WEBVTT - Mary Gauthier 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:14.400 Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.400 all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.479 which you can find a link to in the show 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.239 notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:28.480 in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right. 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:36.199 Enjoy the episode. Mary Goche believes that good songs can 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.440 save lives. She turned to music in her thirties and 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:43.120 became a songwriter of incredible depth and honesty with songs 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.520 like Mercy Now, A Long Way to Fall, and I Drink, 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.560 songs that she says helped save her life. A few 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.400 years ago, Mary started collaborating with US military veterans and 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.760 their spouses, helping them write songs about their own experiences. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.000 Those songs are featured on her latest album, Rifles and 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.679 Rosary Beads. Recently, we sat down with Mary in Nashville 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:08.959 asked her to play a few songs from the album 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:14.000 and talk about this unique collaboration. I'm Bruce Headlam and 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:20.440 this is broken record, So tell me a bit about 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.760 this song. Yes, thank you. This was written with a 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.840 group of military spouses from a bunch of different branches 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.000 of the military, five different spouses and my fellow songwriter 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.119 Beth Nilson Chapman, and we wrote this at a Songwriting 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.480 with Soldiers retreat. Songwriting with Soldiers is a nonprofit that 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:42.720 pairs civilian songwriters with veterans and military spouses so that 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.640 we can make songs out of their experiences. Now you 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:49.840 came to this, you've done this for several years, but 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:52.960 you don't come from a military background. Your family wasn't 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.240 in the military, Is that right? Well, my dad served 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.880 in Korea, but we never ever heard a word about 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.600 his service. There's one picture of him in uniform, and 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:06.960 he never ever talked about his service, but he he 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.720 did serve. I have zero experience with the military, and 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.600 until I started working with Songwriting with Soldiers, I didn't 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.880 know anyone who'd served in Afghanistan or Iraq. So take 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.680 me inside the room. When you first started working with 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.960 veterans and spouses. I was asked to do it by 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.959 the founder of Songwriting with Soldiers, Darden Smith, because of 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.320 a referral through Darryl Scott, fellow songwriter here in Nashville, 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.840 who had done a program with them, and thought I 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:35.960 would be I would be up for the task of 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.079 doing one of these retreats. So Darden invited me, and 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.959 the first retreat I did was all women, all female soldiers. 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.960 I got paired with two women and we sat down, 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.160 and I was a nervous wreck because of my limited 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.360 knowledge of what they'd been through, and so I wanted 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.600 to get it right and I wanted to capture what 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:58.520 they had to say, but I didn't know what I 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.359 was doing yet, and so I just kind of interviewed 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:05.160 them and they had a lot to say, and as 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.520 they spoke, I just typed it into my laptop. And 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.840 I learned right away that at some point the title 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:13.800 a song title is going to pop out of their mouth. 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:16.000 And just put that on top of the page and 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.560 start working on it. Now, you know military people, and 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.680 I've done a project with veterans as well and their spouses, 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:26.800 and they're the first to tell you that they don't 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:31.400 always have access to those emotions and to those feelings. 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.000 Was there something you had to break through? Were they guarded? 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.640 What I remember is that when the music starts to 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:45.160 come and it reflects what they're saying, it is kind 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:49.400 of a can opener. It just opens the walls of 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:54.360 protection that they've built around their heart. Melody is very powerful, 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:59.400 and when it reflects you, you feel seen and heard, 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:06.840 and that empathy bond breaks down. I think the natural 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:11.400 self protection that someone has when they've been traumatized, and 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.640 so many of our veterans do carry war trauma. So 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:16.680 I think the answer is yes, a lot of the 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.280 vets are protected, especially with civilians, because we don't know 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.560 what they've been through. But also I think there's a 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:29.160 sense that they're being heard when the music starts to come. 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.920 So you were first working on the words, you said, 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:34.839 you were at your laptop, you didn't have your guitar, 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.000 that's right. When could you bring the guitar in pretty quickly? 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.719 I think once I have a couple of lines and 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:42.960 I want to see how they're going to sing, So 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.680 I'll just start messing around with very simple core progressions 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:50.160 and it starts to sing pretty quickly. And I've been 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.120 doing this for six years now, so I have quite 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.080 a bit of experience. But I like to look up 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.280 when the music starts to come because almost always their 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:03.360 eyes get big. Is it's music sees us in ways 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.200 that there's not really an explanation for. Music goes to 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.359 the deepest part of who we are, and when the 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.760 music sees them, they they kind of are blown away 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.600 in a way like it's like, what, like this is 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:23.640 going to really truly reflect me? You know? That's what 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.279 we as songwriters just sort of take for granted, and 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.600 because this is our job, we know it as part 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:34.200 of our everyday life. But for someone who's never experienced 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.240 an original song of their story, is it is? It 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.840 is quite astonishing process. And how do they react after that? 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.320 Do they feel a little self conscious again or do 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.520 you feel it opens up something that stays open. I 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.599 think there's a real sense of intimacy that's formed and 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:55.159 empathy in the co write in the writing room. But 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.679 when we take the song back into the large group 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.240 and they realize, oh my god, what I just revealed 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:03.880 is going to be played in front of all these people, 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.240 I think a lot of fear is experienced. And when 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.719 we talk about it in the retreats, the founder Darden 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.520 Smith always says there's two kinds of courage. At least, 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:15.760 there's the kind of courage it takes to put the 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.920 uniform on and go serve the country, and the kind 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.680 of courage it takes to take the uniform off and 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.880 be honest about what happened over there and what remains 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.160 inside of you that's unresolved. And so this is courage time. 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:32.360 When their song is about to be played in front 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.599 of their group, I think there's a lot of fear. 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.960 I mean, I've seen guys from Special Forces break into 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.400 a cold sweat that's running down both sides of their face. 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.560 Do you remember playing this song in front of the 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.240 wares after the war? Do you remember taking this song 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.800 into a bigger room? Yes? Do you remember what the 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:50.960 reaction was? Yes? All of the women who co wrote 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.280 it were huddled into a group and they were holding 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.919 each other's hands, and there were tears, and there was 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:03.000 a sense of sisterhood and understanding and instant bond that 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.160 a song is. It's empathy. They they know each other's experience, 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.040 they've lived each other's lives. And what was the reaction 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:14.120 in the audience was the audience was their husbands, and 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:19.160 their husbands, if I remember right, so many of their 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:23.360 husbands say, the true hero is my wife. Nobody knows 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.200 what she's gone through. You know, people thank me for 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:32.200 my service, but she's going through the aftermath and deserves that. 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.600 I think the husbands were grateful that that this song 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.840 gave voice to their hero. In many instances, it's their wife. 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:46.440 Did did that surprise any of the men? I think 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.880 it was a relief because this was a co write 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.720 with a group of women, so it wasn't any couple 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:57.520 singled out. It was five women and five men, and 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:02.760 that the group proved. I tod cover and relief, like, Oh, 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.000 we're all going through it. It's not just it's not 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.280 just us, which is that's the great power of song 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.680 in a nutshell songs let us know we're not alone, right, 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.560 That's that's what I was drawn to all along, from 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.320 the very beginning. Listening to the radio as a kid, 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.320 It's like, oh my god, that's me coming out of 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.720 that little box on the wall the intercolm. You know, 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.120 do you remember the first song that did that for you, 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.640 that made you feel that you shared an experience with 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.960 someone else, someone you didn't know. Oh God, the radio 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.600 when Casey Casem was American Top forty. I listened to 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.079 it in my room, laying in my little twin bed 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.239 under the intercom and Baton Rouge Louisiana in the seventies, 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.319 and song after song after I tried so hard to 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.720 Stay Awake for the top ten. Song after song after 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.880 song it was. Bruce said it the best Springsteen. I 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.400 learned more from a four minute record than I ever 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.719 did in school music and songs. I've always been where 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.119 I've tried to where I have I've found my story myself, 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:10.640 my emotional reality is in songs. What surprised you the 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.560 most when you started working with the veterans and with 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:19.199 their families. I think what's been most surprising to me 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:24.280 is the heaviness of the weight that they carry, Just 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:29.840 how hard it is to deal with war trauma inside 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.440 a family system in a war that goes on and 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.400 on and on. A lot of these troops are active duty, 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.480 so they're going to be called back. A lot of 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:45.840 the vets we've worked with have multiple, multiple deployments, if 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.480 I'm not mistaken, winner eighteenth year of the conflict in 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:54.040 Afghanistan and Iraq, and it's falling on a very proportionally 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:59.120 to the population, small number of people. They carry so much, 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.440 and one of the shocking things for me is this 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.120 could be my kids. I'm fifty, I'll be fifty seven 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.320 in the next little while, and these could be my babies. 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.160 It really activated a maternal impulse in me I didn't 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:17.640 even know I had. I just want to wrap my 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:22.280 arms around them and keep them safe. I found myself 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:27.319 in many ways drawn to them, and in a way 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:32.760 that is new for me, very quickly, deep deep love. 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:37.000 I love these people. Now we should say this song, 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.640 and many of the songs you're going to play today, 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.199 were from your most recent album, which is Rifles and 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.800 Rosary Beads, which was all the songs are co written 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.240 with veterans YEP and their spouses and their spouses. Now, 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:53.320 not to scare people away, but I think a lot 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.760 of these songs, they are incredibly powerful. But you know, 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.840 there's some songs that explicitly address the war experience. But 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.920 there's songs like this one. It's got that great line, 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.320 and I'm not going to ask you to say which 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:08.760 one of the people wrote it, because I'm going to 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.520 just assume they all did. Caught between my pain and 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.520 the pain of someone else. I think that's something that 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.680 even people who aren't veterans or in their families people 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.320 understand that kind of experience. Were you trying to write 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.959 songs that could be lifted out of its immediate circumstances 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.440 like this is a song for everybody, definitely, not No. 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:31.319 What I was trying to do is get to their 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.160 deepest experience. Because of the years I've been doing this, 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:36.760 I know for a fact that if I can get 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.200 to their deepest experience, it will just be a song 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.600 for everybody, because if you go past the personal to 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.200 the deeply deeply personally, you hit the universal, and the 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:50.360 universal is what makes the song great. And what we 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:52.800 try to do is write great songs with members of 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.480 the military and their spouses. The goal is to find 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.800 what the song wants to say and what their souls 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:05.800 need to say. Well, let's hear a very different song, 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:11.200 a great song which is called Iraq, and it's about 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:15.080 a very different experience. Thank you. We'll be back with 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:24.520 Mary Gache's song Iraq after this break. We're back with 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:29.200 Mary Gasche performing her song Iraq from the album Rifles 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:33.599 and Rosary Beads. Can you tell me the story of 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:39.840 writing this song? Yeah. I wrote this with the female 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.760 large engine mechanic who served in the Army. Her name 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:52.000 is Brandy Davidson, and she was a vibrant, incredibly charismatic, 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:57.559 beautiful woman with a million dollar smile and beautiful clothes, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.720 and she was a class president of her high class, 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:06.600 and she just had personality. And she feels or felt 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:10.800 at the time that the sexual harassment she experienced in 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:15.440 Iraq broke her down and she had to rebuild herself 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.680 after she came home. And it was stunning for me 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.640 to hear her say that her enemy really was in Iraq, 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.720 that the battle she was fighting and the war that 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.800 she was engaged in was sexual harassment. Was that the 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:36.679 phrase she used, her enemy wasn't Iraq. That's correct. When 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.679 you heard that, did you? I said, sweetie, let's call 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.560 this thing Iraq. What do you think? And you know, 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.240 I tried to imagine what it was like for her, 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:47.960 and so I just asked her, you know, were you 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.120 covered in Greece. Give me the names of some of 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.280 the tools. I don't know what the torque wrenches or 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.560 any of those things she listed, but she does. And 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.280 she was one of only two large engine mechanics in 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.960 the area where she served that were female, and so 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.360 she was up against it and it was really hard 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.880 for her. There's such beautiful lines in that song, the 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.040 double meaning of I worked on my back, the image 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.360 of her drawing a line, of course, your mind fills 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.560 in the rest of it in the sand, in a 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.800 place where the wind blows the dust. That's quite incredible. 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:29.360 Thank you. You've written a lot about trauma in your 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.760 own life and for people who don't know your story. 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.440 You were adopted, You were in a foundling hospital for 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.600 a year back when they called them foundling hospital. You 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.200 struggled with your adopted family, ran away from home. You 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.840 did open a restaurant in Boston and stopped drinking alcohol 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:52.440 at some point. Does your trauma make it easier to 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.840 relate to the trauma of someone like this who had 0:14:55.960 --> 0:15:00.680 a very different experience. No, I think so. I think 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.520 it does. Although all of the songwriters that work with 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:05.880 the Songwriting with Soldiers program are really good at what 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:10.000 they do. I feel drawn to it in a way 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.920 that feels natural to me. Once I got over my 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.520 original fear around doing a good job and realized I 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:22.120 could do this job, I have a real strong belief 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:26.880 that it's the songs and songwriting that were my life jackets. 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.960 After I got clean and sober, I needed something to 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:34.680 hold on to. It couldn't be accumulating capital in a 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:39.720 restaurant making Jamalaya. I needed something more, and so I 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.600 walked away from the restaurant and became a full on, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.600 full time songwriter and literally worked my way through my 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:52.160 own story in my writing, using the songs to in 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:57.000 many ways, release the poison. What happens is empathy. You know, 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.480 people say, oh my god, that's my song. You know me, 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.080 you see me. I'm like, well, you know, we're made 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.640 of the same stuff, and that is very powerful for 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.040 both the songwriter and the person who resonates with the song. 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.320 And you know, you did not take up songwriting because 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.360 you wanted to be Britney Spears. You did this at 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:20.840 age thirty five, Is that right? Yeah? I started writing 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.080 songs in my mid thirties and came to Nashville at 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.680 age forty. Do you remember the first song you wrote? 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:32.280 Not really, I think it was probably pretty bad. Had 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.560 you been did you play the guitar by then or 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.400 was it did you just start from kind of well scratch? 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.280 I kind of always had a guitar. My aunt Jenny, 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:43.040 gave me her guitar. She was a bit of a 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.360 folks singer, and she gave me one of her old 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.080 guitars when I was thirteen, and then I got my 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:52.080 own guitar a few years later from the music store 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:56.480 round back ovation very first guitar that ever plugged in 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.400 and made an acoustic electric guitar. But I didn't write 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.920 songs until I got clean. So play some of my 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.679 hero songs, you know, the simpler songs. But after I 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.479 got clean sober, I was very much called to write, 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.320 and I couldn't really explain it. I didn't know why, 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.280 but it became very clear that this is what I 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.760 had to do. I never expected to make a career 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.240 out of it, but that just came on. It was 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.800 a process, and they came on, and then I just 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.639 surrendered to it and came to Nashville when I was forty. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.440 When did you first step on a stage and sing 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:40.200 your own songs? Probably when I was thirty two thirty one. 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.360 What was that like? It's probably the most frightening thing 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:47.720 I've ever done. I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified. 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.359 I remember all the spit drained out of my mouth. 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:55.280 It was like I could have spit dust. I had nothing. 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.720 I had my heart exploding in my ears, no spit. 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.280 My hands were shaken, and I forgot the words, I 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.280 forgot the chords. I lost it on stage. It was terrible, 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.080 but something in me said, well, you're gonna have to 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.560 do that again, you know, I just told myself, yeah, 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:16.160 that was horrible, but the good news is it can't 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:20.200 be worse than that. Do it again? Had that been 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.440 I mean, you know you were a cook before then. 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:27.920 Did you always throw yourself at things you found really hard? Apparently? Yeah? 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.399 Is it getting easier? It's gotten incredibly for me to 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.360 be on stage. Yeah, It's where I belong there and 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.440 I can take over a stage without terror. Do you 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:43.520 want to play another song? Happy to do it? So 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:49.600 tell me about your co writer. Sailor in the Navy. 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.960 His name is Jamie Trent. He served in Desert Storm. 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.200 He wanted to write a song about how complex Veterans 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.879 Day is for him, how the feeling things that he 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.520 has on November the eleventh or not at all simple. 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.919 In fact, he feels opposite and conflicting emotions on that 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.000 day and I wanted to help him try to get 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:18.080 to that. And as we talked, he told me that 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.639 in his town on Veterans Day, if you have an 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.639 active duty military ID, waffle House will give you a 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:29.800 free breakfast. And for me, as a songwriter, that just 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.960 the whole movies right there. So let's send you to 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:37.840 waffle house on November eleventh, and you tell me what happens. 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:42.600 And we wrote the story basically using our imagination and 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.880 his experience to move the parade past the waffle house 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.560 while he's sitting there with conflicted emotions. How did you 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.800 get that out of him? Well, songwriting is a skill, 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.320 and I've been at it quite a while, and I 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:00.600 know that it needs to be a little a movie, 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.320 and the listener needs to be able to see the 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:08.040 scenery and put themselves into the protagonist's body and look 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.480 out from their eyes. So when I ask them questions 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.479 about what's going on in the little movie and they 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.359 give me great answers, it's really exciting for me to 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.720 ask Jamie what about when people thank you for your service? 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.760 And he's like, I just don't know about that. What 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:26.600 I got from him is that a lot of the 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.560 folk who thank him for service don't understand what his 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:33.000 service is and continues to be he's struggling. If I 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:35.760 got text from him yesterday, he's been out of the 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.760 military for quite some time and he's in hospital today. 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.320 He struggling with a heart condition that was brought on 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:45.440 direct result of his service. He calls it the gift 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:50.040 that keeps on giving. He's dealing with probably the lifetime 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.480 of health issues from what happened to him on the 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.360 carry aircraft carrier that he worked on. So the movies 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:59.440 come alive with detail. The songs are little movies, and 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.320 the vet's just give me the detail if I ask 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.000 them the right questions. Is that the same process you 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:09.400 put yourself through. Absolutely, you ask yourself those questions. Yep. 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:11.199 Do you see the movie first or do you have 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:13.119 to build the movie? Build a movie. I never know 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:17.080 how it's gonna end. In this song, when the last 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.120 line became clear that it was gonna rain, we both screamed. 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.400 It's so perfect. It's so perfect. We didn't know it 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:29.760 was gonna rain. It was coming along and it was 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:33.399 just we both went as it begins to rain, and 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:35.800 we just screamed because it's just like and then the 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:41.080 curtain closes. The songs have their own intelligence. In many ways, 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:43.040 we're just trying to get David out of the marble, 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.520 like Michael Azelo said, But in other ways, I kind 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:48.879 of know I got the chisel and the hammer. I 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:52.399 kind of know where to bang. Okay, I'm going to 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:56.000 try and steal some more of your tricks for our listeners. 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.120 Pretend I'm sitting here, I'm not a veteran. I've got 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.399 a guitar in my hand, and I wish it were 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.600 as nice as your nineteen fifty Gibson, which is really beautiful. 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:07.400 I know three or four chords, like most people do. 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:14.199 Where do I start? Well, you ask yourself what matters 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:16.480 to me today, what's important to me today, what's going 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:21.520 on inside me today? What are my concerns areas of concern? Well, 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.120 I teach songwriting a lot, and my hope for each 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:26.840 student is that they write the songs only they can write. 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:30.240 You know, everybody wants to be their hero or sound 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.520 like Bob Dylan, But Bob's got that covered. And I 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:36.560 think that we each have songs only we can write. 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:39.919 And so my guide would, my guidance would be to 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:44.000 address your areas of concern, deep concern. What really matters 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:47.840 to you today, what's really bugging you today? What's bringing 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:49.520 great joy today? I don't know if you're can write 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:51.160 a happy song or sad song. I don't know your 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.440 mood yet, but be honest about it. In your song 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:56.879 and just come up with three chords that sound like 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:01.520 that feeling and let it start to be guided with 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:03.480 an invisible hand that I don't have a name for. 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.239 It exists for all of us. If we ask it 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:09.080 to help us, it will Does every one of your 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:13.800 songs have in the writing have that kind of Eureka 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.760 moment like when you realized that it was going to 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.840 rain at the end of his song. No, not all 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:22.600 of them, but I think the good ones all do. Yeah, 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:25.040 the good ones all contain what I call a godline, 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:27.560 a line that is so good I couldn't have possibly 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:32.199 written it that it came through me more than from me. 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:34.200 And I look at the page and go, oh my god, 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:37.320 look at that. Are you one of Because your song 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:40.680 seems so focused and so concentrated. I think most people 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.359 who listen to you imagine that that you just write 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:45.800 these songs and that these little jewels and you uncover them. 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:48.080 Are you that kind of writer or are you a 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:50.480 kind of let a thousand flowers bloom? You write a 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:53.080 lot of songs and then whittle them down a whittle 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:58.280 hard work. Yeah, The simplicity is because I've edited it 0:23:58.320 --> 0:24:01.520 and edited it and edited it even in individual songs. 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:04.800 How many verses would you write? Well, I write, I 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:07.639 write more verses than you hear. But each line I 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:09.959 could easily spend the whole day, eight hours on a 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:13.479 line you're writing often reminds me of Leonard Cohen's. Well, 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:16.840 Leonard's one of my heroes who wrote pages and pages 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:20.680 of lyrics to get it down to that, to that 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:24.040