a smart way and try to
Speaker 2: be there for those who need me and just and
Speaker 2: be grateful. Really, I know I've said that a few
Speaker 2: times during this interview, but it's true.
Speaker 1: Okay, there are also royalties on the recordings. Did you
Speaker 1: sell those two? Oh? Yes? Okay, So at this point
Speaker 1: in time forgetting wanting to do you have to work?
Speaker 1: You say, well, god, you know I got mortgage payments,
Speaker 1: I wanted to put on an addition to the house.
Speaker 1: I better book a tour or is that all worked
Speaker 1: out where you can do what you want to without
Speaker 1: worrying about financial constraints.
Speaker 2: That's probably the greatest gift is that what I feel
Speaker 2: like it is enabled me to do is to do
Speaker 2: projects that aren't based on the transaction or a return,
Speaker 2: that that the the project itself is worth it if
Speaker 2: I want to do it artistically. And so in that way,
Speaker 2: it feels like total freedom, and it's not based on
Speaker 2: you know, how much it earns or how it gets paid.
Speaker 1: Back, and in terms of playing live, how much you
Speaker 1: want to work?
Speaker 2: Well, I love I you know all the you know,
Speaker 2: work keeps us young, it keeps us alive, all those
Speaker 2: things I I want to. I want to tour and
Speaker 2: work and write and make music and make songs and
Speaker 2: record and all of those things until i don't want
Speaker 2: to anymore. But I'm just nowhere near that.
Speaker 1: It's just let me be a little bit more specific.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask question. There are people who work forty
Speaker 1: days a year. There are people who work two hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy days a year. I'm talking about on the road.
Speaker 1: What's the number that works for you.
Speaker 2: It's different every year. It's different based on the project,
Speaker 2: I think, and it's different based on you know, whether
Speaker 2: my other hand needs an operation or I need to
Speaker 2: get my shoulder replaced, and you know, just all the things.
Speaker 2: So I would you know, every year is different. But
Speaker 2: I will say that over you know, over time, the
Speaker 2: tradition to like go out in the summer, for example,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't feel like summer unless I'm out there,
Speaker 2: like playing a wolf trap for example, in every August
Speaker 2: just feels like home. And it's I have so much
Speaker 2: joy from that, and I have so I get so
Speaker 2: much from I mean, this is the God's truth. It's
Speaker 2: so much from the connection with people.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like it's not just plug in and play and
Speaker 2: say a few witty things if you're lucky. It's about
Speaker 2: feeling connected and in community with people. And I've never
Speaker 2: felt like I needed that more than I need right
Speaker 2: now in terms of the shit show that we're in
Speaker 2: in this country and what life feels like. It's like
Speaker 2: I need, I need to feel like I'm with like
Speaker 2: minded souls.
Speaker 1: Okay, just going back to your recording career in its
Speaker 1: early days, what was it like when you had a hit?
Speaker 2: Like it was are you kidding me? Are you joking?
Speaker 2: Is this a joke? Like yeah, it's like that's to
Speaker 2: this day, That's how I feel. It's not you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be overly humble or crazy. I
Speaker 2: just it's like it just never was anything I ever
Speaker 2: ever ever imagined.
Speaker 1: What happened to me?
Speaker 2: Just bonkers.
Speaker 1: And then you're a private, as you put it, hermit.
Speaker 1: Certainly for a while, the area every time you turn,
Speaker 1: you bumped into you were a story about it. What
Speaker 1: was that like for you? Emotionally?
Speaker 2: I I have always had, I continue to have, and
Speaker 2: I certainly had it back then, the most awkward and
Speaker 2: uncomfortable relationship with success or fame or whatever you want
Speaker 2: to call it. Just it's just been so you know,
Speaker 2: I'm just oh my god, just the contortions I would
Speaker 2: put myself through just having to do meet and greets
Speaker 2: and you know, you know, walking backstage before the show
Speaker 2: and having fifty people lined up in the radio stations
Speaker 2: and all that. It's just like I just wasn't cut
Speaker 2: out for it. I was just I mean, I I
Speaker 2: love meeting people, but I'm just not a you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, I'm not.
Speaker 1: You don't want anything superficial. If you want to meet him,
Speaker 1: you want to meet him for real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, I guess it's just it was just hard.
Speaker 2: It was always hard. But also it's just like that
Speaker 2: white hot light of attention that's on you, and I'm
Speaker 2: just in the grocery store trying to buy groceries, and
Speaker 2: people would come up to me, and ninety nine point
Speaker 2: nine percent of the people are so nice and so
Speaker 2: lovely and so kind and they just want to say hi,
Speaker 2: you know, but I'm just like, whoa, what just happened?
Speaker 2: You know? Just you know, it's just it's not something
Speaker 2: I ever. It's like, I remember there's an Ann Tyler.
Speaker 2: That Ann Tyler, I forget. I thought it was Ann Tyler,
Speaker 2: but she said I had some paraphrasing. I had a
Speaker 2: misunderstanding about fame. I always imagined it was me entering
Speaker 2: other people's lives, not there entering mine, And I thought
Speaker 2: that I related to that.
Speaker 1: Okay, when commercial success declines, how do you cope with
Speaker 1: that natitude? You feel like the label has moved on,
Speaker 1: or the world has moved on, or it's unjust or
Speaker 1: it's time. What was that like?
Speaker 2: I remember very clearly a record that I had made
Speaker 2: and submitted to Sony, and they came back after I
Speaker 2: had submitted the songs, and they just there was one song,
Speaker 2: for example, where we had it was Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: it was an instrument, an electric citar. It was just
Speaker 2: like this cool sound, and they're like, you have to
Speaker 2: take that off? What huh? And they're like, you have
Speaker 2: to take that off. Oh, and you need to take
Speaker 2: the horns off of that other song too, And I
Speaker 2: was like why and they say, because no one's going
Speaker 2: to play it on country radio. And I'm like, says,
Speaker 2: who I mean, just based on just because you woke
Speaker 2: up this morning and think that, or just well research,
Speaker 2: they say, And it was like, you know, that was
Speaker 2: my introduction to oh this. We have research groups and
Speaker 2: you know, we played them six seconds of a song
Speaker 2: and they tell us whether it's a thumbs up or
Speaker 2: a thumbs down based on six seconds or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: And I was just like, this is so crazy. And
Speaker 2: then and also just like, wait a minute, I just
Speaker 2: heard a Reaba mamac and Tire song that has horns
Speaker 2: on it. Why are you telling me I can't have
Speaker 2: horns on it? It just there was no answers to that,
Speaker 2: and so it got kind of just like in the
Speaker 2: weeds that way a lot, and it just felt like
Speaker 2: this isn't this. You know, I'm so grateful for everything
Speaker 2: they did for me and everything that we accomplished together.
Speaker 2: It's like a marriage, you know, but then it started
Speaker 2: to feel like we weren't getting along, and it felt
Speaker 2: right to finally not re up with them after it
Speaker 2: was like twenty years or something, and it felt.
Speaker 1: It was sad.
Speaker 2: I was really sad. But I also felt like, you know,
Speaker 2: we all have chapters. Life is about chapters, and I
Speaker 2: was ready for the next chapter. So I didn't feel
Speaker 2: I didn't mourn that in a It wasn't it wasn't debilitating.
Speaker 2: It just felt like it was time to be brave
Speaker 2: and go to the next chapter.
Speaker 1: So what about the world today, Well, what do you think?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll make it very short going on the record. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: I believe that Trump is an autocrat dictator. I would
Speaker 1: like to see change. I do not believe in the
Speaker 1: system anymore. System has had some victories as we speak,
Speaker 1: but I don't believe in it, and anybody who's from
Speaker 1: the older generations isn't really going to do anything because
Speaker 1: they don't want to put their money at risk. So
Speaker 1: the only change I am waiting for an Arab spring
Speaker 1: moment from Generation Z who the government and the institutions
Speaker 1: are completely out of touch. I mean, at root, you
Speaker 1: have incommitted quality. In addition to the government, and I
Speaker 1: would hope then, because I have no hope that through
Speaker 1: evolution in the process, it will work out.
Speaker 2: I don't disagree with really anything you said. I was
Speaker 2: thinking about, well, I think about it all the time.
Speaker 2: But like I was listening to a podcast today where
Speaker 2: one of the hosts was talking about how she had
Speaker 2: Did you ever listen to the Political gab Fest?
Speaker 1: No podcast?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's great. And Emily Basilon, who's a writer, she's
Speaker 2: a teacher at Yale, but she's also a writer for
Speaker 2: the New York Times. So she just published this article
Speaker 2: with one of her colleagues last week that was like
Speaker 2: an oral history of that. They interviewed a really like
Speaker 2: all these prime they had They were lawyers who had
Speaker 2: worked for the Justice Justice Department, but they had either
Speaker 2: been fired or they left on their own accord whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a huge amount of people who have left.
Speaker 2: And they were talking about when Trump is finally out
Speaker 2: of office, whatever that looks like. And she was saying
Speaker 2: from her standpoint as a lawyer that these were people
Speaker 2: who these were their dream jobs. They loved their work,
Speaker 2: they loved what they did, and they believed in the mission.
Speaker 2: And then the conversation was about is it possible once
Speaker 2: this administration is over, assuming a democratic administration comes in,
Speaker 2: is there going to be tit for tat? Is there
Speaker 2: going to be another sort of upheaval throwing people out,
Speaker 2: or is it possible to build back not to use
Speaker 2: that phrase, but to reconstruct what was so great and
Speaker 2: meaningful and important about the Justice Department again, And her
Speaker 2: sense from all these people that she interviewed was that
Speaker 2: it's not possible. I believe that's what she said. And
Speaker 2: I just you think about that, you frame, you use
Speaker 2: that sort of question and apply it to other aspects
Speaker 2: of our culture and our government and everything, and it's like,
Speaker 2: I like, on my worst days, I like you say,
Speaker 2: you know it's going to be about evolution and gen
Speaker 2: z and all this. I don't know how we regain
Speaker 2: trust in institutions and how we rid ourselves of the
Speaker 2: cancers of ideology that are out there and driving you know,
Speaker 2: just oh my god, just the announcement today that the
Speaker 2: CDC has posted on his website scientifically false claims. You
Speaker 2: know that ideology overrides evidence, you know, scientific evidence. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just how do we fix that effort? You know,
Speaker 2: how are we ever going to fix that. It's a
Speaker 2: rhetorical question. I just I don't know, and I fear
Speaker 2: and grieve for our country and its institutions and most
Speaker 2: of all the American people. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we're going to leave it at that.
Speaker 1: I certainly could talk, but then we'll go on for
Speaker 1: an hour about this.
Speaker 2: What an uplifting thing to leave it?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess for me, I'm reinforcing something I
Speaker 1: said earlier incommun equality and the generation gap. I'm a
Speaker 1: news hound. You cannot read a publication for educated people
Speaker 1: that does not constantly be rate technology and thinks the
Speaker 1: smartphone is the devil. We are here speaking across the
Speaker 1: country as results of technology. I grew up in an
Speaker 1: era where television was a devil, people still watched it, right,
Speaker 1: So until you come into the present, and then of
Speaker 1: course the next question. I mean, it's as simple to you.
Speaker 1: One can simply say, there are everyone is getting their
Speaker 1: news they want whatever, as opposed to one cohesive channel
Speaker 1: or as you know, a few channels like in the
Speaker 1: old days of networks. But the underlying problem of living
Speaker 1: in a tower of Babbel society. Listen, the legal system
Speaker 1: is always going to be behind technology and you just
Speaker 1: can't demonize this. But you can't. This is like Spotify.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make this about Spotify money.
Speaker 2: Oh God, please please evil Spotify. Okay, no, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Prior to Spotify, we had the record companies saying P
Speaker 1: two P was theft and revenues were going down. Spotify
Speaker 1: said we are going to get ahead of the consumer.
Speaker 1: I haven't used this analogy in a long time. You
Speaker 1: grow up and you watch Westerns. The robbers come in
Speaker 1: and take money from the bank and the elders town
Speaker 1: elders to get together. They don't say, you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna build a really big megaphone and put it on
Speaker 1: top of the bank and yell bring the money back.
Speaker 1: They always say the same thing in every one of
Speaker 1: these movies. We're gonna cut them off at the pass. So,
Speaker 1: without making about who's making money from Spotify here or other,
Speaker 1: it was ahead of most people's thinking, well, you know
Speaker 1: what if I'm out you know in tim Buck too,
Speaker 1: and I don't know electricity, well you can, you know,
Speaker 1: you can down those those things. So it got ahead
Speaker 1: of the consumer. The only they way all these issues
Speaker 1: work if there's some deep thinkers say, listen, where we
Speaker 1: are is chaos. Let's go beyond and say let's corral
Speaker 1: the people into this new thing. Instead, you have people
Speaker 1: from our demo just saying, you know, God, you just
Speaker 1: gotta put down the phone. I mean, this makes me crazy.
Speaker 1: There's nothing better than the phone. I mean connect Listen.
Speaker 1: I would not call I would not call myself a hermit,
Speaker 1: but I would not say that I connect with all people. Okay,
Speaker 1: And as a result of the Internet, I can connect
Speaker 1: with like minded people. It's the greatest thing that ever
Speaker 1: happened for me.
Speaker 2: I am not a luddite in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2: I love what I have been able to learn, engage
Speaker 2: in discover bathe in choral music from everywhere, you know,
Speaker 2: just all the things that technology allows me to do.
Speaker 2: But this is what I do say at the end
Speaker 2: of shows, which is, and it's not meant to sound ceremony,
Speaker 2: but this is. But I do want to I would
Speaker 2: be happier to leave on this note than.
Speaker 1: The Okay, then we'll make this the final statement.
Speaker 2: Okay, which is you know, there we are in this
Speaker 2: room with all these people that have gathered for a show,
Speaker 2: and that's the end of the show and what and
Speaker 2: I have one more song to sing, And I say,
Speaker 2: you know, we've all got these devices in our back pockets.
Speaker 2: And the truth is is that you can pull that
Speaker 2: device out and in the wink of an eye, you
Speaker 2: can you can find any book, any painting, any poem,
Speaker 2: any passage of music, any movie. You can find your
Speaker 2: heart's desire on that device in seconds. But in my opinion,
Speaker 2: there'll never be a substitute for what it feels like
Speaker 2: to be all together in this room going on a
Speaker 2: musical journey together. And so to me, it's great to
Speaker 2: have the device. It's great when you're walking out the
Speaker 2: door whatever, But this experience right here, there's never going
Speaker 2: to be a substitute for it, and I for one
Speaker 2: celebrate that well.
Speaker 1: Although you're making that statement, that's what has happened. Experience
Speaker 1: is king without making about where artists earn their living.
Speaker 1: Forget that people want to go to the show. They
Speaker 1: want to have that experience more than ever, And certainly
Speaker 1: studies have told us younger generations are more into experiences
Speaker 1: than things. I guess you know, I agree with what
Speaker 1: you're saying, and it's all reasonable just as long as
Speaker 1: people don't make it either.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, no, I just I want both. I absolutely
Speaker 2: want both. I want all the things that the device
Speaker 2: will bring me because I've gained so much. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, I also want that experience. I want
Speaker 2: that community, I want that connection. I want it to
Speaker 2: be the antidote to the device.
Speaker 1: Bottom bing, you get the last word, Mary Chapin, thanks
Speaker 1: for taking the time to speak with me and my audience.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure. Thank you for chatting with me.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob left six