Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right,
Speaker 1: enjoy the episode. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. This is Broken Record,
Speaker 1: and this episode is me and the Love Junkies at
Speaker 1: Sony Tree Studios in Nashville. I call it an interview,
Speaker 1: except I didn't really interview them. I felt like I
Speaker 1: just sat in the corner laughing and made sure the
Speaker 1: tape was running this. I know boyfriend found me last
Speaker 1: week and I have you have to hear. Well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna write a Saudi mar just sing that. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I'm playing girl crush. I know Bepher's voice. The one
Speaker 1: talking about an old boyfriend is Liz Rose. The one
Speaker 1: who said that's the line of a song right there
Speaker 1: is Lloyd McKenna. The one playing guitar who said she's
Speaker 1: playing girl crush is Hillary Lindsay. Hillary is the one
Speaker 1: who helped Lady Goga go country on a million reasons.
Speaker 1: Lloyd McKenna has written for greates like Faith Hill, Tim McGraw,
Speaker 1: and Reba McIntyre. Liz co wrote over half the songs
Speaker 1: on Taylor Swift's debut album. They are three of the
Speaker 1: best songwriters working in Nashville today, and every now and
Speaker 1: again they hang out and write songs together as the
Speaker 1: Love Junkies. We caught a glimpse of how they work
Speaker 1: when they were setting up and Laurie and Hillary decided
Speaker 1: that Liz's chance encounter with an old boyfriend deserve to
Speaker 1: be turned into a song. Oh shit, Okay, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you other things. This is fantastic. This is fantastic, is
Speaker 1: so much better anything else. We have to move on.
Speaker 1: We're going to remember that, Adam, do you have a
Speaker 1: recording of that that we can steal for me? Thank you?
Speaker 1: How did you guys meet? They knew each other first, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'd been writing for Liz was one of the first.
Speaker 1: So when I came to town, I got a publishing
Speaker 1: deal in two thousand and five, and I had never
Speaker 1: co written a song. You came, You came down here
Speaker 1: from Boston. Yeah, I came like I got a publishing deal,
Speaker 1: so like I came down to do trips. I never
Speaker 1: lived here, but I just would fly down. And my
Speaker 1: publisher was like, we should co write songs, and I
Speaker 1: had never done it. I'd just been writing just it
Speaker 1: just seemed so difficult to try to do this with
Speaker 1: other people. And so my first co write I think
Speaker 1: was Mark D. Sanders and Liz was maybe my third
Speaker 1: or fourth, and they put me in a room with
Speaker 1: and really, over the couple of years following, she taught
Speaker 1: me how to co write a song like I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I was with Mark de like I had just great
Speaker 1: people they put me with in the beginning. That taught
Speaker 1: me how the process works, and I literally fell in
Speaker 1: love with it, like I lived. So we had written
Speaker 1: a bunch you guys had written, not together. We had
Speaker 1: written oddly enough, and never actually sat in a room
Speaker 1: with each other. Because she had started a song with
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift and then Taylor came to my house to
Speaker 1: write one day, just Taylor and I, and she was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to maybe help me out with this
Speaker 1: song that I started with Liz Rose? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't I don't really know Liz.
Speaker 1: I don't want Liz to hate me. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is a good idea and she's like, Liz
Speaker 1: won't care, Liz won't care, and I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And so we did and then what was the song.
Speaker 1: It's called Fearless and it actually became the title of
Speaker 1: her record. And so we actually gave each other massive
Speaker 1: hugs and really met each other for the first time
Speaker 1: at the album release party. Do you remember that or
Speaker 1: was it her birthday party or something? Remember we took
Speaker 1: photos together in the photo boot was at the birthday
Speaker 1: at her at her party? Yeah, like right before the
Speaker 1: record to come out or something. We're like, we wrote
Speaker 1: a song together. I know. Nice to meet you, because
Speaker 1: if you hadn't done that, that song may not it
Speaker 1: may not have been finished, and it may not have
Speaker 1: been the title or even made the record. How does
Speaker 1: it start? We've played the beginning of it. That was good,
Speaker 1: So just so I get the chronology. Here, Liz and Laurie,
Speaker 1: you guys meet, and then Liz and Hillary meet, and
Speaker 1: then but when does the whole three weeks? So then
Speaker 1: we met too separately. We had written what we wrote
Speaker 1: a song probably two thousand and six. We had one
Speaker 1: day together Hillary and I yeah, and then I was
Speaker 1: terrible and I we're all afraid of each other. And
Speaker 1: she and I had only written one song after that, yeah,
Speaker 1: the other. But what happened was she had made a
Speaker 1: record and I was a massive fan, and I was
Speaker 1: scared to go into the room with her because she's
Speaker 1: a genius and it was just the two of us,
Speaker 1: and I had to sit there alone, and I got
Speaker 1: all prepared, throwing in trying to impress her with this idea,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it was good. It was really
Speaker 1: good idea. It was like the pain on the wall
Speaker 1: and the wall paper. But I don't remember exactly what
Speaker 1: it was, but it was. I remember, oh, house poor,
Speaker 1: who doesn't want to hear a song called the house Poor?
Speaker 1: And I was totally house poor. Yeah. But so then
Speaker 1: because I come here three days at a time, I
Speaker 1: come in usually once or twice a month, or three
Speaker 1: days at a time, I think what ultimately happened to
Speaker 1: get us together? And I always stay at Liz's house,
Speaker 1: and I think what happened was our publishers were like, Hey,
Speaker 1: Laurie and Liz have three days together. Let's just let's
Speaker 1: Hillary in and like have her. He's getting three days
Speaker 1: in a row with Hillary or Liz is really difficult.
Speaker 1: And I'm only here like three or six days a month,
Speaker 1: so like, let's just put them three days together. And
Speaker 1: and Liz was saying, and it was living in a condo,
Speaker 1: this beautiful condo that we it was just wonderful. And
Speaker 1: Liz's children are all grown and Laurie of course at
Speaker 1: you know, being in Nashville is away from her kids,
Speaker 1: and I was childless at the at that point. So
Speaker 1: we just had total freedom. It was like, yeah, everybody,
Speaker 1: spend the night, stay up till three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: If you want to write all the way till three,
Speaker 1: stop at seven, watch a movie, what you know, just whatever,
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning, make eggs, keep writing. Like
Speaker 1: it was. It was really free. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of we didn't have a whole lot of good when
Speaker 1: you write together, do you have roles? Is there who's
Speaker 1: the adult in the room. I'm an adult in the room.
Speaker 1: I am most certainly in the room. I feel like
Speaker 1: it shifts. It doesn't we do, I feel like, but
Speaker 1: I mean probably in general across the yes, you are
Speaker 1: in general, but like a lot together sometimes this is
Speaker 1: what we do is somebody has to be the r
Speaker 1: artists of the song, and each song is different, for
Speaker 1: our roles will change. We'll write two songs in a
Speaker 1: day and the roles will change between the songs. And
Speaker 1: somebody's an artist, somebody is a therapist, somebody is the cheerleader,
Speaker 1: and someone is the sleeper. But we someone is a sleeper.
Speaker 1: But we all we what we do. We do a
Speaker 1: lot of things that are great for one another because
Speaker 1: we love each other. But what we do best, I
Speaker 1: think for each other is we keep each other honest.
Speaker 1: And I think if any one of us says a
Speaker 1: line that someone else doesn't believe, will be like that's
Speaker 1: how you would say it, or or you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And we know there's no way we could
Speaker 1: any of us could ever say something that the other
Speaker 1: one would be like, that's dumb, because it gets like
Speaker 1: we just we have so much respect for each other.
Speaker 1: It's just really open that there's there's you know, it's
Speaker 1: not critical, it's not judge. Nobody's judging anybody, and we
Speaker 1: don't I mean you saying all of the things that
Speaker 1: we all are at different times, like I mean, we've
Speaker 1: never honestly had this conversation, so it's not like we've
Speaker 1: ever analyzed that before, but when But the roles do shift,
Speaker 1: but it's never discussed. It just naturally happened, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's what we do as co writers. That's what
Speaker 1: we do. Like every day that these two show up
Speaker 1: in a room, it's, you know, usually there's an artist there,
Speaker 1: so you feel your you know, you find your spot
Speaker 1: somewhere else. And that's I think what we all love
Speaker 1: about co writing. Do you when you know you're getting together,
Speaker 1: do you, guys, do you on your own prepare? Are
Speaker 1: you bringing material to the group? Or we always the adult?
Speaker 1: Does it guilty that I can the food in the
Speaker 1: wine prepare? I type everything? I am? The secretary is
Speaker 1: really what I am. But I think we all always
Speaker 1: have a lot of ideas we but what we're really
Speaker 1: also good at. I'm not as good as these guys are,
Speaker 1: but like they if I have an idea that I
Speaker 1: don't know what it means yet they're both brilliant at
Speaker 1: Like maybe it's this and that happens to me all
Speaker 1: the time where I don't know I have I have
Speaker 1: a title maybe, but I don't know what to do
Speaker 1: with it. Or I have a verse maybe. But then
Speaker 1: I started hating myself at home by myself, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'll just show it to the girls and see and
Speaker 1: then they might be, yeah, that needs some fixing, or
Speaker 1: they'll be like, oh my god, we have to finish it.
Speaker 1: And that happens to all of us sometimes. Or what
Speaker 1: if this could mean this, or what if this could
Speaker 1: mean that, you know, just talking it out. What would
Speaker 1: you think back on the stuff you've written together? Is
Speaker 1: there a song that was magic? I mean when I
Speaker 1: say magic, like just came together and you were all like, wow,
Speaker 1: it was probably girl crush. That's happened a couple of
Speaker 1: times in my age and myha but you already had
Speaker 1: so much of that. But the greatest thing to me
Speaker 1: about my age is that she started. I was on
Speaker 1: the other side of the room. I was playing the piano,
Speaker 1: but I started singing something and Liz was never heard
Speaker 1: it before and singing along with me. I remember you
Speaker 1: looking at her like how you know these words? But
Speaker 1: she knows me so well. She knew what I was
Speaker 1: going to say. And then Hillary says, no, that's done.
Speaker 1: You got to finish it. But I had no chorus.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do with it. And she
Speaker 1: started singing a chorus, and then we had no hook,
Speaker 1: and then this one. Hillary says, well, it could be this.
Speaker 1: This is terrible, but it could be this, And as
Speaker 1: soon as she said it, we all cried like babies.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's magic girl crush. That was she
Speaker 1: kind of does this one by herself. I'm going to
Speaker 1: attempt to sing harmony with you, but let me see
Speaker 1: if I'm to operate. It was a nightmare. No, it
Speaker 1: wasn't all joined in. You sang harmony and I sang
Speaker 1: with her, bail, You sang a harmony and I sang.
Speaker 1: I just doubled her in like higherment? Are you real soft? Remember? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Remember coming back to me? Now, remember when we were
Speaker 1: playing I'm a Bactor? Oh God, was before you the
Speaker 1: whole thing? Yes, just play me the little bit you
Speaker 1: had when you started. Okay, So I had the verse.
Speaker 1: What I have was the essentially the first and the
Speaker 1: last verse. And I couldn't find a chorus at home.
Speaker 1: I tried and tried and tried, and I knew, and
Speaker 1: I think this happens to all of us. I knew
Speaker 1: that sometimes songs before we even have almost anything, this
Speaker 1: happens to me. And I'm sure, it happens to you guys.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they'll make me cry, like just sitting there, like
Speaker 1: I know there's something, but I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: And usually if left alone, I can figure it out eventually.
Speaker 1: And I had this for like weeks, and I did try,
Speaker 1: and I tried and I tried, but what I have
Speaker 1: was this. I'll play you this. So I played that
Speaker 1: for them on the piano and she started singing the
Speaker 1: chorus because because literally weird, I'm getting it was the
Speaker 1: weirdest thing. It was wild. At that point, we were
Speaker 1: sitting on the couch we'd gotten off, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: can't really play the piano, but I just show them,
Speaker 1: And Hillary was saying, Laura, you seem to finish that
Speaker 1: song because you felt like she had written so much
Speaker 1: of it. I didn't. I felt like it was wrong
Speaker 1: to take a piece of it or do anything with it,
Speaker 1: because I felt like she would figure it out on
Speaker 1: her own. But I had, like I said, I had tried,
Speaker 1: and when I I think when I got to riding
Speaker 1: bags out on the street, she was like somehow singing
Speaker 1: along with me. I don't know. I remember you saying
Speaker 1: to her like, how do you know? And then so
Speaker 1: you did the chorus, Hillary, the chorus she said out,
Speaker 1: You'll grow your shoes, I'll grow your bed. Wait were
Speaker 1: you sing that little thing that came to you? We
Speaker 1: didn't have the hook, we didn't have that You're still
Speaker 1: going to be my baby even when you're made. And
Speaker 1: that was Hillary and she said, and she said, this
Speaker 1: is dumb, but I'm just gonna say it. And as
Speaker 1: soon as she said, well, you could say you're still
Speaker 1: going to be a baby even when you're my age,
Speaker 1: and we're all like, oh my god. And now all
Speaker 1: of us we did get to sing that on the
Speaker 1: aufree one night, and we've sung it together a couple
Speaker 1: of times, and it is it's hard to get through
Speaker 1: the whole song without losing it because we all you
Speaker 1: just have to think about something completely. You cannot let
Speaker 1: yourself think about it when you're singing it. Or it's
Speaker 1: one of those songs that I call them to make
Speaker 1: you want to throw up songs because it hurts so bad.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's so funny because we all are in
Speaker 1: a different stage in our lives. So Laurie's writing it
Speaker 1: for her kids, for her your grown kids, and you're
Speaker 1: you know, Hillary's writing it from a brand new mother perspective.
Speaker 1: She's three years old, So it's just really makes me
Speaker 1: sick to my stomach. And I came up with that
Speaker 1: from my two year old grandson. Yeah, because I'm always
Speaker 1: buying shoes, but also that my mother's ninety five and
Speaker 1: she's still call I'm the youngest of six, and she
Speaker 1: still calls me her baby. She still says that to me,
Speaker 1: You're you're my baby. God. Yeah, it's just too painful,
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to say, like to me,
Speaker 1: like not to get all religious about it, but I
Speaker 1: tried for about a month to find where that's song
Speaker 1: and you know what I mean, and and and I
Speaker 1: just know that I was supposed to sing it that
Speaker 1: verse for them, and they were supposed to be part
Speaker 1: of that with me. Like I just know that creatively,
Speaker 1: something stopped me from being able to find where it
Speaker 1: was supposed to go because we were supposed to write
Speaker 1: it together. I just totally believe that, well, which is
Speaker 1: such a gift, I think because I love them so
Speaker 1: much and we have had moments where if we weren't
Speaker 1: sharing the moment together, it would still be great. I
Speaker 1: think we'd all like would all so, but doing but
Speaker 1: having the experience together is it just makes it so
Speaker 1: much more. Mm hmm. You have to sing the whole
Speaker 1: song now cry. It's okay to cry. It's okay to cry.
Speaker 1: This is not be perfect. I'm going to be crying too.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm gonna move away from the mic.
Speaker 1: Should we do it right now? Yes? Yes? Do you
Speaker 1: want to clean next list? I'll just we just when
Speaker 1: we come back, Laurie, Liz and Hillary play their song
Speaker 1: My Age. We're back with the performance of My Age
Speaker 1: from the Love Junkies. Laurie, Liz and Hillary. Yeah. Started
Speaker 1: well in the middle of it, cressout. You just moved away.
Speaker 1: Don't think out the sun like you asked. Have we
Speaker 1: had magical moments like we the fact that we got
Speaker 1: to create that together. Mm hmm, it's just so magical
Speaker 1: to me. I love the idea that each of you,
Speaker 1: Oh you're so she is still a baby, and so
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh my god, I can just see her.
Speaker 1: That's why we can't look at each other. This is
Speaker 1: when we get mad at each other when we said,
Speaker 1: we're like gonna make me say that a sorry, OK.
Speaker 1: But that idea that all of you approached that song
Speaker 1: from a different perspective is so magical. We've always done
Speaker 1: that as writers together because when we first started writing
Speaker 1: a lot together, we were like, we're about ten years
Speaker 1: a part each of us. There's like an eight to
Speaker 1: ten year thing. And uh, it was like never been married,
Speaker 1: married cour times, married to one person a very long time.
Speaker 1: So we have we have such different which one we're
Speaker 1: been married to the same person a very long the adult?
Speaker 1: The adult. I know someone's gonna make me a T shirt.
Speaker 1: Now that says because I want to make you that.
Speaker 1: I always like our if we're if we're all standing
Speaker 1: on a ledge, when we try and make a decision,
Speaker 1: explain that you explain it because you explain it better.
Speaker 1: I think you do. If we're no, you do it better. Well,
Speaker 1: we've had opportunities, we've been approached for things. A couple
Speaker 1: of times it's like should we And we all get
Speaker 1: on like a three way conference call because we're not together,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well should we do this? Should we
Speaker 1: do this? And we all think we all think so differently.
Speaker 1: If we are all standing looking over allege and it's
Speaker 1: like we should we jump because we heard it's pretty
Speaker 1: awesome down there, like we can't see anything, we don't know,
Speaker 1: and Liz is like, let's do it, let's jump, and
Speaker 1: Hillary is like, well who else is jumped? Like do
Speaker 1: we know like the logistics of it? And if we
Speaker 1: don't jump, somebody else will, so maybe we should go
Speaker 1: ahead and jump. And then I'm like, well, how long
Speaker 1: is it going to take us to jump? Can I
Speaker 1: have a flight? And all hit it? We all want
Speaker 1: the same things in life, but we all see those
Speaker 1: things so differently and and calculate our things so differently,
Speaker 1: or not calculate at all. It's been married four times,
Speaker 1: we should we do the other magical moment? So tell
Speaker 1: me more about girl Crush. It was one of our
Speaker 1: three days together and it was a second day. It
Speaker 1: was a second day because it was morning and Laurie
Speaker 1: and I were in the kitchen and uh she was
Speaker 1: making coffee and I was We were waiting for Hillary
Speaker 1: to get up, and Laurie said, hey, I got an
Speaker 1: idea to day. I think I want to write a
Speaker 1: song called girl Crush. And I immediately, without even thinking,
Speaker 1: said no, which is something I'm working on. By the way,
Speaker 1: she jumped again, you know this is I do this,
Speaker 1: I jump no, and she's like, no, it'll be really cool.
Speaker 1: It's about you know, like you know, and I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's stupid and we need to write, we need cuts
Speaker 1: and we're not writing girl crush. That sounds too hard
Speaker 1: to write and how are we going to do it?
Speaker 1: And no, lord, that's dumb. And literally I think I
Speaker 1: said that's I just said no, like I'm more worried
Speaker 1: about we only had two hours. Yeah, and we only
Speaker 1: had two hours strange talking about how it was. Maybe
Speaker 1: we weren't talking about it all. I just said, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like like when somebody's doing something really great
Speaker 1: or any nothing. She said girl crush. I said no,
Speaker 1: she said girl crush. I said no, like just now,
Speaker 1: you said, just like that. Hillary came in the room
Speaker 1: and Laurie turned around and said, Hillary, I have a
Speaker 1: song idea. I want to write a song called girl Crush.
Speaker 1: And I didn't even have time to give her a
Speaker 1: dirty look because Hillary picked up the guitar and went,
Speaker 1: you mean kind of like this, and she did this,
Speaker 1: and I did literally we jumped on the couch and
Speaker 1: went that's exactly she lived in her head. And she
Speaker 1: said you mean like that. She looked at me, like,
Speaker 1: you mean like that, because I had, you know, said
Speaker 1: those two words. And I looked at Liz and opened
Speaker 1: her notebook, the very famous notebook, and we're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what we mean. That's what we mean. That one
Speaker 1: lick of discussion about what it means, and that was
Speaker 1: it flowed out. You were done in an hour. It
Speaker 1: just fell out and some genius coming through her face.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, I have no idea what when you did?
Speaker 1: Clearly it came from God. That did not come out
Speaker 1: of my mind. I wasn't. I wasn't thinking, you know.
Speaker 1: And we didn't get in the way with it because
Speaker 1: I remember when you said, oh her, yeah, because it
Speaker 1: takes and we we s I was like, okay, y'all
Speaker 1: are getting really sexy. But no, we never thought about
Speaker 1: what it was. But those were the lines that were
Speaker 1: supposed to be in the song, and we knew that
Speaker 1: it was. Wait, I'm jealous. I want to be this
Speaker 1: girl because she has you. Yeah, I want you, so
Speaker 1: I'm jealous. But we really sad. Once we figured out
Speaker 1: it just kept it just fell out, flying out, It
Speaker 1: started to write itself. It was making sense to us
Speaker 1: once you know, it was like a puzzle. The pieces
Speaker 1: kept coming and then it's like, oh, that's what the
Speaker 1: song is. Who has do all of you have? Did
Speaker 1: two of you both have your guitars at that moment?
Speaker 1: Or is it just you and the guitar? It was
Speaker 1: just me at that moment. The other crazy thing about
Speaker 1: it is that if you look at the notebook on
Speaker 1: the left hand side, there are only like five or
Speaker 1: six words on it because it happened so fast and
Speaker 1: it fell out so fast that there were no wasted words.
Speaker 1: There were no That means pretty much everything that was
Speaker 1: said in the room went on in in the song.
Speaker 1: Can you explain this? Is it just is? I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's because Hillary is a genius. No,
Speaker 1: And I think it's because we're safe with We're safe
Speaker 1: with one another. Even when she didn't say that's a
Speaker 1: dumb idea to me, But I didn't say I just
Speaker 1: said it sounds hard, and uh, but and it was
Speaker 1: and my feelings weren't hurt, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because I know where she's coming from, and and and
Speaker 1: I think it's it's just we we're we're in an
Speaker 1: environment and that moment where that could come through her,
Speaker 1: and it did. It's it's we haven't If we had
Speaker 1: a video of it, I would watch it every day. Wow,
Speaker 1: because it's just magical to think about it. But typically
Speaker 1: with songwriters, you hear this a lot that the ones
Speaker 1: that just kind of fall out of them and the
Speaker 1: ones that happened so fast and they don't know really
Speaker 1: where it came from either are a lot of times
Speaker 1: the ones that become the big hits for them, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones that sometimes stand the test of time, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you hear that all the time, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've had it happen before, and you've had it
Speaker 1: happened before, and I've had it happen before with other
Speaker 1: songs too. It's a very rare occurrence. I wish it
Speaker 1: happened more than it did, but I really don't know.
Speaker 1: I know, for me, the setting was that I definitely
Speaker 1: felt free and comfortable. I was at peace, But I
Speaker 1: don't know why. I don't know. I don't know why
Speaker 1: that happened. I don't know how that happened. How far
Speaker 1: how far into this so we have this magic moment?
Speaker 1: How far into the moment were you sure it was
Speaker 1: going to were like we did going to thought nobody
Speaker 1: wrote a cool song. We liked the song a lot,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of all we thought was probably this
Speaker 1: is going to be a massive We played it for
Speaker 1: Scott I think he brought us lunch or something, and
Speaker 1: and he got it. And we played it for Liza's
Speaker 1: son who brought us at lunch because we didn't know
Speaker 1: if it because sometimes when you're talking about the song
Speaker 1: so much, it makes sense to us because we're all
Speaker 1: sitting here talking about what we're going to say, and
Speaker 1: then you don't you have to go back and be like,
Speaker 1: but it will make sense to someone listening that doesn't
Speaker 1: know what we're talking about. And he got it. He's like,
Speaker 1: of course, makes sense, it makes total sense. Well, the
Speaker 1: point is is that there's a lot of rejection so
Speaker 1: and a lot of times the ones that you think
Speaker 1: are really cool, I mean you're just a little bit
Speaker 1: afraid that that might be too cool for like radio
Speaker 1: or something like, you know, like nobody's gonna want it
Speaker 1: because maybe it's not commercial enough, not too cool that's
Speaker 1: probably the wrong way of saying it, but just not
Speaker 1: commercial enough, not radio friendly enough, you know. So we
Speaker 1: loved the song, but we just didn't really know if
Speaker 1: it would ever get cut, And then once it was cut,
Speaker 1: we it wasn't supposed to be a single, le yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even yeah. But what happened was after a
Speaker 1: little big town cut it, we were getting text messages
Speaker 1: and phone calls from other writers in town that had
Speaker 1: heard and be like, man, that song is cool, like
Speaker 1: for you to come up with a new way to
Speaker 1: say a story about jealousy, which we again was like,
Speaker 1: so we knew that like our peers, and that's the
Speaker 1: biggest preplement peers tell you. That's so thrilling to any
Speaker 1: of us. And then Chris started and everybody was wanting
Speaker 1: to the press about the new album. They were all
Speaker 1: calling us wanting to talk about Girl Crush. But but
Speaker 1: it was not supposed to be a single. I don't
Speaker 1: believe it was supposed to be a fourth single. Remember
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make I'm gonna make you guys play it now. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll be back with more from the Love Junkies and
Speaker 1: another song after the break. We're back with Liz Laurie
Speaker 1: and Hillary the Love Junkies. You know what's interesting with
Speaker 1: that song is that listening to you sing it here
Speaker 1: in person, it suddenly becomes a grown up song. It's
Speaker 1: like a serious make everything seem a little sadder. Maybe
Speaker 1: so then maybe others because sometimes you like you'll get
Speaker 1: a video of someone singing it, like at a wedding
Speaker 1: or you know, someone like not not Karen, but somebody else,
Speaker 1: and it does seem a little well, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it is anything, but that is a sad situation. I mean,
Speaker 1: she said somebody's got the man she loves. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if you really think about it like that,
Speaker 1: I never really thought about it as being sad either,
Speaker 1: but I guess it is. You know why I say
Speaker 1: that because I had Maybe it's because you guys are
Speaker 1: singing it in front of me. Yeah it was. It was.
Speaker 1: Now it's a it's a grown woman saying she has
Speaker 1: the feeling that a adolescent has, as opposed to an
Speaker 1: adolescent saying I'm having adolescent feelings right. So now it's
Speaker 1: like that because it makes it even more powerful. I've
Speaker 1: been transported back to that horrible place in my adolescence
Speaker 1: when I had these irrational, powerful emotional feelings, and that's
Speaker 1: that's what's driving me crazy. Yeah, I'm forty five years old,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm sixty. Like that's to me.
Speaker 1: What see that girl right now? Yeah? I can't swimming pool.
Speaker 1: I can see her right now too. I saw her
Speaker 1: when I looked in the mirror this morning. This specially
Speaker 1: be this other thing I want to talk about. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about what a country song is these days?
Speaker 1: Is that a country song? Does it matter? Maybe it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, but I'm just curious. I think it's just
Speaker 1: a song. I mean, I'm sure some of the some
Speaker 1: people would say it does matter. But from a writing perspective,
Speaker 1: we just try to just write a song, like we
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, try not to think too
Speaker 1: much about that kind of thing. Sometimes when you get
Speaker 1: in the studio that will kind of play a little
Speaker 1: bit more into it because you have to pick like
Speaker 1: different instrumentation and stuff, so that might make it a
Speaker 1: little more pop sounding or a little more country sounding.
Speaker 1: But as far as like when we're just sitting around
Speaker 1: with guitars, we just really just try to write a
Speaker 1: good song. You know, you don't feel like you belong
Speaker 1: to a tradition, Well you're acting within particular gen you
Speaker 1: just I mean, yes, she she writes, I mean she
Speaker 1: can write anything, but we are writing in a particular genre.
Speaker 1: It's why we that's why we write in Nashville. That's
Speaker 1: why we embrace this community. I mean, the best songwriters
Speaker 1: in the world are in Nashville, Tennessee. So that you know,
Speaker 1: that's how we feel. And and that's why people come
Speaker 1: from every genre to this town to write with Nashville songwriters.
Speaker 1: So but I do believe, we believe we belong to
Speaker 1: a genre. Although we can step out and do other things.
Speaker 1: We are country songwriters. And but that day when we
Speaker 1: wrote that specific song, let's write a country song, like
Speaker 1: you know, it was just like, let's write a song
Speaker 1: with this title, right, Like it wasn't like we were
Speaker 1: trying to necessarily conform to anything. Is there a song
Speaker 1: that you guys have done, either individually or collectively, that
Speaker 1: feels like a real country song too? Well, we never
Speaker 1: finished it, but remember, and I'm sure we have another y'
Speaker 1: all can answer that better. But that just popped in
Speaker 1: my head. I remember the last time we all got together.
Speaker 1: It was the night the day we did the opry
Speaker 1: that night, and so we wrote it my house. I
Speaker 1: was just looking at that what's it called? And I
Speaker 1: can't remember she had the title and we were saying,
Speaker 1: how somebody said, let's try to write it more in
Speaker 1: a like traditional country country way. We didn't finish it,
Speaker 1: though country is very country. You remember it, Lorie. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the if I should have known, I shouldn't no better,
Speaker 1: but no, I don't know. I think that is what
Speaker 1: it was. It was like, but it had more of
Speaker 1: a country thing. It was something like I should know better,
Speaker 1: but I don't and it or something like that, I
Speaker 1: don't like that much. Well finish it sometimes. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because I think Girl Crush she is kind of
Speaker 1: very conscious that, you know, the leans towards six '
Speaker 1: eight a lot the tempo that song I have issues,
Speaker 1: although she can do any tempo, but but that's where
Speaker 1: that landed in that whole like just kind of wallsy feeling.
Speaker 1: But girl Crust as a title sounds like it could
Speaker 1: be really pop, but it's also a motown sort of
Speaker 1: throwback thing. Felt a little there's all that too going
Speaker 1: on with it, so, you know, and when you look
Speaker 1: at the production, the little big town production of that song,
Speaker 1: there's so much restraint in that. You know, there's so
Speaker 1: much that isn't there that is so necessarily beautiful, like
Speaker 1: just so necessary now and so beautiful that Jay Joyce
Speaker 1: and the banded in recording that song like they should.
Speaker 1: They could have gone to town and they didn't, and
Speaker 1: it's just so perfect the way they the way that
Speaker 1: that it ended up. Yeah, we were lucky that we
Speaker 1: actually never made it into the studio to demo that
Speaker 1: we never demoed it, so they cut it just off
Speaker 1: of the work tape on our iPhone, just like us
Speaker 1: sitting there singing on that. Why do you say you
Speaker 1: were lucky because we might have messed up the Dagon demo,
Speaker 1: we might have the production of it, we might have
Speaker 1: who knows, or we might have nailed it, but who knows.
Speaker 1: Like they got to take it into the studio and
Speaker 1: create the sound around it, you know. So the other
Speaker 1: thing that interests me is is what it means for
Speaker 1: a woman to write a song. Do you how much
Speaker 1: of your music couldn't be played by a man, or
Speaker 1: to not be performed by a man? Yeah, hmm, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean for me personally, like it's you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm writing, like with with the two of them,
Speaker 1: we typically you know, lean towards writing women songs. Clearly
Speaker 1: we're women. We have sat in the room before and
Speaker 1: and tried to write what we call them dude songs.
Speaker 1: Did you ever? Have you ever? No? Do you remember any?
Speaker 1: Can you pay me a little bit of a dude song? So?
Speaker 1: I bet it was written for a copper tone and
Speaker 1: that song is partying though I love that song. No,
Speaker 1: we can probably if we can find it on our
Speaker 1: if we can find a demo. Let me see, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a demo. You don't remember it well enough
Speaker 1: to How many songs have you guys written together? Now? Wild?
Speaker 1: Wild is her favorite color? Oh yeah, I play that,
Speaker 1: but that could still be a girl song. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's really but we wrote it with Chris Stapleton in
Speaker 1: our heads? Yeah? What was that other one? Like something
Speaker 1: about the boat thing? Anchor here drop anchor? Yeah? Yeah here? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Which one am I looking up? I might not be
Speaker 1: you literally declare up front that it's time to write
Speaker 1: a dude song. Is that No? We had a little
Speaker 1: phase where we tried to do that at and it
Speaker 1: was not and it was fun, but it wasn't like
Speaker 1: we just declared it. It was more like somebody might
Speaker 1: have a title and it was like, oh, that's kind
Speaker 1: of sounds like a dude title. And there are a
Speaker 1: lot of dudes cutting right now. It's like that kind
Speaker 1: of thuff, you know what I mean. When we're trying,
Speaker 1: when we put on our business hats, it can go there.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we got a paycheck, you know, ready to get
Speaker 1: your mind blown? This might be really bad. Okay, what
Speaker 1: year was this? Not too long ago? Like this song?
Speaker 1: I love this song. This song is so cool. Christian
Speaker 1: Buff put it and we can't take the heat. Can't
Speaker 1: they jump in the swim in to see wait guys
Speaker 1: ting am on, come on, take along, let me get
Speaker 1: to it. But water make it harder. Capon Chlory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was so sweet, so sweet, m you and me chemistry.
Speaker 1: Cappon Chlory. Yay. Hey you missed a spawl on your back, Bud.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry. That song is awesome. That song
Speaker 1: has not been cut, you believe. I mean, I actually
Speaker 1: really love that songs. We should we should, well we shouldn't.
Speaker 1: Christian Bush cut it, but he did. I don't think
Speaker 1: you would be Jacob, are you going going? Tim would
Speaker 1: be amazing. I think Tim has heard it. I think
Speaker 1: his people have heard it. Any Yeah, it's a good
Speaker 1: song right here pitching songs, yeah, Tone and chlorine. You
Speaker 1: guys have so much fun together. How do you go
Speaker 1: back to writing by yourself? Isn't it so sad? I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, she does a lot, she writes a lot
Speaker 1: by herself. I honestly don't write by myself. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't live here, So if I lived here, I would
Speaker 1: just call one of my friends. I would just have
Speaker 1: I also can't write every day. These guys write every day.
Speaker 1: I cannot write every day. I'm not. My brain just isn't.
Speaker 1: I'm just not that smart and I sort of have
Speaker 1: That's why I think. I you know, if I do
Speaker 1: come in with, say, more titles, it's because I've been
Speaker 1: saving them up. Then you guys have to write titles.
Speaker 1: But but I mean, like you guys write every day.
Speaker 1: So it's like I think, I think I probably write,
Speaker 1: you know, six or eight songs a month, and these guys,
Speaker 1: you know, that's probably double that. Oh. I write every
Speaker 1: day every single day, pretty much, sometimes twice a day.
Speaker 1: Not on the weekends. I said, for two weekends ago,
Speaker 1: I wrote all weekend. Why because I had to, so
Speaker 1: for me, I got to I mean that's terrible because
Speaker 1: I had to poor me. But I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's just opportunity. It's like if you don't, somebody else will.
Speaker 1: And I love doing it. It's fun and and like
Speaker 1: where most people go to lunch with their friends and
Speaker 1: go shopping. And our friendship, our girl time is when
Speaker 1: we write. I mean, my best friends came from this business.
Speaker 1: My best friends came from you know, they're my best friends.
Speaker 1: And it's because we hang out together and we were
Speaker 1: very protective of each other and we love each other
Speaker 1: and we're we're more sisters than co writers, you know.
Speaker 1: So you can get burnt out though by writing too much.
Speaker 1: You get burnout on us, not our friendship, on writing
Speaker 1: every day. Like I am sometimes very envious of Lorie's
Speaker 1: life and being able to like step away from it
Speaker 1: and then come back into it and step away from
Speaker 1: it and this, you know, because being here it is
Speaker 1: it is like, well, somebody else is going to do it,
Speaker 1: so you can't drop the ball. Well and for me,
Speaker 1: being a publisher different, I have to set an example
Speaker 1: for writers, but everybody's different, you know. But Craig Wiseman
Speaker 1: used to always say, what is it? It's like a farmer.
Speaker 1: The more seeds you throw out there, the more crop
Speaker 1: you'll get. So there's that whole theory too, of just
Speaker 1: having more songs. And every day you wake up and go,
Speaker 1: I've got to write today, and there's nothing in my brain.
Speaker 1: And it's crazy. You walk in a room with nothing
Speaker 1: in your brain, and as soon as you hear music
Speaker 1: or somebody starts talking to you about something, suddenly this
Speaker 1: thing comes out and it's like, holy cow, where did
Speaker 1: that come from? And to circle back around, that is
Speaker 1: why we probably don't write along because you wouldn't walk
Speaker 1: into it, wouldn't. You have to have the other people.
Speaker 1: I have to have the other people to help inspire
Speaker 1: and help. I mean, you know, we just feed off
Speaker 1: of each other, you know so. But Laurie writes geniusly
Speaker 1: by herself. My favorite song in the world is still
Speaker 1: your Next Lover. I love that song. That song is
Speaker 1: so brilliant, right, and I was gonna I want you
Speaker 1: to play one last song together? Should we do that one? Well,
Speaker 1: they don't know that one. What's one you can all
Speaker 1: sing together? We could do sober? What else can we do?
Speaker 1: We could do? I mean I have to think, Patsy,
Speaker 1: we could do. I don't. I have to think about Patsy.
Speaker 1: It's not my brain. You want me to play it?
Speaker 1: How great to be in position? You guys, are you've
Speaker 1: written so many successful songs you've forgotten Well, we know
Speaker 1: it's not that you've written so many successful ones. It's
Speaker 1: that you've written so many. Yeah, because most of them
Speaker 1: are sitting on a shelf somewhere on the compewter Shehell,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we got you and you're trying to tell
Speaker 1: me the chord and I'm ready in the wrong. But
Speaker 1: that is a song about songs, So that is that
Speaker 1: is a song about how we feel about songwriting. Like
Speaker 1: I want to pray it like Jesus listening, I want
Speaker 1: to play it like it's all we have and uh,
Speaker 1: it's It's not a song for everybody, but I think
Speaker 1: people that love songs that have heard that song, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but if I if everybody else can identify,
Speaker 1: because it's really about how we sit there and like
Speaker 1: we like some days the song is easy and it
Speaker 1: and it and it's there in the room and you
Speaker 1: can feel it in the room. And some days we
Speaker 1: just literally pour our hearts into it and we we
Speaker 1: kind of fight it until it's right. And we that's
Speaker 1: why I can't do it every day because like you
Speaker 1: have to like just you know, give it your guts
Speaker 1: every day and and and so much of what we
Speaker 1: do and nobody hears it but us, and you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't let that weigh on you because you got
Speaker 1: to pour your gut out the next day again. And
Speaker 1: that that's what that song is, I think for all
Speaker 1: of us, Like I'm not the best singer in the world,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna sing like I'm gonna give it my heart,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And that's and we that
Speaker 1: was something that was a song I needed to write
Speaker 1: and and I say for these two to write together.
Speaker 1: And we just had a ball writing it one night.
Speaker 1: We had a little whiskey I think or something. Why
Speaker 1: maybe we probably didn't have whiskey, but but that's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing we do together because like we will
Speaker 1: save things for each other that we know, like I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do this, but these guys will.
Speaker 1: And that's an example of that. I still don't know
Speaker 1: how to play it. Obviously we did not many thanks
Speaker 1: to the Love Junkies Liz Rose, Lloyd McKenna and Hillary
Speaker 1: Lindsay for coming on Broken Record. We put together a
Speaker 1: playlist of our favorite songs they've written on our website,
Speaker 1: broken record dot Com. Broken Record is produced by Justin
Speaker 1: Richmond and Jason Gambrel, with help from mea LaBelle, Jacob Smith,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, and Jacob Weisberg. Special thanks to my co
Speaker 1: hosts Rick Rubin and Bruce Headlam. Our Broken Record theme
Speaker 1: music is by Kenny Beats. This show is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Bradwick.