Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey there, it's justin Richmond. Today we have a
Speaker 1: special Broken Record Holiday episode with Nashville singer songwriter Amanda Shires.
Speaker 1: We're gonna start things off with an exclusive acoustic performance
Speaker 1: of her new song home to Me, from the album
Speaker 1: for Christmas. You said there's a song the runway, I
Speaker 1: song the wings. I saved everywhere and nothing will bring
Speaker 1: you to me, to me, to me, adol wand it's
Speaker 1: new cold to walk. I keep looking for you, but
Speaker 1: I'm disfrosted. You should come home to me. Whoa to me?
Speaker 1: To me? Please come on, come on. I'm tired of
Speaker 1: the moon and keep in mind company. I'm tired of
Speaker 1: the dark and a night full of brittle stars. Should
Speaker 1: come home to me? Hoh to me, Ho to me,
Speaker 1: he please come home, come home. You wonder w gueed,
Speaker 1: I wonder what you see. I wonder what you're thinking,
Speaker 1: and if you'll ever be come in home to me,
Speaker 1: Home to me, Ho to me, come in home to me,
Speaker 1: Ho to me, to please come home come home. That
Speaker 1: was Amanda Shires singing home to Me. Shire's new holiday
Speaker 1: album for Christmas Isn't meant to make you feel merry
Speaker 1: and bright Instead, It's an acknowledgment of the complicated feelings
Speaker 1: that a lot of us have around the holidays, like disappointment, longing,
Speaker 1: and maybe even a little bit of lust. In addition
Speaker 1: to her solo career, Amanda Shire's plays fiddle and sings
Speaker 1: in her husband Jason Isabel's band, the four hundred Unit.
Speaker 1: She's also a founding member of the female country supergroup
Speaker 1: The High Woman with Brandy Carlisle. But wait before she
Speaker 1: hit a big and Nashville. With all of that, Shires
Speaker 1: played fiddle with the Texas Playboys, the legendary Western swing
Speaker 1: band started by Bob Wills that she joined when she
Speaker 1: was just twelve years old. On today's episode, Bruce Headlam
Speaker 1: talks to Amanda Shires about what inspired her to write
Speaker 1: a non traditional Christmas album. Shires also explains how finding
Speaker 1: out that her grandfather served decades in Alcatraz raised a
Speaker 1: ton of questions about her family's history, and she recalls
Speaker 1: what happened the time she discovered Jason Isabel ripped off
Speaker 1: one of her lyrics. This is broken record liner notes
Speaker 1: for the digital age. I'm justin Richmondon. Here's Bruce Headlam
Speaker 1: with Amanda Shires. First of all Nanda Shires. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for doing this, for having me. People who
Speaker 1: know your music, which is moody and very evocative, might
Speaker 1: be surprised that you had a Christmas album out. I
Speaker 1: was surprised you had a Christmas album out. So tell
Speaker 1: me what the thinking was going into this. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: to have a Christmas record. Out of all the things
Speaker 1: I had never thought I would do, it was a
Speaker 1: Christmas record. But I think the catalyst for it all
Speaker 1: was just going into this year knowing that Christmas is
Speaker 1: going to probably resume to some sort of sense of
Speaker 1: normalcy as opposed to last year. Last year, I was
Speaker 1: really happy not hearing all the Christmas jams and going
Speaker 1: out shopping and all that. You know. That's not to
Speaker 1: say I didn't miss a lot of stuff about normal holidays.
Speaker 1: So that was what started at all, as like that
Speaker 1: that might be a good song idea in there, and
Speaker 1: I started writing one song, and then I wrote ten,
Speaker 1: and then I covered one. Now, when you were growing up,
Speaker 1: I think most people had like a favorite holiday album.
Speaker 1: Did you have a holiday album at home that you
Speaker 1: were thinking of when you did this? I really liked that.
Speaker 1: Vince Giraldi I really liked that one in Bura Lives,
Speaker 1: you know, and my mom listened to a lot of
Speaker 1: like Pavarotti and what are those folks names? Those Irish
Speaker 1: folks that sing Christmas songs? They're like operatic, Yes that
Speaker 1: you did it the chieftains, Yes, because she's you know,
Speaker 1: Irish and she was Irish. Your mom. Well, we just
Speaker 1: found out actually that we don't know what we are
Speaker 1: because my granddad turns out, was in Alcatraz and nobody
Speaker 1: knew it till after he died, so we don't really
Speaker 1: know where he was from. In the end, he was
Speaker 1: incarcerated in Alcatraz, yeah, for twenty five years, one of
Speaker 1: the first two hundred. But when he got out, this
Speaker 1: when he started a family with my grandmother. But nobody
Speaker 1: knew any of this, this stuff about Alcatraz and all
Speaker 1: this until our merchandise guy gave me a family tree,
Speaker 1: like a complete one because his uncle is what are
Speaker 1: those genealogists types, And I was looking through it and
Speaker 1: I was like, that can't be real. Is that real?
Speaker 1: And then we hired a private investigator and it turns
Speaker 1: out it's true. That's amazing. Can you tell us what
Speaker 1: he was in for Yeah, he was a young man
Speaker 1: that was a career criminal, car thiefs, and you know
Speaker 1: how the money used to be in the post offices. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he held up a post office and he took
Speaker 1: the postmaster's child and why hostage, and nothing happened to
Speaker 1: them but except for obviously some kind of trauma. But yeah,
Speaker 1: when he got caught. After that, he went to Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: Did you know your grandfather when I was young. I
Speaker 1: did for a little while, and he passed away. He
Speaker 1: was he was quite old at that point. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna shed some light on a lot
Speaker 1: of different things in my life. Probably well when you
Speaker 1: do your Christmas and Alcatraz album exactly, So there's elements
Speaker 1: to that in my Christmas records. You know, people go
Speaker 1: to prison. You know John Prine had a Christmas in prison,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, so you're gonna play some songs for us,
Speaker 1: So tell me first about Home to Me. Home to
Speaker 1: Me captures a feeling of wishing folks were around that
Speaker 1: aren't well at Christmas time or any other time, and
Speaker 1: I think that that's feelings we all have around the
Speaker 1: holiday season. In any season, it's kind of a desperate
Speaker 1: plea for reconciliation. I guess was that your feeling last
Speaker 1: year with Christmas when you were isolated. I feel that
Speaker 1: way about different people in it that come in and
Speaker 1: out of my life, and then different family members. And
Speaker 1: I kind of wrote it in a way where I
Speaker 1: was trying to apply it to different types of relationships
Speaker 1: that I've had, but mostly it's like a love relationship.
Speaker 1: When I think about it, pretty hard, I just like
Speaker 1: to mask all my true feelings with you know, other feelings.
Speaker 1: Feelings are complicated because to me, I thought it was
Speaker 1: a romantic song or a song about a romantic relationship,
Speaker 1: but really you were talking about something else. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about that. But I don't want the folks that feel
Speaker 1: moved by the song and wish that it was their
Speaker 1: own father or somebody to feel way laid in the
Speaker 1: outcome of finding out that it is like a wanting
Speaker 1: a love relationship. But I guess I should trust my audience.
Speaker 1: It reminded me this song that holiday songs can be
Speaker 1: actually the saddest songs. It seemed to me the flip
Speaker 1: side of that old song I'll be Home for Christmas right,
Speaker 1: which was a big wartime song. This seemed like from
Speaker 1: the other end, like come home. It is that for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll just start being honest about it. Who cares.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, you want somebody in your life
Speaker 1: and it's just not going right, and it sucks worse
Speaker 1: around Christmas. Yeah, things suck words around Christmas. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go back a bit. You grew up in Texas and
Speaker 1: you grew up Is it true you grew up near
Speaker 1: Mineral Wells. I was born in Mineral Wells, population eight
Speaker 1: and my dad and my gran parents and stuff still
Speaker 1: live out there. And then when my dad and mom
Speaker 1: split up, I lived with my mom in Kansas City
Speaker 1: and then love it because where she finally settled down.
Speaker 1: I don't know Texas very well. I've been there a
Speaker 1: few times. I only knew Mineral Wells from the Tom
Speaker 1: Russell song. I didn't know it was a real place.
Speaker 1: It's a real place. I have a song called Mineral
Speaker 1: Wells too. Okay, this is embarrassing because I totally missed that. Listen.
Speaker 1: I have a little bit embarrassed that I tried to
Speaker 1: lie off my feelings on a Christmas song a minute ago.
Speaker 1: So even well, we're gonna get deeper into your feelings.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. Oh good, okay. I have to ask you
Speaker 1: because a lot of people compare your voice to Dolly
Speaker 1: Parton's voice, and that's of course a compliment. When did
Speaker 1: you first meet Dolly Parton? I met her at OURCA
Speaker 1: studio A for rehearsals for the Highwomen Newport Show. Now
Speaker 1: what was that like? I mean, I asked your assistant
Speaker 1: the day before, I said, what do you think Dolly
Speaker 1: Parton would like me to wear? Because I really want
Speaker 1: to make it good depression. She said probably leather and lace,
Speaker 1: and so at home and the next stay I put
Speaker 1: on leather and lace, and sure enough it worked. I waited.
Speaker 1: I got there early, and she came in and we
Speaker 1: talked about our leather and lace a lot, and it
Speaker 1: was magical and terrifying. I mean, watching her work is
Speaker 1: an incredible thing. We'll be right back with more from
Speaker 1: Amanda Shires. After a quick break. We're back with Bruce
Speaker 1: Hudlam and Amanda Shires. So was there music in your
Speaker 1: family growing up? Was there always music around the house.
Speaker 1: There was music in my mom's house and then at
Speaker 1: my granddad's and dads. They do wholesale greenhouse stuff. Where
Speaker 1: you grow plants and stuff for your nurseries. So there
Speaker 1: was music playing on the radio and stuff there, and
Speaker 1: then in the pecan orchards, it was just turning the
Speaker 1: tractor radio as loud as you could get it. But
Speaker 1: my grandfather that I was very close to Garland, he
Speaker 1: wasn't of the generation, and I don't think they thought
Speaker 1: that playing music was going to get you anywhere because
Speaker 1: he had a guitar, but it was just in his closet.
Speaker 1: And then you started with violin. Is that what's that
Speaker 1: your first? Yeah, violin? I got that violin and I
Speaker 1: started playing in school. And then I met Frankie McCord
Speaker 1: from the Texas Playboys and started to learning my ear
Speaker 1: from him on his porch and was going to quit violin,
Speaker 1: and then my mom said, how about you do violin
Speaker 1: and we could parallel that with the fiddle, And I said,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a sweet deal. What was it like
Speaker 1: to sit on his porch and learn those old Texas
Speaker 1: Playboy songs? Because that's some that's very high end fiddling.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of jazz, all that Western swing stuff
Speaker 1: is really it's pretty accomplished. I was what they call
Speaker 1: ate up with it. It was my joy not just
Speaker 1: to hang out with him and listen to him talk
Speaker 1: and sing, but to learn and then even go deeper
Speaker 1: like he learned fro him the first recorded fiddler Robertson,
Speaker 1: and learned songs that predate the Will's Band and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. I don't know if there's a lot of
Speaker 1: audio of them, but I've got tapes and CDs and
Speaker 1: stuff full of the stuff, and I just somehow I
Speaker 1: don't know why. Well, I do know why. I've always
Speaker 1: been good at making friends with old folks, and I
Speaker 1: really prefer it because they they're decisive and they're setting
Speaker 1: their ways and direct. You know. It's so I do
Speaker 1: well in that situation. And then the music, it just
Speaker 1: spoke to me. So I did that. And you know,
Speaker 1: instrumental music is the way I used to express myself
Speaker 1: back then, because I didn't really have a vocabulary for
Speaker 1: expression as a ten or twelve year old with very
Speaker 1: little frontal lobe development. Do you remember the first couple
Speaker 1: of songs you learned. The first Bob Wills song I
Speaker 1: ever learned was Spanish two step, and that is the
Speaker 1: day I was told my mom I was going to
Speaker 1: quit playing the violin. She's like, we're going to just
Speaker 1: do both. And then you joined the Texas Playboys for
Speaker 1: a while. How old were you? Twelve? I would go
Speaker 1: in and out in between school and when they needed me.
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't play a whole whole lot, but
Speaker 1: it was enough where I felt like a member of
Speaker 1: a band, and we had scheduling and logistics and stuff.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like when you think of touring artists now,
Speaker 1: but a lot of that was they needed somebody to
Speaker 1: play that low third part and I was willing to
Speaker 1: do it. And I don't think I really had an
Speaker 1: ego about any of the music or anything. I was
Speaker 1: just happy to be there. My stuff worked and I
Speaker 1: showed up on time and we all got along well.
Speaker 1: And eventually they started teaching me how to improvise, and
Speaker 1: that was a whole new bag of worms. How did
Speaker 1: they teach you that? In my mind, it's like throw
Speaker 1: your kid into the swimming pool. They'll eventually swim. They'd
Speaker 1: take their solos, you know, all night long, and they're like,
Speaker 1: at some point we're going to point out your're gonna
Speaker 1: do your solo. And I'm thinking, okay, well, this could
Speaker 1: go a lot of different ways. But they're my friends.
Speaker 1: They'll catch me if I fall, and I did. I fell,
Speaker 1: and I failed a whole whole lot. But they kept
Speaker 1: making me do it, not making me giving me the
Speaker 1: chance to do it. Like we play a song like
Speaker 1: old fashioned love, you know, some easy, easy changes and
Speaker 1: all right, a mandature turn and I'd have to go
Speaker 1: step up like I was taking a major solo. Then
Speaker 1: you learned really quickly that way, you know, were you
Speaker 1: listening to records as well of violin players to try
Speaker 1: and get ideas. I didn't think about getting ideas from
Speaker 1: anything as far as improvisation until later, because I didn't
Speaker 1: know that that was a way to do it. But
Speaker 1: during that time I was in order to go to school,
Speaker 1: high school and junior high and all that and be
Speaker 1: part of the kid culture I was in. I had
Speaker 1: to also maintain what was on the pop radio, rap radio,
Speaker 1: you know, the Tejato stations. But at home it was
Speaker 1: strictly Bob Will's Tiffany transcriptions. That I listened to a
Speaker 1: lot of the individual Texas Playboys is fiddle in records,
Speaker 1: and then my favorite was Louie Tierney who played with
Speaker 1: them a lot. So I'd go listen to that song
Speaker 1: just to hear that part again, and I liked all
Speaker 1: of them. And you're a very gritty violin player. It's sharp,
Speaker 1: You've got a lot of bite to when you're playing.
Speaker 1: Like I compare you to somebody like Alison Crows, who's
Speaker 1: a very famous fiddler, but she's got a much sweeter sound.
Speaker 1: You like that really is that kind of a Texas sound,
Speaker 1: that harder sound. I think that's a sound that I've
Speaker 1: kind of developed from listening to rock and roll in
Speaker 1: fighting with guitars, and it's also got a lot of
Speaker 1: what I have, which is an attitude. I also think
Speaker 1: that you can do a lot with the texture of sounds,
Speaker 1: because sometimes I do think it's appropriate to make your
Speaker 1: violin whistle or go harmonic scrapy for whatever effect you're
Speaker 1: trying to achieve. And then depending on who's producing those
Speaker 1: types of things can be you know, affected in a
Speaker 1: way that changes a complete landscape of a song. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: like in that song Adjacent's if We're Vampires, there's some
Speaker 1: of that going on. And then Traveling Alone was kind
Speaker 1: of when I started playing with that idea and when
Speaker 1: did the songwriting start? Because of the playboys, you were
Speaker 1: on a bunch of albums. You were fiddling for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. You're sort of a side player. When
Speaker 1: did you start songwriting? I started, you know, I have
Speaker 1: a little goofy poetry. But that would be after I
Speaker 1: sang for the first time lead song. The first time
Speaker 1: I sang a lead on a song was I had
Speaker 1: to hold Leon Rausch of the Texas Playboy's hand to
Speaker 1: sing that song. That sure would go good. That I
Speaker 1: have pictures and we're just holding hands. I was so scared.
Speaker 1: But then I started singing, and then started doing harmony
Speaker 1: and trying to, you know, be available when somebody might
Speaker 1: want harmony. Who were singing, you know, just expands your
Speaker 1: work a little bit more, I guess. And I was playing.
Speaker 1: I was playing fiddle playing with everybody singing. And I decided,
Speaker 1: you know what would supplement my own income. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: copy the Texas Playboys and I'm gonna make a little
Speaker 1: fiddle in record. And so I made a little fiddle
Speaker 1: in record, not an artist record. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: set up on the stage and get a couple of
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen dollars here and there got about nine
Speaker 1: eight or nine fiddle tunes in and I thought people
Speaker 1: might want to know like that I could sing in
Speaker 1: case theyver want me to sing with them too. You know,
Speaker 1: it's all very entrepreneurial in a way. Were you touring
Speaker 1: in Texas at this time or were you up in Nashville,
Speaker 1: Texas still, because I did just basically all my pre
Speaker 1: artist career was in Texas. So I thought, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to sing a song so people know I
Speaker 1: could sing harmony and stuff. And I started thinking about
Speaker 1: what song I was singing. Then I realized you had
Speaker 1: to pay royalties. And then I thought, well, self, what
Speaker 1: are we going to do? And so I've made up
Speaker 1: two songs and I put them on there. Well, turns
Speaker 1: out that record was done, and I found myself on
Speaker 1: the road with Billy Joe Shaver, and one night I decided,
Speaker 1: you know, there's enough room on that table. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: set my CDs right there. That's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: And I set my CDs right there. I didn't ask
Speaker 1: anybody didn't know you had to ask. And after the show,
Speaker 1: he was signing some CDs and he said, is that
Speaker 1: your record sitting up there with mind? And I said, yep,
Speaker 1: and he said, I guess we'll have to listen to
Speaker 1: that tomorrow. Huh. And I said, oh, you don't have
Speaker 1: to listen to it. You could just have it and
Speaker 1: listen to it on your own time. He's like, Nope,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to listen to it, and so he
Speaker 1: put it on in the car and then we're listening
Speaker 1: and there's no where. He's not saying anything, just got
Speaker 1: his radars for the cops, you know, driving real fast.
Speaker 1: And I'm worried. I'm like, WHOA, what have I done?
Speaker 1: And he heard one of the songs on there, and
Speaker 1: he said, you know what you need to do. You
Speaker 1: need to move to Nashville and become a songwriter. There's
Speaker 1: no loyalty in the side person world. And I thought
Speaker 1: I was being fired, like it was a polite way
Speaker 1: to fire me. So I said, no, Billy Joe, I
Speaker 1: love my job. I don't mind not settled the CDs
Speaker 1: if you don't want me to, I don't. I really
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I really love playing with you.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm learning a lot. And he said, no,
Speaker 1: but you should. You could be a songwriter. If you
Speaker 1: want to go be a songwriter, you should be a songwriter,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know, Billy Joe, I
Speaker 1: really like playing with you. And then a year later
Speaker 1: I told Billy Joe Shaver I was moving to Nashville
Speaker 1: to pursue my dreams of being a waitress. And then
Speaker 1: I started over and here we sit. Was there a
Speaker 1: song you heard? Was there something that inspired you that
Speaker 1: made you think I can do this? Who were your
Speaker 1: inspirations back then? I always heard Billy Joe Shaver and thought,
Speaker 1: I wonder if I could do that one day, and
Speaker 1: just the way he captured exactly what he was feeling
Speaker 1: in that way, and then I did I realize that, no,
Speaker 1: I can't. I have to do the ones that come
Speaker 1: from me. But the other people I were listening to
Speaker 1: were everybody from Cindy Walker all of her songs from
Speaker 1: the Playboys, I loved that, like that song you Don't
Speaker 1: Know Me, and then then of course all of the
Speaker 1: all of the Whale and Jennings and Dolly Parton I
Speaker 1: listened to, and I listened to acts like Jagged Edge
Speaker 1: and Destiny's Child and everything Elliott Smith and I had.
Speaker 1: Then I started working at a record store and it
Speaker 1: was just crazy. And then I fell in love with
Speaker 1: Leonard Cohen, and I was like, that's me. I'm Leonard Cohen, don't.
Speaker 1: I don't mean I'm Leonard Cohen, but that's I identify
Speaker 1: with that. You went and got your MFA, which not
Speaker 1: a lot of country writers do. What made you want
Speaker 1: to do that? My life philosophy is like, we're all
Speaker 1: here to learn, and you know, as nature does grow
Speaker 1: until we made our end. So I went to get
Speaker 1: my MFA like I did when I was learning the fiddle,
Speaker 1: like with everything I had. When I discovered my passion
Speaker 1: for writing in words, I wanted to do that and
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what I was doing, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to make decisions and know the
Speaker 1: reason for the decisions I was making and not kind
Speaker 1: of just go on instinct. Like I wanted to know
Speaker 1: down to the preposition what the word choices could be
Speaker 1: and then how they would affect a liner and emotion
Speaker 1: depending on where and how you use them. And I
Speaker 1: just wanted to be kind of able to do it
Speaker 1: with purpose and intention and to not second guess myself,
Speaker 1: but also stay open to criticism should somebody notice something
Speaker 1: I forgot. But for me, I get passionate about something
Speaker 1: and I want to do it and I want to
Speaker 1: do it right, and I don't get very passionate about
Speaker 1: a lot of things, basically just music, writing and painting.
Speaker 1: Where does that come from? Was someone in your family
Speaker 1: that way about what they did? No, I think when
Speaker 1: I think about it historically, I think it's something that's
Speaker 1: been lost. Like, I don't know, I'm no historian, but
Speaker 1: I feel like people used to do a lot more
Speaker 1: things like read and be into arts and learning. And
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to sound like an old grand mob,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's a lot of TV watching going
Speaker 1: on when you could be exploring yourself in the world
Speaker 1: around you. You know, I always preferred being outside over
Speaker 1: being inside. Yeah, I mean, there's nobody else that I
Speaker 1: know that really. I mean, my mom was a single
Speaker 1: mother who eventually became a doctor, but that was also
Speaker 1: while she's while she was raising two kids and being
Speaker 1: a bail bonds lady and working at Price Chopper. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we know where it comes from that. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're right, So there we go. What was learning to
Speaker 1: write at an MFA? Like, what kind of things did
Speaker 1: you do and how did they help your music. I
Speaker 1: think the MFA was the hardest thing I've ever done. Like,
Speaker 1: I read everything James Joyce ever wrote. I suffered ocular
Speaker 1: migraines and my lost vision in one of my eyes
Speaker 1: from reading so much, but it came back, thank God.
Speaker 1: And you know, we'd do everything from workshops to study
Speaker 1: Middle English and Old English and you know where words
Speaker 1: came from and vowel shifts, and poets we'd study other
Speaker 1: poets in their works and yeah, that was that was
Speaker 1: really fun. Though it's a lot. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: a couple of examples in your songs where you can
Speaker 1: look at them and say, without that training, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have written this song. Oh yeah, for sure. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have written Parking Lot Pirouette without that training. And that's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite. If if I had to pick
Speaker 1: one of my favorite songs of my own, it would
Speaker 1: be that one. Then White Feather from to the Sunset. Also,
Speaker 1: that's when all that was kind of wrapping up and
Speaker 1: I wrote it separately. I have a record coming in
Speaker 1: the spring. None of the songs I would have written
Speaker 1: without this kind of training that I had, because they're
Speaker 1: going a little bit literary, I guess, But still accessible.
Speaker 1: And then with the Christmas record, I would say it'd
Speaker 1: be slowfall and snow and some of them would be
Speaker 1: a lot worse. If I hadn't had the training, is
Speaker 1: what it would be. It wouldn't be the same level
Speaker 1: of accuracy of words to feelings. Now, I am going
Speaker 1: to put you in the spot because your husband had
Speaker 1: an online conversation with George Saunders, and I think people
Speaker 1: can find it on YouTube. So now, who do you
Speaker 1: want to do that with? What writers would do you
Speaker 1: want to speak to? Well? I will say that Jason
Speaker 1: did do that, but he was never asked by George
Speaker 1: to write a song for his tenth of December, and
Speaker 1: I was and I did and it was awesome. I
Speaker 1: would think Barbara Kings Salver, I would like to talk
Speaker 1: to her. I'd like to talk to Ada lemone wonderful poet,
Speaker 1: and some of them I've already talked to. I mean
Speaker 1: Tom Robins would be fun, definitely, Larry David. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be back with more
Speaker 1: from Amanda Shires. We're back with Amanda Shires singing her
Speaker 1: song always Christmas around Here from a new album for Christmas,
Speaker 1: It's Quiet right down, the skies gone dark, the sink
Speaker 1: full of dishes, the mondree a start, the best saying
Speaker 1: in the living room, there's wine all over the couch,
Speaker 1: the sisters art speaking. Who's crying now? It's allays Christmas
Speaker 1: round here. It's allays Christmas round here, compounded interest, no
Speaker 1: sleeping in. Dad's asking for money. He's in a bad
Speaker 1: waykin keep pushing down the trash to keep from taking
Speaker 1: it out. The bread always earns. Think we'd use a
Speaker 1: tier by now. It's alllways Christmas around here. It's always
Speaker 1: Christmas around here, solways, always always the same. It's always
Speaker 1: Christmas around here here my house. Lots of questionable tattoos,
Speaker 1: silent fights and holy fights. Dave's bassack word views, look
Speaker 1: forward to a new a new Saturdays, hoping for change.
Speaker 1: Baby win the lottery one day. It's so's Christmas around here.
Speaker 1: It's Allays Christmas around Here's allays always a saying. It's
Speaker 1: all Lays Christmas around here. Happy in the year. This
Speaker 1: brings us around too. I think just one of the
Speaker 1: most sharply observed songs on your album, which is always
Speaker 1: Christmas around here. Can you tell me about that song?
Speaker 1: You know? How folks say every day's Christmas. It's like
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it and you're sitting there
Speaker 1: thinking after you know, everything's cleaned up, and you're looking
Speaker 1: around just kind of noticing the conversations and enjoying the
Speaker 1: company with all of its positive and negatives, just like
Speaker 1: in the moment, like it's just it's just true because
Speaker 1: you it together just one time a year with folks
Speaker 1: that you don't see every day, and you're expected to
Speaker 1: hang out and agree on all things because you're related.
Speaker 1: And then you cook a turkey, and like who cooks
Speaker 1: the turkey in the year outside of Christmas or Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: Like why are we going to have the thing we're
Speaker 1: the worst at making. That's a thing that always bothers me.
Speaker 1: You think about it and you're like, Christmas, it's just
Speaker 1: you drag all this stuff out and you decorate your
Speaker 1: house with it. But also at the same time, you're
Speaker 1: still doing the same things you do every every day,
Speaker 1: Like every day Jason and I are trying to see
Speaker 1: who's gonna push the trash down the furthest or for
Speaker 1: the last time and who has to take it out.
Speaker 1: You know that happens to our Christmas it's all just
Speaker 1: the way life just is all the time. But it's
Speaker 1: just happens to be Christmas. That's what that song is.
Speaker 1: But it's full of sort of beautiful line. It just
Speaker 1: kind of sum up that experiences. I don't remember the
Speaker 1: precise words, but there's wine stains on the carpet and
Speaker 1: someone says we'll win the lottery. Yeah, it's this incredible
Speaker 1: kind of slice of life. I think that that true
Speaker 1: experiences to me are the ways that you can describe
Speaker 1: the feelings the best in a song. How do you
Speaker 1: go about writing lyrics? Then do you start with the
Speaker 1: melody and then add the lyrics? Sometimes I'm like all
Speaker 1: of all of the writers, you could start with the
Speaker 1: melody and add lyrics, or maybe you start with the
Speaker 1: piece of an idea. I'm not one of those that
Speaker 1: writes to a title. I've never been able to figure
Speaker 1: that out. You know a lot of people like read
Speaker 1: the title and they write to that. But throughout the
Speaker 1: year I take lots of notes, and then the notes
Speaker 1: I put little like a couple literal and or something
Speaker 1: on an index card, and a storm in my index
Speaker 1: card bins. And then when I feel like the well
Speaker 1: is full, I start taping them around my house. Like
Speaker 1: I can't tell right now, but a lot of the
Speaker 1: walls are white. So all the index cards go up
Speaker 1: and the painter's tape goes up, and then I just
Speaker 1: kind of synthesize all that and pull out my little
Speaker 1: voice memo recorder to see what melodies I have, and
Speaker 1: then you start ratting one or two and then it
Speaker 1: just pours out of you. Well, so you tape them
Speaker 1: all over the house. I used to only do it
Speaker 1: in the closet because I was afraid of judgment with
Speaker 1: it within my family, and then I realized that that
Speaker 1: was silly. Then I started. They started coming out of
Speaker 1: the little closet into the bathroom, into the master bedroom,
Speaker 1: and it only got tricky once when Jason ripped a
Speaker 1: line from me and I had to tell them that
Speaker 1: that wasn't how this was going to work. Did you
Speaker 1: just say, like, just tape up your own damn cards, Jason,
Speaker 1: I said, I realized what's happened here that you know,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to not read the words that are on
Speaker 1: the wall, but it infiltrated your unconscious and that's my line,
Speaker 1: and we have to be careful about that. But I
Speaker 1: Also I don't mind sharing. You know, I always tell
Speaker 1: them that I've got lines for days. Are you one
Speaker 1: of those people for it just comes easily, that lines come.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what it's like to be
Speaker 1: a different type of person, but I think that I
Speaker 1: stay in a particular mindset so that way I can
Speaker 1: always find it. You know, I don't shut I don't
Speaker 1: shut it down that part. I write a little every
Speaker 1: day and I still find beautiful lines and books and
Speaker 1: poems and room to get better. And I don't shut
Speaker 1: the part of my mind off that also shuts down imagination.
Speaker 1: So like I guess you could call it a little
Speaker 1: bit of your silly like itself. You've got to keep
Speaker 1: some kind of like part of you that's open and
Speaker 1: spontaneous and can find magic. And like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: looking at rocks, that's interesting because for so many people
Speaker 1: you mentioned worrying about your family's judgment, that fear of
Speaker 1: judgment is what keeps them from being able to write.
Speaker 1: You don't feel that. I used to feel that a
Speaker 1: whole lot. And I don't know if it's age and
Speaker 1: going to school and studying under Andrew Hudgins, but I
Speaker 1: don't feel that way, because it's impossible to, based on
Speaker 1: some words, get a whole clear picture of what is
Speaker 1: in anybody's mind, because you know, truly, like if any
Speaker 1: other songwriter took one of my little index cards words
Speaker 1: and it wasn't Jason, probably wouldn't even be very good.
Speaker 1: This is positive self talk with Avanda Shires. This is
Speaker 1: how you do it. You'd be confident in yourself, you
Speaker 1: know what the hell you're doing, and then if anybody
Speaker 1: has questions, you can choose to answer them or not.
Speaker 1: And as far as judgment, that all kind of comes
Speaker 1: after the records out, so you have time to fix
Speaker 1: it in between now and then. How many drafts you
Speaker 1: typically do of songs lots like a song on this album?
Speaker 1: How many? How many would you have done? I have
Speaker 1: forty seven verses to Gone for Christmas. Oh you're kidding, no, no,
Speaker 1: And I have have pages on pages of always Christmas
Speaker 1: around here. Recently, my producer Laurd Trothman is insisting that
Speaker 1: I don't shred them for six months, just so I
Speaker 1: could look at the process on my own better. This
Speaker 1: is going to sound like a silly question, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people I ask this question to have very
Speaker 1: specific answers. Is there a kind of notebook you write in? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like the I like a specific notebook, but I
Speaker 1: don't keep them, like, I shred them. After I put
Speaker 1: the notes onto the cards and they go into my
Speaker 1: little index card bins, they all go in the shredder,
Speaker 1: and the shredded paper goes into the compost and then
Speaker 1: I use it in my garden. Why do you shred
Speaker 1: them because the whole place would be a tinderbox. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is just a storage issue, it's not you hate
Speaker 1: them well and honestly, like it's a little bit like
Speaker 1: that that idea of if some they saw my Google
Speaker 1: search history, they would really think something was wrong with me.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you have to know the details about you know,
Speaker 1: turquoise mines, and then simultaneously you need to know the
Speaker 1: exact weight of a sash weight to use a particular
Speaker 1: fight that some characters might have, and exactly what is
Speaker 1: strychnine and stuff like that. Would stryc nine just be
Speaker 1: after the Google search? My husband stole my lyrics? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: definitely after I Amazon ordered a knife sharpener jokes. But
Speaker 1: there's there, there is that thing where like you have
Speaker 1: all these pieces of paper everywhere and then been there
Speaker 1: left to interpretation kind of like like I kind of think,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's shitty that they released Marilyn Monroe's diary,
Speaker 1: But I guess that's the risk you run if you
Speaker 1: leave your diary. So you wrote forty seven verses, and
Speaker 1: then do you try and put some together or you
Speaker 1: just like you stroke off, like you get rid of
Speaker 1: forty four of them, or I can't remember how many
Speaker 1: verses are in the song. Some people say way too
Speaker 1: many and some people say not enough. The way I
Speaker 1: do it is I try some out in the studio,
Speaker 1: like I bring my favorite, like with that when I
Speaker 1: brought my favorite twenty in and then I tried some out,
Speaker 1: and then as you go and you follow the thing
Speaker 1: that makes it the most, fits the best, and then
Speaker 1: the other ones could be another version if they wanted
Speaker 1: to be, if you know, they decide to be for
Speaker 1: Christmas number two. So you are Leonard Cohen because that's
Speaker 1: how he wrote. He wrote hundreds of verses for songs. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't always do that, because home to me, I
Speaker 1: just wrote that in one go tell me about the
Speaker 1: last song you're doing for us, which is a real tree.
Speaker 1: This one's a funny song. I always always liked the
Speaker 1: idea of things that happen around the holidays, you know,
Speaker 1: like new love interests or well, really, I think we
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about here. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: instead of a fake tree, this lady's found herself a
Speaker 1: real tree. And I guess it's a euphemism. Christmas is
Speaker 1: a time for romance and booty calls and sadness and
Speaker 1: nostalgia and all the things, right, Like it'd be like
Speaker 1: just trying to that's the point of the record. You
Speaker 1: can listen to a lot of Christmas records and it's
Speaker 1: it's either hymns, which are great, or everything's really happy
Speaker 1: and snowing, right, And this is all the rest of
Speaker 1: that stuff. That's what so great about this album. This
Speaker 1: is all the rest of the stuff you're forgetting about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're forgetting about the part where you could find love
Speaker 1: or or divorce. Should I check in with you again
Speaker 1: after Christmas just to make sure you're I mean, why
Speaker 1: not that, I mean you might as well, Okay, I
Speaker 1: just want to know which way it goes this year, right, right,
Speaker 1: let's dress you to be seen. I've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to this for fifty two weeks. I got feathers, gold
Speaker 1: and silver beads, garling and up to cover all six
Speaker 1: glorious fee of you. I got a real tree this year.
Speaker 1: Smells like mentholes and old spice. A real tree this year,
Speaker 1: took my fake one to the roadside tonight, putting you
Speaker 1: in bows, a red velvet skirt, dripping you in gold.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take my time and for someone get the
Speaker 1: lights on. You'll in just right. I'll flock the hell
Speaker 1: out of you. I got out a real tree. This
Speaker 1: you smells like menthols and old spice. A real tree
Speaker 1: this you took my fake one to the roadside. I
Speaker 1: haven't decided if you wear the crown of the big
Speaker 1: bright star. Oh how you shine for me through the dark,
Speaker 1: your reflection in the window, you beautiful thing. I'll take
Speaker 1: what I want. Candy came from my real Christmas tree.
Speaker 1: I got a real tree. This you. I catch myself
Speaker 1: staring a real tree this year. There's just no comparing. No,
Speaker 1: it's been just delightful talking to you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks to Amanda Shires for singing some songs
Speaker 1: from our new holiday album For Christmas. You can hear
Speaker 1: it and check out the playlist of our favorite Amanda
Speaker 1: Shire songs at broken record podcast dot com. We'll also
Speaker 1: post a holiday playlist curated by our Broken Record team.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is producer with help from Alia Rose, Jason Gambrel,
Speaker 1: Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help
Speaker 1: from Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is Neil Lavelle. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love
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Speaker 1: the Musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond, h