60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “I Can’t Make You Love Me” — Bonnie Raitt

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

Rob looks back at the heartbreak anthem that is “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” while also looking back at the phases of Bonnie Raitt’s lengthy career, as well as some of the biggest heartbreaks of his own past. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Emma Carmichael Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Sean Fennesse. We've got something special cooking on the Prestige TV podcast. I'll be recapping one of my favorite shows, HBO's Barry, every Sunday night with the writer-director star of the show, The Great Bill Hater. We'll talk about the show's wild twists and turns, its special brand of dark comedy, and how it all came together. So on Sunday nights, immediately after a new episode airs, you can hear Bill and I break it all down on the Prestige TV pod. Subscribe on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Kindergarten, St. St. Louis, Missouri. This girl in my class kissed me while everyone was standing in line to use the drinking fountain. Not my idea, but I was not opposed.

I went home. I told my mom, my mom got super weirded out and was like, you're in fucking kindergarten. Don't do that again. I'm paraphrasing. I went to school the next day. I told the girl she couldn't kiss me anymore. Next thing you know, I'm standing in line for the drinking fountain and the girl's in front of me kissing some other boy, kissing Kyle, if I recall correctly. And I'm standing there like, well now, hold on a second.

Joy Aladakun, singer-songwriter based in Nashville. Her Twitter bio says she's The Trap Tracy Chapman. Jason Isbell on guitar, first grade. My parents moved me to Catholic school. I expected that. I had a crush on a sixth grader, ambitious. I wrote her a note, professing my love. Then at recess, while playing soccer, I looked across the playground,

and there's a giant crowd of sixth graders that I suspect is surrounding somebody reading my love note out loud. Another day I saw her in the hall and I worked up the courage to tell her that her shoes were untied and she gave me this pitying, condescending look that said, my shoes are untied for fashion. Turn down these four sides of my head. Tank, big shot R&B singer, Tank is well-named fifth grade. I asked my new crush, a sixth grader again, actually. I already have a type. I worked up the courage to ask my crush to couple skate with me during a school trip to the roller rink. And she said yes. I did not expect that. Did we hold hands? We might have. I couldn't roller skate for shit. I fell down like 12 times. We couple skated to a soft rock power

ballad called When I'm With You by the affable Canadian rock band Sheriff. That song rules. It breaks the rhythm if I play it for you. But I fell down like 12 times during the chorus to when I'm with you. It was like, baby, yeah, yeah. Oh, I get chills when I'm with you. And every time I wipe out, I look up to see my crush just hovering there gracefully beaming down at me. She was giggling. she was amused, charmed, even smitten. She thought my gracelessness was adorable. I'm projecting. Then my family moved to Ohio.

Last time I saw my crush, she told me she'd miss me. We were standing in the middle of the street. The sun was setting behind her. Soak. Irish singer-songwriter, acoustic guitar, and instead of piano. Soak says, any great song can be played on one instrument. Sixth grade. Rough move, rough transition. In this new Catholic school, in this new state, my various eccentricities are not well received or regarded as adorable. My classmates called me Lamo. Once I stumbled on a

handwritten letter from my mom to a friend back in St. Louis and my mom had written, I don't know what to do. Everyone's calling him a lameo. On weekends, I rented a lot of Nintendo games. games from the grocery store. The Predator NES games sucked. Meanwhile, various amorous classmates of mine were Frenching one another, I believe, was the term of art, not French kissing, just Frenching. Saying it that way saves time. Everybody was Frenching, whereas I was not. Kelly Clarkson, that's her recorded version from 2011. She did this song again a couple of years back on her talk show, a quick Kellyoki version in 2020.

I-patch era, Kelly Clarkson, she's fine now. The I-patch enhanced the vulnerability of the Kelly-Oki version. Junior High. Oh, all of it. Just all of it. Holy shit. What a disaster. Forget it. We're skipping Junior High.

George Michael. George Michael's version is unbelievable. String Quartet for the second version. the way he pronounces it patronize. It's a way more sophisticated way to sing that word. Unbelievable. Okay, fine. So like seventh grade, right? My first formal, will you go with me, relationship? Not will you go out with me or go steady with me? Just will you go with me? It saves time. My first relationship lasted four days, Friday to Monday, Friday afternoon to Monday night, four days, three nights. It began with such promise at a junior high gymnasium after

school dance, the classic. The cheap police car siren lights flashing, the DJ queuing up, groove is in the heart. I forget what we slow dance to. I do know that I was ecstatic, and I ran up to the DJ to request another slow one. I requested something to believe in by poison. Not every rose has its thorn, something to believe in a way more sophisticated poison power ballad. But the DJ didn't play it. I didn't see my quote unquote girlfriend all weekend, but I was still ecstatic. She called me up Monday night and dumped me and started dating some other guy. Matt, if I recall correctly. I was devastated. I bet Matt wound up in prison. Teddy Swims, a burly fella from Atlanta who made a big doing YouTube covers of Shania Twain and Frank Ocean and so forth, big beard tattoos.

alternate timeline action Bronson. The top comment on this video reads, in essence, never in my wildest dreams did I think one day I'd see a Viking singing like an angel. 27 million YouTube plays on this. Arguably the most popular cover of this song. That's more plays than the original. Huh, that's fine. One more junior high thing. Eighth grade. Eighth grade, I went to a co-ed Halloween party, and right before I left, a member of my extended family who will remain nameless decided to seize upon this occasion to teach me how to kiss a girl by demonstrating on his own hand. So like he sits me down. He's like, so here's what you do. And I'm like, what? And he's like, you start with a long one. He kisses his own hand. Then you do a few short ones.

He kisses his own hand a bunch of times. And I'm sitting there trying to spontaneously combust. Like I want to blow myself up like a spinal tap drummer. This person asked me to stop telling this story and for the most part I have complied needless to say I did not exchange any kisses of any length with any young ladies at this Halloween party my costume that year was permanently traumatized 13 year old Katie Perry and Casey Musgraves on CMT Crossroads classic Crossroads episode this was 2014 during the peak katie Perry versus Taylor Swift era the bad blood What a lot of intrigue? What a subtext? Ninth grade. My first kiss of any substance transpired high up in the bleachers during, I believe, a women's JV basketball game. After a few seconds, the girl pulled away from me and indicated that even with a modest amount of tongue involved, I was still using my tongue incorrectly. Specifically, what she said was upward. That's all she said. Upward. What? Prince. Yes, Prince. Emancipation Era Prince, capital letter U in the song title. The Prince version is six and a half minutes long and ends with him saying, I offer you sexual relations. That's a direct quote. I offer you sexual relations. And then one presumes he engages in sexual relations. Look, obviously it's not that Prince can't handle a heartbroken love song. Of course he can't. He wrote nothing compares to you. But I am still delighted by the fact that.

Prince was like, okay, I'll sing this song, but I am definitely fucking this lady before the song's over. Still ninth grade. I ended the upward relationship awkwardly because I had my eye on another young lady. Let's call this young lady Jane Smith. It never worked out with Jane Smith. I tried off and on for years. Jane Smith was a boondoggle. So much so that among my family and friends, Jane Smith endured as like a running joke, right, as like a living symbol of my romantic ineptitude. And so years later, I'm out of college. It's my first newspaper job. And to call me on my work phone, you call the receptionist. You say, I'd like to speak to Rob Harvilla. Receptionist says, who may I say is calling? You're George Michael. So you say, this is George Michael. Receptionist says,

okay. I'm at my desk. My phone rings. I pick it up. Receptionist says, George Michael, calling for you. I say okay. It clicks through. I say, hello, George, and now I'm talking to you, George Michael. So one day my phone rings. I pick it up. Receptionist says, Jane Smith calling for you. I say, all right. It clicks through. I say, hello, Jane. And my mom says, yeah, you wish. And that's the meanest shit anybody has ever done to me. Who kills it, obviously? That nimble little, I will feel the power. This is a gimmy.

This song basically manifested Adele. Summer after my freshman year at college, first major relationship. She asks to come over. I make her pancakes. She comes over. She dumps me. She doesn't eat any pancakes.

She drives off. I stand in my driveway and watch her drive off. She's got her car windows open, and I can hear her crying as she drives off from like 200 yards away. though maybe I'm projecting. Then I got super into radio head. Fucking pancakes. Good old Bonnevere.

Top YouTube comment is Bonnevere. Please upload this song to Spotify. I like to do all my crying in one place. Thanks. Songs that I put on homemade cassette mixtapes for girls in this era include, but of course are not limited to, with or without you by YouTube, kissing you by Desiree, Suzanne by Wee.

in circles by sunny day real estate reasons by built a spill slide away by oasis electric relaxation by a tribe called quest with the line about fat ass thighs faded way down because i didn't want to inadvertently offend the girl deborah by beck eternal flame by susanna hoffs on the lilith fair compilation how could you want him when you know you could have me by the spin doctors jesus rob relax That is way too literal. And Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. I just want you to know who I am. I just want you to know who I am.

I just want you to know who I am. I just want you to know who I am. Boyce to men. And what breaks my heart most of all is that we could do the whole second verse now and recount times that I heard somebody or said something stupid or generally fucked up. The lousiest things I ever did or said,

it's entirely possible I don't even remember them now due to my own inattention and obliviousness and carelessness. I don't say that to posit myself as some sort of heartbreaker. I just mean that I handled the feelings of others even more ineptly than I handled my own. So let's pay tribute to my own lousiness with a classic and I will give up this fight supercut. Shall we? That sounds cathartic. The Joy Alaticoon version drops the line and I will give up this fight. So for her, let's sub in Nancy Wilson. Shall we? Jazz Titan Nancy Wilson?

Born in Ohio. Kick us off, Nancy. And I'll give up the first. Oh, yes, I will. I met my future wife at that first newspaper job. At the time I was in a bowing phase, I would bow to people, like with my palms pressed together upon greeting them or departing from them. It's strange behavior. bowing phase lasted like a decade. Also, my wife informs me now, I would say, as you wish to her

a lot. Hey, Rob, can I borrow a pen? As you wish. I don't even think I realized I was quoting the princess bride, just incredibly strange behavior. And so my future wife goes to our co-workers and says, is Rob, he's bowing to me a lot? Is he flirting with me? What is his deal? And my coworkers were like, he does that all the time. We have no idea what's going on there. We just stay away from him. He is super weird, dude. Don't get involved. But it was too late.

My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 63rd episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, and this week we're talking about I Can't Make You Love Me by Bonnie Rate. From her 1991 album, Luck of the Draw, Bonnie Rade is the best, except no substitutes. Enjoy any of those substitutes. Sure, all those cover versions are great. Many of those singers are themselves iconic,

but none of them are Bonnie Raidt. Bonnie Raid was born in Burbank, California in 1949. She put out her first album called Bonnie Raid in 1971 when she was 21 years old. Then she put out eight more records. Let's call this Phase 1. But right from the very beginning of Phase 1, boy could Bonnie Raid sing the bejesus out of the word love. But you can't sing the bejesus out of the word love.

like that if love hasn't already kicked your ass a whole bunch of times that's from her debut album it's an old blues ballad called since I fell for you it rules you know the song get yourself another fool by Sam cook on Sam cook's nightbeat record look into that one unbelievable at 21 years old Bonnie's already starting to operate on that level of poise and Gravitas and pathos. Phase one of Bonnie Rae comprises nine records in 15 years. No huge blockbuster chart topping albums. No breakout singles.

Just a steady and healthy. And for quite a while, a sustainable career, bolstered by the fact that one day she'd write a song, it's the last song actually on her 10th album, which will formally kick off phase two. One day she'll write a song called The Roads My Middle Name. Bonnie the Road Rate, put out solid records and tour your ass off. That's Bonnie's foundational idea. Another foundational idea,

flexibility. She is a blues singer and a rock singer and arguably a jazz singer and occasionally a country singer and eventually a blockbuster pop singer. But for the first decade and a half, without any outrageous pop success, she enjoys what she'd later call a parallel career to pop in a genre she once described to stereo gum like this. She said, There's a format that always plays me, which they've called 10 different names over the years. And then she lists some of those names, Roots Music, Americana, AOR, album-oriented rock. She can be folk, rock, she can be Southern rock, honorary Southern rock. Don't get hung up on any of this.

Don't be like me. Focus on the poise, the gravitas, the pathos, the hard-earned wisdom. Focus on her voice. Another night is getting late Oh, with just the age. This is the song Bonnie wrote called Nothing Seems to Matter. Don't Maggie Mae vibes here. It's on her second album, Give It Up from 1972,

which starts with another song Bonnie wrote called Give It Up or Let Me Go. The let me go is crucial. Don't waste my time as a central theme of Bonnie Rates love songs, notably. But the slightly risque nature of the first. phrase give it up is worth noting as well, I suppose. If Body Rate first came to your attention in the late 80s or early 90s, which appear to be

the case for millions of people, some of whom were Grammy voters, then it might very well be that your first impression of her was as a 40-year-old veteran rock star on like her 11th album. Bonnie was one of this era's great comeback stories, though she's joked that calling it a comeback implies that she'd ever been a huge star to begin with. But one of the real joys of doing a Bonnie Raid deep dive now of luxuriating in phase one is you get to experience her as a younger, presumably much wilder person as a 20-something flamethrower in the 1970s, trying to drink various old blues legends under the table and often succeeding. This song's called Guilty from her third album, Taking My Time in 1973. A melancholy horn section followed Bonnie Raid everywhere she went for most of the 70s,

just in case she broke into song in the bathroom or something. I hope she shared the cocaine with the horn section. She probably did. She seems like a super nice lady. The silver white streak in Bonnie's hair. If you're like me, you even hear the name Bonnie Rate and you picture her. shrouded in this elegant, roaring campfire of deep red hair with a silver white streak in the middle, right? She says that streak started coming in naturally when she was 24.

And by 1981, the streak was expanding while the red was fading. So she started dyeing her hair, but around the streak to protect it. Because, as she told Parade Magazine once, I've been told it means you've been kissed by an angel. That white streak is a bit on the nose, as metaphors go. for a young instant classic blue singer, for an old soul, for a masterful song interpreter who would only just hit her mid-20s. It's like she manifested that streak. Her fourth album, Streetlights from 1974, that's the one with her cover of John Prine's Angel from Montgomery.

Holy moly. Listen, John Prine is John Prine, and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that anybody can out John Prine, John Prine. But I do think Bonnie Rate sings these lines with a singularly electrifying sense of exasperation. So apparently this time out I am disinclined to inundate you with other artists and other songs for whimsical and discursive purposes. And I am trying to honor my impulse to not indulge my usual whimsical, discursive impulses. But it might just be that I got quite entranced, by phase one, Bonnie Raid.

We gotta speed this up though. Let me briefly direct your attention though to her fifth album from 1975 called Home Plate. First of all, the Home Plate album cover does indeed feature an exuberant Bonnie Raid sliding into Home Plate. And I say to you now with affection that her sliding form is terrible,

like she's way out in front of Home Plate, which by the way appears to be shaped incorrectly, like the sides are much longer than regulation. And her one leg is way too high as though she is trying to kick the catcher in the face. Terrible sliding form, great album cover. And perhaps she's trying to spike the catcher because the catcher is the gentleman to whom she directs the piano-driven heartbroken love song, My First Night Alone Without You. Piano-driven Heartbroken Love Songs being somewhat of a Bonnie Rate specialty at this point.

if you go in for foreshadowing. The aching in her head might also be caused by whiskey or cocaine or the concussion she received from poorly sliding into home plate. It's weird, though, to have zero digressions. Isn't it? Is that too streamlined? Are you familiar with this show? So, do you feel like you clicked on the wrong thing?

You're right. What about just one other Bonnie Rate caliber American? icon with a career running parallel to hers just for reference just to see what that double helix looks like let's try this another deified singer songwriter another old soul steeped in the blues without getting all pompous and blues hammery about it also from california born in pomona that's close bonnie's from burbank that's like a 40 minute drive it probably isn't that's just what google maps says it's probably like four hours my editor chimed in here to say only a madman would do this drive. There you go. Come to me with all your questions about Los Angeles geography. Whatever.

It doesn't matter how long the drive is. This is going to go great. You recognize that voice? No? Yeah, I don't blame you. Okay. Look at how well this works, actually. Also born in 1949, he's less than a month younger than Bonnie Raid. Also started kicking around in 1971 or so. Okay, we're doing it. This guy. This guy who also appears to be dealing with a first night alone without you type situation. And it looks like I'm up.

Shit Creek again. Tom Waits. The Tom Waits. What if we made a whole entire separate person out of the silver streak in Bonnie Raid's hair? What if we raised this new person entirely on whiskey and cocaine? That song is indeed called Looks Like I'm Up Shit Creek again. My first ever trip to New York City, I was a senior in college hunting for my first job, and I interviewed at a bunch of magazines in New York, and it was disastrous.

I interviewed either at the Tiger Beat magazine or a Tiger Beat type magazine. This was spring 2000. The edit test involved a great deal of in sync. And in the interview, I asked, can I freelance for other more prestigious places? And they were like, get the fuck out of here. I interviewed at Gear Magazine, which was a thinking man's lad mag situation, started by Bob Guccioni Jr. of Guns and Rose's fame. It was like Maxim Magazine wearing a fedora. Gear's most famous cover star was a very young Jessica Beale. Don't look that up at work. And that job I really, really wanted. these people thought I was just a total yutz. The big shot editor-in-chief pointed out that I still had a tag hanging on the sleeve of my suit. He asked me, what's the last movie you saw? And I felt compelled to answer, honestly, that the last movie I'd seen was Shanghai Noon,

starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. And they were like, get the fuck out of here. Then I found a job in an all-weekly much closer to home and met my wife. Anyway, my consolation prize on that trip to New York is that the dude whose couch I crashed on had like five giant thick CD booklets and he got me super into Tom Waits. The first Tom Waits

studio album is called Closing Time from 1973. He's sitting in a dimly lit piano looking world historically pensive and poetic. Very similar vibe and lighting scheme to Bonnie Raid on the cover of her first album except she's smiling. If you're willing to put a bed

in a piano in the same room. You can imagine that they're actually sitting in the same room. And Bonnie's reclined there, somewhat amused, listening to her morose pal, Tom, pensively plinking at a piano. But let's not belabor this comparison. This song's called Martha. It's the single best heartbroken piano ballad of the 1970s. It's the I Can't Make You Love Me of its era. Tom is calling up an old girlfriend. You see, he still remembers her from the roller rink. He still remembers the sun setting behind her.

In my regrettable open mic night guy era, which had its own colossal romantic fuckups, I'm still too embarrassed to tell you about. There are exactly two songs that I regret never playing. And those two songs are Martha and I can't make you love me. For a while I teamed up. I did open might nights with a girl, a singer from my sophomore year,

and she would have killed I can't make you love me and I wouldn't have killed this song but hopefully it wouldn't have killed me just unspeakably lovely yeah anyway cut to 1983

and now Tom Waits sounds like this that's six seconds he knew his album's swordfish trombones and yeah Tom Waits has somehow transformed into the rumbling groan down below but he's still doing heartbreaking, heart-stopping piano ballads. He will never stop doing them. They've just got a little bit of a different vibe now. You can hear him whacking at a piano there amid all the extra sad

circus music. This is innocent when you dream from the Franks Wild Years record in 1987. I am just now remembering in real time that on that terrible job interview trip to New York, I got back and my girlfriend at the time was like, did you get me anything? And I was like, uh, uh, I got you this Tom Waits CD. That is 100% a true story. So Tom Waits goes through some things in the first 20 years of his career is the polite, baffled, tremendously charmed, but also a profoundly terrified way to put it. Specifically, he goes headfirst through like 6,000 cement mixers, or at least his vocal cords do. Now he sounds like all the Muppets got super into beat poetry transition, but I would tell you that Bonnie Rates evolution in her first 20 years was less visceral and phlegmatic. But that's true of

literally every other human who ever walked the earth. But you can still hear the Miles. The road is my middle name Miles and the strife and the heartbreak and the never quite became a pop star disappointment in Bonnie Rate's voice 20 years in. You can hear the rumbling groan down below. But out of her mouth, that groan sounds sweeter, but it's bittersweet, lethally bittersweet. And the bittersweetness is just as shocking and cathartic as if she just hauled off and growled at you. That little ooh is a cheerful whiskey bottle to the head, isn't it? Bonnie Raid had a few near misses, hit single wise, a cover of Del Shannon's runaway in 1977 did okay. But she got dropped

from her record label in 1983, which put her ninth album in limbo for several years. It finally came out in 1986 and was called Nine Lives, which is a pretty grim title for your ninth album, now that I think on it. There's no body rate record ever that you'll regret listening to, but some of her 80s stuff sounds like she made it in the 80s. Leave it at that.

Whereas this song and this album, despite being from 1989, exists outside the flow of chronological time, even if it is also obsessed with the flow of chronological time. No label would sign her in the mid-80s. She had some personal struggles, including with drinking. Later, she'd tell Rolling Stone, I wasn't rolling around vomiting.

I just partied too much, and I put on a lot of weight. There are people I know who party too much and don't get fat and don't stop because they are still rich, but I was going to run out of money. This is also the era when Bonnie was on stage in Louisiana and a guy in the crowd passed her a note that said, What happened? You got fat. Maybe you should work out or something.

I like to imagine what that guy must have been imagining in that moment. Was negging a pickup artist concept? In the 80s, don't answer that. I can just picture that guy picturing telling that story at his wedding. to Bonnie rate? Like, how'd you guys meet?

Well, I passed her a note. Sorry, I got distracted. Yeah, in 1989, Bonnie put out an album called Nick of Time. This is the title track. Bonnie wrote it herself. This is where Phase 2 starts. She is 39 years old here, or if you're trying to be somehow more and less polite, she is, as the New York Times would describe her while praising this record,

a woman of a certain age. Much later, talking to Billboard. about this album. In its woman of a certain age narrative, Bonnie would say, it actually didn't bother me at all, especially because the title song is about exactly that. A lot of circumstances besides age came together to bring that album such wide attention, but I've never minded talking about my age. Something I'm proud of. If Bonnie Raite first came to your attention in the late 80s or early 90s, and if you were a teenager at the time or even younger, then this song, Nick of Time is a nifty little time bomb, right? A time bomb that's blowing up right now. If you're 15 and you're listening to

her sing about getting older, you're like, yeah, whatever. Try listening to this whole song again now when you're a person of a certain age. See if you don't end up rumbling and groaning a little yourself. See, Bonnie had hooked up with a young, largely unproven producer named Don was, and these next couple career making records are, to a great extent, going to make Don's career as well. though for me as an avid late 80s MTV Watcher, even now, when I stumble across the name Don was, the very first thing I think

about is his super weird pop rock band called was not was, was, parentheses, not was, close parentheses, who had a minor fluke hit in 1988 with a song called Walk the Dinosaur that I am quite frankly afraid to revisit.

Yeah, I wish I hadn't done that. There's a dance, a whole dance for that chorus in the video that better not ever catch on on TikTok, but that's my problem. My Don was problem. The Nick of Time album had a very low budget and almost insultingly low expectations, but it blew up. It blew up in part because the first single was a raucous little tune called Thing Called Love, a John Hyatt song, and Bonnie did a tastefully randy video that co-starred a young heartthrob named Dennis Quaid. If you don't know who Dennis Quaid is,

I don't want to hear about it. It's Dennis Quaid in like a honky tonk, eyeing up Bonnie Raid on stage. He's got fancy shoes. He's engaging in some lewd toothpick action. He sits at a table right in front of Bonnie Rae in like an insusient and virile manner. If I tried to sit at a table like Dennis Quaid sits at this table and the thing called a video, I'd fall over and knock all the shit off the table. Anyways, great song.

Anyways, this video becomes a big hit on VH1, which was heating up here in the late 80s. as an MTV competitor. My perception at the time as a dumbass 12-year-old was that VH-1 was MTV for moms. That's unenlightened. But maybe shed some light on what made my romantic outlook so grim in this era and most subsequent eras. Dennis Quaid also gets, I'm sorry, but it's pointless to euphemize this. He gets super turned on by Bonnie Rates' slide guitar playing in the thing called a video, but Bonnie's slide guitar playing has that effect on a lot of people.

That guitar solo is when Dennis starts humping the table. Actually, it's a valid reaction. Okay, we got a hit with this Nick a Time album. Bonnie Raids selling millions of records for the first time ever. She's got modest chart singles for really the first time ever. She's an early VH1 star. And then she goes to the 1990 Grammys held on February 21st, 1990. It was the Millie-Vinilly year.

What are you going to do? Barry Shandling was the host? What? And she wins four Grammys, including Album of the Year. Get a load of this album of the year race. Bonnie Raite, Nick of Time, Tom Petty, Full Moon Fever, Don Henley, the End of the Innocence, the fucking Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1. And finally, fine young cannibals, the raw and the cooked. I hope to God there was an album of the year, Grammy nominee,

dinner or karaoke party or paintball game or something. Holy shit. I lived in New York City in Oakland for several years, but eventually I moved with my family back to Ohio. Most likely for good. And right when we first got back, one gorgeous sunny summer afternoon, I pulled out of a dairy queen drive-thru window with four peanut buster parfaits. Only one was for me. Four different people, including me, had ordered peanut buster parfas. One was for my wife. Thank you very much. And as I peel out of Dairy Queen and my Mazda, the radio is blasting Don Henley's The End of the Innocence.

And that precise moment is as gloriously Midwestern as I have ever felt or will ever feel. I drive off like I'm driving Don Henley's convertible. Like, I tell you that so it will mean something to you when I tell you that Bonnie Raitt deserved to win. This song's called I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again. Herbie Hancock, future less deserving album of the year Grammy winner, Herbie Hancock on piano,

heartbreaking piano ballad. Bonnie cried while she sung it. Foreshadowing. Bonnie Rates Nick of Time winning album of the year is probably, to the extent one can quantify this, the single most deservedly consequential Grammy win in history. Consequential for the winner. After that Grammy win, Nick of Time hits number one on the Billboard album chart.

Bonnie Raid's parallel career is over. She will still be, and will always be, beloved by fans of Roots, Music, Americana, AOR, classic rock, however we define it, whatever. But now she is also, and will always be a star. an icon. That's a corny and overstated word, but much less so in this case. In 1990, doing a victory lap interview with Rolling Stone, Bonnie said, oh man, it's the greatest. I mean, everybody was always saying, gee, I really love your record. Too bad radio won't play it. And that's been my story all along. So I feel really satisfied that I'll never have to say I'm underappreciated

again. I feel like I got a commission. I feel much more serious about what I'm going to be doing in the future. I feel like I have a responsibility to continue to write songs. I feel like someone handed me the rest of my life. And then two songwriters named Mike Reed and Alan Shamblin handed her a cassette tape. Okay, so they mailed the tape to her. They handed her. They handed her. handed the tape to her metaphorically. This is Mike Reed, singing the original I Can't Make You Love Me demo. Stereo gum did a great oral history of this song in 2016 and included the whole demo on SoundCloud. Best use of SoundCloud, I can recall, but I suppose that usually I'm not quite the SoundCloud demographic.

Mike Reed and Alan Chamberlain were songwriters living in Nashville. Mike had co-written a song for Bonnie on Nick of Time, a slow weeper called Two. soon to tell. So these guys remember the genesis of this song a little differently, but Allen's version has the newspaper article, the Nashville Tennessean article to back it up. There's a screenshot

in the stereo gum thing. This appears to be a 1989 front page article about a group of homeless men struggling with alcoholism. The screenshoted part of the story jumps from A1 and the headline is, Wino's, sleep it off, dot, dot, dot, wherever.

It's a little uncouth. 1989. It was a different time in Tennessee. So they're talking about one poor guy who was living under a bridge and his wife picked him up there and drove him to the courthouse so he could sign divorce papers. His drinking had driven her away and now he was drinking more to forget her. It's not clear to me what the hook of this front page newspaper article is, but human interest is human interest, I guess. And so another guy says, you can't make a damn woman love you if she don't. A quote of a the newspaper. The rest is history. The rest Bonnie Raitt turned into history. You got Don was producing and Ed Scherney Engineering, just like with Nick a Time. You got James Hutchinson on bass. You got Troy Bronigal on drums. You got Ben Montench on organ, Ben Montench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fame. You got somebody else. Somebody else is on this. I can't recall the name right now. It'll come to me. And you got Bonnie Raid singing this song once. in the studio she cried a little bit while recording this song as well don was in that stereo

gum piece said there was something that she was going to tap into in her own life that we never discussed she just wanted to do it one time and go into the truth and she knew that would diminish with each subsequent take Bonnie rate for her part said i didn't have a rule about it being one take It's just that we put so much into making that moment very special that there wasn't any reason to do it again. Plus, it took me a minute to recover from how sad it was. My favorite studio detail from the stereo gum thing is that you got three guys in the control room while Bonnie's singing. Don was the producer, Ed Sherney, the engineer, and Ron Stone, her manager. And all three of them are crying as Bonnie is singing.

And all three are embarrassed that they're crying. And each guy doesn't want the other two guys to see that he's crying. Ed says, I didn't want Don and Ron to see me being such a schmuck crying like that. And so all three guys retreat to different corners of the studio to compose themselves. This is a very complex and delicate dudes rock sort of moment. Three crying guys all trying to conceal their tears from one another, though who can blame them. Are you going to tell me she can't sing it again? I'm not going to tell her.

she can't sing it again. Listen, I don't mean to ignore or diminish the rest of Bonnie Rates much beloved 1991 album, Luck of the Draw on which the song I Can't Make You Love Me appears. Luck of the Draw also includes chart-wise her biggest single ever, something to talk about. Number five, great song. You could sing that chorus from memory right now. Look of the Draw has not the only one, which is one of the best non-fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac songs of the 90s, between her vocals and her guitar playing.

Bonnie sounds like Stevie Nicks, Christine McVee, and Lindsay Buckingham simultaneously. Like all three of those people can only get along in Bonnie Raid's body. Bonnie Raid has never had children, but luck of the draw still ends with a song called All At Once. That is one of the better mother-daughter songs in recent memory. Great record. Okay, I apologize sincerely to the rest of this record. But I can't make you love me as the type of song that gently obliterates the rest of the record. around it.

Gently and respectfully, but thoroughly obliterates the rest of this record. And again, it's not an insult, but the final insult is that Bonnie Raid sings, and I will give up this fight two-thirds of the way through the song, right before the last chorus. But even after she sings that line, we still haven't gotten to the best part of the song yet. The outro to I Can't Make You Love Me is where the real action happens. I was joking earlier about forgetting who else plays on this song. So a couple of years back, my grandmother died, my dad's mom. My grandmother had been living in a nursing home for like 15 years, an absurdly awful amount of time.

I had been with my wife for 15 plus years by this point, and my wife never knew my grandmother the way I knew my grandmother, that kind of thing. The kind of thing where you mourn her, but it's also a huge relief when she finally goes. But I'm in the room at the nursing home when she dies. At the moment she passes, I'm there with my dad and my mom. Nobody else around. We're all crying. Everyone's rung out.

Grandmother takes a long time to go. But eventually she's gone. There's nothing else we can do. We are ejected into the night outside a nursing home in rural western Pennsylvania. It's like 9.15 p.m. And we are hungry. And my mom would like some wine. We go to the only bar that.

it's open, which is blasting Nikki Minaj at incredible volume and an episode of Criminal Minds, I believe is playing on the TV above the bar. And the wine is box wine. And my mom's like, let's get the fuck out of here. I'm not even paraphrasing. So we go to the only actual restaurant that is open in rural western Pennsylvania at 935 at night, which is Taco Bell. And so now we're hunched over a table at Taco Bell, a tiny bright orange table and takitos, I believe. were the new specialty item. At this point, short-lived, the crunchy little dudes, that didn't last long. I'm not surprised.

And we're exhausted and dead silent and dead-eyed, munching our takitos, and there's a speaker over our head. And what's playing over the Taco Bell PA in this glum and poignant family moment? Bruce Hornsby. And I just barely still had it together enough, or I didn't have it together at all. Opinions vary. I was still just myself enough in this moment to think Bruce Hornsby got some jams. I did not share this thought with my parents in this moment because I'm not quite that big a yacht, but I had this thought and I am grateful to Bruce Hornsby for reaching me in this terrible moment.

There is a distinctly Midwestern for Peanut Buster Parfay's maudlin ultra romanticism to Bruce Hornsby that I have long admired. Every little kiss is not as big a jam as Mandolin Rain, which is not as big a jam as the way it is. But nonetheless, that's three more jams than most people have. And actually, let's make that four jams because Bruce Hornsby plays the absolute but Jesus out of the piano on I Can't Make You Love Me. Do not listen to any radio station that shortens or otherwise fuzzes with the last 90-odd seconds of I Can't Make You Love Me in any way. This edict also applies to the Faith No More song Epic, the piano thing at the end. Do do do do do do do that's the best part of the song. Do not patronize any DJ who attempts to talk over even a minuscule portion of the last 90 odd seconds if I can't make you love me.

Let it ride. Give it to Bruce. Bonnie's still there too. Bonnie knows. Bonnie knows that this outro is an all-timer. This, in fact, may be the single best line in the whole song. The outro alone ensures that I can't make you love me as the single best heartbroken piano ballad of the 1990s.

Real quick, the second best heartbroken piano ballad of the 1990s is by Tom Waits. It's called The House Where Nobody Lives. It's about an abandoned house. It's fantastic. It's almost better if I don't set it up for you at all. But here, I'll give you one line. That's all you get grown up just as high as the door.

That's all you get. That's all you need from the album Mule Variations in 1999. That's what Tom sounded like by 1999. He'd gone through some additional things. But haven't we all? I hear the house where nobody lives now as the sequel to I Can't Make You Love Me. I hear it as a song about the now abandoned house where the singer and the subject of I Can't Make You Love Me, tried and failed to make themselves love one another.

You are standing in the middle of the street. You are looking at the house. The sun has set behind it. The true beauty, the true greatness of I can't make you love me. And the last 90 seconds, most of all, is that the sun is setting. And you can plainly see the sun setting. But it never quite sets. My guest today is the writer and editor Emma Carmichael.

She was an editor at Jezebel and Deadspin and Gawker. She wrote for Wyatt Sannack's Problem Areas, and she's freelanced for everybody. Emma, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Hi. Thanks for having me. Of course. Emma, you wrote about Bonnie Rates, Nick of Time record from 1989 for the Pitchfork Sunday Review.

Do you hear Nick of Time and Luck of the Draws like late 80s? like late 80s and early 90s records. Do you think of body rate as a 90s artist the same way as someone like Cheryl Crow or Liz Fair? I think I do like sort of in the context of that album and I learned a lot about it and writing that review. But I think prior to getting into that research, I thought of her more as 70s artist. I grew up with parents who listened to a lot of body rate and a lot of 70s albums in

general. And also a dad who played slide guitar. So I think that that influenced how I listened to her. Yeah. So knowing now that that was truly her comeback album, and kind of, you know, revisiting that album and kind of how schmaltzy it can sound at certain times. Like I do think of it as a 90s sound for sure. I don't think I think of Bonnie necessarily as a 90s artist in the same way that I do like Liz and Cheryl. Yeah. And I do think she also has this kind of classic, like kind of singular classics timeless sound to her, right? Like a lot of those songs. you could kind of put at any point in her career and they would sound, they would sound like they fit on a certain album. Yeah. How good a slide guitarist is your dad?

Is he like Bonnie Raye caliber? He probably won't listen to this. I think I, I don't think I'll offend him if he is listening to this. If I say that he's not, he's not Bonnie Raid Calibor, but he's, you know, he's decent.

He's getting there. Yeah, yeah. My theory is that most Bonnie Raid fans get into her twice, right? When you're young and when you're a little less young, like hearing the song, Nick of Time as a 16-year-old and hearing it as a 36-year-old, it's not just that you hear it differently. Like, there are two different songs sung by two different singers. Like, you're younger than me, of course, but are you having that experience yet of hearing her a little differently? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I was kind of trippy, honestly, to work on that. When I wrote that

review, I was on a road trip with my parents who I was thinking about this today. They were 33-ish when that album came out. And that album came out 33 years ago. And I was 33 with them on this road trip writing about Nick of Time. Right. Which, you know, I just associate that album with like, I have such a clear memory of like my mom playing it while like making fish sticks in our kitchen growing up, you know, like the frozen fish sticks. Ah, that's beautiful. That's a beautiful. Yeah. And so I knew the song and it was like nostalgic and lovely to me, but I hadn't done, I would say a close listen in my toddler years. So revisiting it like with them and thinking like that they were at that when it came out, they were having kind of the same feelings about, you know, that line in particular about like watching your parents getting older and then them seeing the same in you. it hits different as they say in your 30s yeah it's really an adult uh an adult song i think yeah did you hear

anything different in the 70s stuff like i'm almost jealous of you that you got to sort of experience that before like the comeback right i feel like a lot of people got into bonnie rate through nick of time and luck of the draw and then went back but you sort of knew her even through sort of toddler osmosis like prior to that listening to the 70s records now like what do you get out of them today I mean, just in terms of like thinking about Bonnie's career holistically, I think one thing when I go back and listen to those is, I mean, just thinking how young she was, right? Like a self-titled album, I think she was 22 when she recorded that around there. 21 or 22, yeah, she was young. Yeah, which is incredible.

And she's singing these like, you know, seasoned blues songs, like these Scipi Wallace songs that I don't want to offend anyone by saying, like, I don't think Bonnie really had any business singing them, you know? I know what you mean, though, right. In a few different ways. But one is that you just can't really have the life experience or like the grit or attitude at age 21, or most 21-year-olds, I would say, don't have that to really, like, you know, interpret those songs. So one thing I hear when I go back and listen to the self-titled in particular is really just how sweetly innocent she sounds. and not a bad way just like in comparison to her 30 years later in her career

where she kind of had this like grit and like snarl to some of her songs and interpretations that took it to a new level but you know in terms of like thinking about this brought the incredible spectrum of her career

it's really lovely to go back and think of like sweet younger Bonnie coming off her like Boston tour legs with like these blue statesmen Right, right. Just being like, yeah, I'll sing Mighty Tight Woman, you know. I was taken aback by that song. My kids were in the room and was like, do I need to change this?

Like, no, it'll be fine. You quote her as saying, I never pretended to be a great artist or a great originator. I'm just an interpreter of good music. Is Bonnie Ray truly a great artist because she doesn't think she's a great artist? Like, this humility she has and her ultimate respect for the song she's singing. or interpreting, is that humility a huge part of her charm and her greatness? I agree. I think it's really good question. One thing I kept coming across in interviews when I was researching for this review was she said in so many different ways that she really only chooses to do a

song when she really means it, like when she really connects to the lyrics and feels like she can sing it and mean it. And I think that's like a version of humility, right? It's like kind of like surrendering yourself to the song and being like, I am not worthy, you know? And I think you can hear that in her, in like the truly great covers that she did and that she wrote, the songs that she wrote even, like, she really, there's like an earnestness to it and like a genuine interpretation there that

probably comes from some level of just like humility. And I don't know, I think you can even see that like on stage sometimes. Like she is not. not like necessarily a showboat guitar player. Like she just kind of does her solos and everyone's losing their minds. And then she has to step up to the mic and sing again. Yeah. She's not shredding, but she still gets her point across.

That's right. When I'm reading about Bonnie right now, like stories about her written decades apart, I keep seeing this word flirtatious, like her personality and interviews and her stage banter and her acting and music videos and of course just her songs, her voice. I keep seeing that described as flirtatious. Do you get that from her? Do you see why so many people seem to get that from her? Yeah, I found like I remember one profile I read, I think it was a Rolling Stone profile

from 1990. You know, it was stuff like she like, she was dating some guy at the time. I forget who. And the interviewer described her as at one point during their conversation, she like ducked under the table and pretended to give him a blowjob during the interview. Yeah. And yeah, and like literally like the word flirtatious was used in a lot of those interviews, which it should be noted were I think universally written by men. So they might be like reaching forward a little bit or just feeling a little bit out of it in her presence because I'm sure she has that effect on people. But I was thinking about this too. Like I wonder this is just kind of a projection, but you know, I started out my career as a sports writer in a lot of.

of mostly male spaces. And I do think you, when you are like a professional woman in those spaces, you kind of have to develop a toughness and like a perspective and like a positioning of yourself to hang kind of. I don't have to, but it helps to. Right. And I mean, I can only imagine Bonnie's version of that in these blues clubs as like a literal teenager or, you know, 20-something in Boston and the 60s and 70s. I bet she got tough pretty quickly, you know?

Like, I bet she learned how to hang. Yeah. I see a lot of, like, I had to be one of the guys or, like, she really wanted to come across, like, one of the guys, like, for better and for worse. Like, there are good elements of that, but there are less good elements of that, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder, who knows, I wonder if some of the flirtatiousness is sort of, not a defense mechanism,

but, like, just part of, part of, like, growing up in this extremely male genre and business. Sure. I think that Rolling Stone article you mentioned is the one where she tells the story, you know, she's in the 80, she's going through a rough patch, she's gained a little weight, and somebody, she's on stage in Louisiana and someone passes her a note that says, what happened, you got fat. Maybe you should work out or say, should men be banned from concerts? Would that be the right approach to this? I think it would be a good start. Yeah. All right. Let's look into that. Can you imagine, It's really a true professional gets that note and just goes on to the next song.

You know, like, I really, you got to tip your hat to Bonnie for not like swiping that. Kicking him in the head. Yes. That would have been a very blue singer thing to do. She could have gone totally the other way with that. It would have just been part of the legend of Bonnie, I think, at this point. Yeah. No one would have faulted her.

You write about how she started hitting her stride when she subtly transformed songs written and often performed by men, like Angel from Montgomery or runaway or too long at the fair. Jackson Brown comes up a lot, Randy Newman. What does she do to these songs that changes them and changes their perspective and often, you know, improves them? Yeah, I think it's a good question. I think it's not totally unrelated to the guitar playing, right? Like, one thing, one thing that she talks a lot about in interviews is sort of like realizing what made her different, right? like that she kind of had this skill set that she could that she could use in her career and benefit from and that that's the fact that she could play the show out of the guitar but i think part of

that is like this for better worse there's sort of this like shock when a woman is good at something that she's not normally good at right um and she says herself like you know there's a lot of like female hormones in in my guitar playing like there's sort of just like i'm different from who you normally see playing blues guitar. And I think that kind of extends to the covers for me. Like it's not like she's changing pronouns or like, you know, or changing the story. It's just sort of this like more, probably more inherently vulnerable sound to it because she's taking these lyrics written by men and singing them and, you know, happens to be

probably one of the greatest vocalists of all time. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, I love John Pry, but John Pryne singing, I'm an old woman name for my mother versus Bonnie Raid singing, I'm an old woman named for my mother. It's different. Yeah, it makes quite a difference, I think, yeah. You mentioned, I think you quoted somebody as saying that her slide guitar playing at a huge influence on 90s country music.

Like, do you hear, did you hear a lot of Bonnie Raid in other music and other genres, even as started as she, you know, from the point where she got truly huge? I feel like I can't, I'm not an expert on that front, but I do think like the, the fact that like, Bonnie's music was so like genre fluid and like, I mean, Nick of Time is a great example of an album that I don't know what I would call it. Like, I know Bonnie is a blues artist, but I don't think that's a blues album. No. But the through line on it all is the slide. And so I think that's, you know, this is just, I'm just kind of hypothesizing, but like, kind of the normalizing of it. And obviously, like, the fact that she's this white woman with red hair, who's the one playing

blues guitar and, like, getting credit for mainstreaming it is, is one thing. But, like, it was on this breakout album with the sound that everyone already associated with her. So I do think it, like, that sort of mainstream leap for her, like, the slide came with it. And we're all better for it. Yeah. Is I Can't Make You Love Me the definitive Bonnie song for you? Does it surprise you that it's her definitive song for a lot of people? It's not like the one that I go back to the most, I think.

I love the song because it's perfect and beautiful. I think it really, it makes as just like a straight up barn burner heartbreak song, Like, you know, you can't do better, basically. Right. You know, Adele has tried. She can't quite hit it. Yeah. So I think that it's sort of like the nick of time timelessness that we were talking about, right?

Like, this will always be relevant, you know. And I do think it's the kind of song that when you hear in the right or, you know, I guess, given its content, like the wrong place, it's going to stay with you forever, you know. Yeah. And I think it's probably one of those songs that when people are having a hard time is recommended to them to go to, you know? That's a tough one. I just, here, here, this will help. Like, I have a hard time.

It could help. It could also make things like 50 times worse, depending. Yeah. I guess the next stage for this song, right, is like when Gen Ziers get it on TikTok and it becomes like a... We haven't seen it. that yet. Oh, wow. Yeah. I think you may have just manifested that just now. And that's probably a good thing. The TikTokers deserve to discover Bonnie Raid. I think that'll be good for them. It'll be good for their souls, for sure. Exactly. You mentioned Adele. I do any of the cover versions do it for you? Like, does Bonnevere, you know, get to the heart of I can't make you love me? I thought, like, I love all the covers because it's just such a, I mean, it's just, it's such a good song. It's such a hard performance. I mean, I could never. I could never. imagine even attempting this at karaoke.

And so, I mean, talk about humility. I think it's probably really humbling. I was listening back to like one of, I don't know how many times Adele has performed it, but I was listening to one cover where at a live performance where she just like sounded nervous to do it, you know? Like it was... Intimidated. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that is really special, like kind of better than like a perfect version of Adele singing it in the studio. Exactly, yeah. A humbled, a slightly humbled and fearful Adel. Yeah, exactly. I did listen to the Boys to Men cover for the first time. It's pretty good.

Yeah, it hit more than I thought it would, honestly. And I was thinking about, I think my ideal cover, if anyone can manifest this or make it happen, is Jasmine Sullivan. I think she would rush this song. Oh, my God, you're right. Yeah, absolutely right. It needs to happen. to happen. We'll get her on TikTok. That's how it's going to get to TikTok. It's going to go to Jasmine's old one. That's beautiful. I'm going to be thinking about that all day.

Yeah. What is the definitive body rate song or album or era for you? Where do you go the way some people seem to go? Many people seem to go for this song. Is that Nick of Time? Yeah. I mean, Angel for Montgomery. I love every live version of it. I think I've listened to all of them. Kind of a sleeper one that I love is too long at the fair. And

I don't know why. It just, it gets me. And that's another song written by a man that she really just crushed, you know. But those 70s albums, I mean, like I said, the self-titled I love.

I love thank you. And I'm curious, I was looking at when I was, you know, listening to the older tracks for this piece. That song has like create like really has wild plays on Spotify. That is. That's her that's her biggest, you know, yeah, pre, you know, breakout, you know, comeback song for sure is that one.

Yeah, yeah. I always wonder when that's true if that just means that it's on some playlist somewhere. Like I always have to wonder if that's an organic fan favorite or if it's just, it's on some chill out playlist, you know, with like 50 billion people. following it. But let's say it's organic. Let's just say that's just say that's pure Bonnie Raid fans knowing where the true action is. Forget I said that. Yeah. Bonnie's got a new album out right now. It's called Just Like That. It's like your 18th album or so. I've seen a ton of praise for it. And for her in general, like she's not quite on the Dolly Parton deity tier, but I can't recall

ever hearing or reading a single negative word about Bonnie Raid. Is she just one of these people, one of these very few people at this point that like we all everyone just agrees on i think she is i think she's beloved she deserves it she's like she's like she's perfectly rated you know like she's not underrated or overrated she's just like there we go got it right with bonnie um yeah and i i also think like you know it's from a lot of like she just hasn't stopped playing out you know like this woman has been touring for how many years now? 50 plus. A solid 50 plus, yes.

Yeah, and I don't know, like you can never really forget about Bonnie. And I think she has this kind of, I mean, talk about like she started out with these, like I was saying, like these statesmen of the blues. And now she kind of is one. Is one. Yeah, she earned her way there. Just to wrap up, I think a long time. ago you tweeted about how every Bonnie Rate album cover is perfect and so I wanted to ask you what is the best Bonnie Rade album cover and why is it Homeplate from 1975? Homeplate is fantastic.

It's, you know, we're on a podcast. I'll say it's Bonnie sliding into Homeplate with this really awful like 70s like it's extremely 1970s. Yeah. And it's yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like why is this baseball theme? I don't really know. The album itself does not appear to be baseball themed at all from what I can tell. Yeah, it seemed pretty arbitrary. Still a perfect cover. I think all of the 70s covers are so good.

The one that I think is like a painting to me and I want to hang it on my wall as art is streetlights. And I don't know why it just has this. I mean, I guess because it looks like a painting, it has this gold framing. Yeah. And this beautiful portrait of her with her hair as big as it could possibly be. That's my favorite. That's that's a fantastic one.

She looks like a country music, like superstar. Yes. Like she came out of the womb like that, you know. Which it appears that she did for all the way now. Emma, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for talking. So fun. Thanks for having me.

Of course. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Emma Carmichael. Thanks as always to our producers, Kerm the God and Justin Sales, and thanks to you for listening. And now, without any further ado, here is Bonnie Rates with I Can't Make You Love Me. We'll see you next week.