Fresh Air - Fairport Convention Founding Member Richard Thompson

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

British singer/guitarist Richard Thompson spoke to Fresh Air in 1994 and 2022 about about his formative years and about pioneering a new musical genre that blended rock with traditional music of the British isles. He has a new album called Ship to Shore. Justin Chang reviews the new film Janet Planet, the first feature from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. Kooley. Richard Thompson, the British singer-songwriter-guitarist who has been writing and recording music since the 60s, is about to launch a summer concert tour and has a new album out. It's called Ship to Shore, and it's his first studio album in five years, the longest stretch between records since he co-founded Fairport Convention in 1967, when he was 18 years old. Five years later, he became a recording duo with his wife, Linda Thompson, then went solo in 1983. Here's a taste of What's Left to Lose, a new song from Ship to Shore. Oh, goodbye cruel meeting You left me for dead With my heart still beating

What do I do To kill the ache How many drops of comfort do I take? What's left to lose? Everything I cared about is gone What's left to lose? When there's nothing how to carry on And you're not my life

When you shut the door I'll start again in another place With faces to replace your face. One day I won't miss you anymore. Today, we're going to listen back to two of Richard Thompson's visits to fresh air. We'll hear portions of his 2022 interview with Terry Gross after the publication of his memoir. But first, let's listen to his 1994 visit to the Fresh Air studio when Richard Thompson brought his guitar to promote his then-new album, Mirror Blue.

He started by playing and singing a number from that collection, a terrific song called Easy There, Steady Now. piano plays softly Jackknife with a precious load Spurs its guts all over the road Excuse me, I had to smile Lost my grip, too, for a while I said, easy there, steady now Easy there, steady now She didn't have the decency to sweep away what's left of me I don't have the presence of mind to walk along in a straight line

Easy there, steady now Easy there, steady now I'll call your name I call it loud I see your face On every crown guitar solo 3am in an empty town Dr. Martin's echoed down Old man heartbreak follows you

Corruption's shadow swallows you I said easy there Steady now Easy there The corruption shadow swallows you I said easy there, steady now Easy there, steady now Easy there, steady now Easy there, steady now guitar solo Richard Thompson performing in our studio. You know, I don't know that I could think of another guitarist who combines the best of folk and rock better than you do.

And I'd like to go back to when you first got a guitar and ask you about what you were listening to then, what direction you thought you wanted to head in back when you were however old you were. I don't know if I had a direction. I don't think you think when you're that young. Or if you do, you're Mozart or something. Why did you want a guitar?

There was already a guitar in the house. My father played guitar. There's a lot of guitar music in the house. Django Reinhardt records and Les Paul records. My older sister, when rock and roll came along, she had Buddy Holly records and Gene Vincent records. So it was lots of guitar stuff. So it was very logical to pick it up and play it.

And I really tried to play everything. So I really absorbed a lot of folk stars and a lot of rock stars, probably before I was 15 or 16. What was your father playing? He was playing dance band jazz, very badly, though. He was just an amateur musician. What context did he play in? He was a policeman? Yeah.

So he was, you know, he just noodled around the house. I think at some point he was in a dance band, you know, the Swinging Cops or something like that. The Four Truncheons. So did you teach yourself? Taught myself a bit. My sister's boyfriends used to teach me. A couple of her boyfriends played guitar.

So while they were waiting for her to get ready, which is usually a good couple of hours, I'd get a good guitar lesson. And then I took classical lessons at one point for a couple of hours, I get a good guitar lesson. And then I took classical lessons at one point for a couple of years. Oh, really? Yeah. So when you were, say, a teenager,

what were the licks that you were trying hardest to learn? Oh, you know, the Buddy Holly sort of stuff. Sorry, I'm in the wrong tune. Yeah, that sort of stuff. That's why I'm in the wrong tune. You know, that sort of stuff. You know, that sort of stuff. The Shadows, who are a great British instrumental band, are very... That kind of stuff. The Shadows, who were a great British instrumental band. That kind of stuff.

This is the folk stuff, yeah. And away we go, here we go, Santiago. Bounce off the street. A lot of that sort of stuff, you know. I used to go to folk clubs as well, so you'd get a real diet. You'd see someone really good.

You'd see Davy Graham one week and then somebody really atrocious next week. But then you could see blues artists coming to Britain from about 63 onwards, 63, 64. And did they leave a big impression on you? Oh, yeah, I mean, it's great. You could see someone you'd heard on a record and you thought they were dead and then, you know, they'd turn up. It was just fantastic. Richard Thompson, visiting the Fresh Air studio in 1994,

speaking with Terry Gross. More after a break. This is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com.

T's and C's apply. Let's get back to Terry's 1994 interview with Richard Thompson. It's one of two interviews we're featuring today, from the singer-songwriter-guitarist who has a new album out and is starting a new summer concert tour. Here he is with another song called Taking My Business Elsewhere. If she's not here by now Then I guess she's not coming If she's not here by now Then I guess she don't care

Waiter I won't waste your time anymore you've already started to sweep down the floor And I guess she's not coming, so I'll head for the door I'll be taking my business elsewhere It wasn't for me That spark in her eyes It wasn't for me That halo in her hair When she touched me, a love rose up into my throat But she must act that way with any old

sulk and waiter you don't seem to share in the joke so I'll be taking my business elsewhere she called me her lover

And boldly she kissed me I'll never get over The sheer surprise Of her acting that way I'm feeling okay But for the eyes of earth. Oh, it's cold in the rain, and it's dark and it's sad. And I'll miss her tonight On my lonely backstreet

Oh, I'm sorry for taking So much of your space I'll move down the street To some friendlier place Cause I guess she's not coming And you're sick of my face I'll be taking my business elsewhere I'll be taking my business elsewhere I'll be taking

my business elsewhere That's Richard Thompson. Great song. I've come to think of that as your one for my baby. One for somebody's baby. What about the story behind the song you just sang? That's just really, you know, it's me sitting down thinking of a story. Actually, I was thinking, gosh, I'd love to write a song for little Jimmy Scott.

He's one of my favorite singers. So I started writing a song and it came out as this one. And I thought, well, he couldn't possibly sing this, but I could. So I'll keep it. What made you want to write a song for him? He's a jazz singer. He's a jazz singer. He's a very intense performer and singer.

And boy, he sure sounds like he means it. Oh, spare me from having to read your lyrics and sounding like I'm giving the squarest reading in the world. So there's something I want to quote here. Can I ask you to quote the line? This is from The Way That It Shows. I just think it's a particularly well-written couple of lines here. Can you quote the first few lines? Oh, that one.

I'm going to give yourself away to some Casanova on the spills and stains of a backstage sofa. He'll catch you yawning with one leg over. Is that enough? Yeah, I think that's really great yawning with one leg over. Is that enough? Yeah, I think that's really great writing. Catching over, over. Well, at that point, the rhyme scheme was getting desperate. I was running out of possibilities. I'm not even thinking about the rhyme, but the spills and the stains on the couch. I thought that was really nice.

I was actually thinking of a backstage in Philadelphia. Oh, really? I can't remember what the place is called. A really sort of run-down rock and roll theater. It's got the smelliest couch I've ever seen in my life. You can sort of smell the improvised sex oozing off this couch. Quite disturbing. Who are the songwriters you admire?

And did you ever go through a period of trying to write in the manner of different songwriters like you went through a period of trying to play in the style of different guitarists? Yeah, I think it's a great exercise. I still do it. I still think, well, here's a songwriter who has a great kind of flow or something. Why don't I try and write a song in that style? I still do that.

Early on, I was listening to, well, I was listening to people like the Everly Brothers and Phil Oakes and Richard Farina. And I've always been influenced by Scottish ballads. I think that's probably the richest place you can find songs because they're just so good and they're so stunningly, you know, succinct. And they tell whole stories. You know, there's so much in a verse. It's so beautifully pared down over centuries.

Just wonderful stuff. So, you know, that's a big influence. And some of the Scottish, you know, writers like, you know, Carolina Oliphant and Burns Waterscott. Can I ask you to play a chorus of one of your songs that you feel is especially influenced by traditional Scottish ballads? Gosh. Okay. Let's think of it. Or you speak the words

Locked in my breast But it's late for me Let an old man rest One more black and tan On the barricades To keep me Safe from loving And it goes on.

But in terms of, you know, verse structure, you know, word usage, word repetition, blah, blah, blah, you know, and tune. I mean, it's very... And the way you sang it. Very Scottish, yeah. word usage, word repetition, blah, blah, blah, and tune. And the way you sang it. Very Scottish, yeah. I've really just so enjoyed the concert. I'm so thrilled we were able to do this.

I want to thank you very, very much. I'm very grateful you'd have me, thank you. Would you like to close with another song from the new album? Or if you prefer something earlier? Yeah, I could do something earlier. Yeah, great. What would you like? Do you feel so good? Yeah, why could do something earlier. Yeah, great. What would you like? Want to do Feel So Good?

Okay. Yeah, why don't you do Feel So Good? Okay. This is from a previous album from a couple of years ago called Rumor and Sigh. It is indeed, yes. Here we go. I feel so good I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight

I feel so good I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight I feel so good I'm gonna take someone apart tonight They put me in jail for my deviant ways Two years, seven months and sixteen days Now I'm back on the street in a purple haze I feel so good I feel so good I feel so good. I feel so good. I feel so good. I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight. I feel so good. I'm gonna make somebody's day tonight.

I feel so good. I'm gonna make somebody pay tonight I'm old enough to sin but I'm too young to vote Society been dragging on the tail of my coat But I've got a suitcase full of fifty pound notes And a half naked woman with a tongue down my throat And I feel so good And I feel so good And I feel so good I feel so good

I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight They made me pay for the things I've done Now it's my turn to have all the fun I feel so good And I feel so good I feel so good I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight Oh, oh, oh I feel so good, I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight Feels so good, I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight

Break somebody's heart Break somebody's heart Break somebody's heart Richard Thompson visiting Terry Gross in the Fresh Air studio in 1994. By the way, we should note that the jazz singer he mentioned, Little Jimmy Scott, died in 2014. Do yourself a favor and listen to his music. After a break, we'll hear portions of a much more recent interview with Richard Thompson from 2022. And film critic Justin Chang reviews Janet Planet,

the first film from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker. I'm David Bianculli, and this is Fresh Air. On today's show, we're featuring singer-songwriter-guitarist Richard Thompson, who has scheduled a new concert tour this summer and has just released his first studio album in five years, Shipped Ashore. When he was 18 years old, Thompson co-founded the British group Fairport Convention, then teamed with his then-wife Linda Thompson as a recording duo, before embarking on a six-decade solo career. Richard Thompson covered a lot of that ground in his memoir, which borrowed its title from one of his songs. The memoir is called B-Swing,

Losing My Way and Finding My Voice, 1967-1975. Terry Gross spoke with Thompson in 2022, after that memoir was published. She began by playing a sample from a 2018 album, a song called The Storm Won't Come. I'm longing for a storm To blow through town And blow these sad old buildings down

Fire to burn, what fire may To burn What fire May And rain To wash It all Away The storm Won't come

But the storm won't come. But the storm won't come. I'm longing for the storm. But the storm won't come. Richard Thompson, welcome back to Fresh Air. It's always such a treat to have you on the show. I love your music so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. You have such a dark sensibility, and I'm thinking about how so much of pop music over the decades, particularly in the pre-Dylan era, were about love and romance and, you know, more chaste sex because you weren't allowed to use sexual, sexually explicit words in the earlier days of pop. But so many traditional ballads, like the ballads of the British Isles that you, you know, started singing are about love and murder and revenge and death and storms at sea and hangings.

Yeah, happy stuff. Happy stuff. Is that part of what you loved about those old ballads? Well, I think it is. I don't know why we are so attracted to that stuff. It's great storytelling. The old Scottish and Irish ballads and English ballads are just wonderful storytelling. And if you grow up on a diet of that, you think that's normal. And when people say, oh, your music's so dark, you've got such a dark sensibility,

I just say, well, I don't know what you mean. I mean, to me, it's just normal. And I'm happy that people think my music is at least serious, that it's not frivolous pop music, that it actually shares some of the characteristics of poetry or of good prose. You know, you're going to the same places. You're just expressing it in a more musical way. What was behind the founding of Fairport Convention?

And what made you think that you wanted to and that the band should explore the music of, you know, the traditional British ballads? I think we started out as a bunch of friends. Myself and Ashley and Simon were three like-minded, you know, North London teenagers, fairly determined to not be like other bands. I think we thought there was a glut of blues bands, R&B bands, soul bands. So we always tried to find obscurities. If we were going to do a blues song, we'd try and find something that no one else had ever heard of. And we would do country songs, which no one else did at that time. And we do singer-songwriter stuff. We were very early in finding Joni Mitchell demos before she had recorded. I think we were the first people to get the basement tapes, the Dylan basement tapes.

We were doing very early songs by Leonard Cohen. So we were being obscure before we really became writers. We were trying to have the most obscure, different material from anybody else. And I think our love of lyrics made us stand out from other bands more than anything else. We really liked great lyrics, so we do Phil Oakes songs, we do, you know, Joni Mitchell, etc.

I don't think anyone else was really doing that at the time. The first song that was a traditional song that Fairport did was She Moves Through the Fair. And of course, Sandy Denny was the lead singer. Why was this the song that was chosen to be the first actual traditional song that the band did? Well, when Sandy joined the band, we didn't have a lot of rehearsal time. We were playing shows all the time. And so we had to get Sandy into the band,

to integrate Sandy into the band as quickly as possible. So as she slowly learned our repertoire, we decided that we should learn some of her repertoire that she was singing in the folk clubs. And it was easy to kind of wrap ourselves around her arrangement of She Moved Through the Fair, Nottingham Town, a couple of other songs that she'd been performing. So that was a fairly easy rehearsal process. And for us, it was a nice way to start playing some British Isles music. Why don't we hear that recording? This is Sandy Denny with Fair Park Convention, She moved through the fair. piano plays softly My young love said to me My mother and mine And my father once lied to you

For your lack of courage And she laid her hand on me And as she did say I'm on my way. That was an early Fairport Convention song with my guest Richard Thompson on guitar. You write that it was hard to keep the sound of unaccompanied singing, the kind of singing that was often done with traditional songs, and the ambiguity of key and the lack of resolution in the melody, once you put instruments behind it, can you elaborate on that? And maybe if you could sing perhaps an example of the ambiguity of key and the

lack of resolution in the melody that you refer to? okay um you know it's tempting uh when you grow up in a sort of western music uh to to put anything that's from outside of it uh into the basic western chord structure you know like cfg or something will fit an awful lot of traditional songs if you if you let them but but in traditional music um sometimes it is hard to know what the key is um she moves for the fair and my young love said to me my parents won't mind and my father won't slight you for your lack of kind and she laid her hand on me and this she did say This will not be long love till our wedding day Now you can sing that over the root note Or you can sing it over a fourth above or a fifth above

And sometimes you don't want to pin that down You want to keep that ambiguity And a great traditional interpreter, someone like Martin Carthy Will use special guitar tunings In order to keep that ambiguity alive and to not nail it down into sort of C, F, and G so it sounds like a Western tradition popular song. And it's not always easy to do that,

but it's a very desirable thing, I think, to keep that ambiguity going. So how did you deal with it's a very desirable thing, I think, to keep that ambiguity going. So how did you deal with it as a guitarist? As a guitarist, I learned from people like Martin McCarthy and Davy Graham, some of the great acoustic guitar players in Britain. And as a band, we try to arrange things in that way. And we did a song maybe a year later than that called a sailor's life where uh it's basically built around a drone so you have a drone and melody

and not an awful lot of uh saying what the chord is and uh just drone and melody is a very old tradition um a lot of uh pipe music um bagpipe music music from all around the world is basically drawn in melody. So it's a very ancient thing. And you don't have to develop that into a chord structure necessarily. You can keep that ambiguity going. So in Fairport, eventually we really tried to do a lot more of that. Let's hear the song you were just talking about. This is Fairport Convention. They have not said

Long of day When a queen sheds They chance When a queen sheds, they chance to meet. You sailors all, pray tell me true Does my sweet way Say Among your crew That was Fairport Convention with my guest Richard Thompson

on guitar. After leaving Fairport and playing with a lot of other bands, you and your girlfriend, then wife, Linda Thompson, formed a group, and you did remarkable music together. How do you think performing with her changed you as a songwriter? Because you were writing songs for yourself and writing songs for her. Yeah, interesting. I think it had to make me empathetic to someone else's point of view. And particularly to write songs from a female perspective is very difficult.

And I'm not sure I ever really did that successfully. But at least I could write songs that were at least ambiguous. If I sang it, it sounded authentic least ambiguous if I sang it it sounded authentic or if Linda sang it it sounded authentic I could never claim to get right inside her head to write stuff in that way but there were many songs

that we tried out where she might start out singing it and then say I don't really feel this why don't you sing it so there was a bit of that back and forth kind of idea. But I think it loosened me up as a songwriter and it made me a bit more sympathetic. And I think, you know, I admired someone like Robbie Robertson of the band who was writing songs for other voices, not for his own voice.

And so he'd be writing a song thinking, well, Levon's going to sing this one, or Rick Danko's going to sing this one. So I think I was influenced by that attitude. That really helped me. So I want to play a song that she sings lead on, and you sing on the chorus. And this is Walking on a Wire.

And it's from the album Shoot Out the Lights, which was your last album together in 1982. Can you talk about writing this song? Yeah, it's a song about relationships, you know, being right on the edge, really, you know, or up on a high wire, and you can fall off at any moment. You know, some people say, not me necessarily,

but some people say this was a precursor of our marriage breaking down. It was prophetic that we weren't going to be together much longer. I really don't know about that. Certainly by the time the album came out, we were um uh pretty much split up and uh so a lot of people have read into into that album it's it's you know one of the one of the breakup albums and i'm not sure i go that far uh really um and to me i was just writing

songs i didn't really know what i was doing in that sense um I wasn't deliberately writing um with with a divorce in mind or anything um but perhaps I was subconsciously picking up on on the news and uh the songs just pop out the songs just seem to pop out anyway they seem to have a life of their own and you write them and you look at them later and you think oh okay maybe okay, maybe that was about that or about this. But I think at the time you're not really conscious necessarily. Well, let's hear it. So this is Linda Thompson singing lead with Richard Thompson also on vocals. And this is from their album together, Shoot Out the Lights Recorded in 1982. I hand you my ball and

chain You just hand me that same old refrain I'm walking on a wire I'm

walking on a wire And I'm walking on a wire I'm walking on a wire And I'm falling I wish I could please you tonight But my medicine just won't come right I'm walking on a wire I'm walking on a wire And I'm falling Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Too many steps to take That was Richard and Linda Thompson

from their album Shoot Out the Lights from 1982. You've said, you know, that it's sometimes hard to tell where a song comes from. They just kind of come to you. When you write songs now, are they coming from a different place at all? Because you've lived through so much more than you did when you were young. And also you've written so many songs.

I think it's hard for a lot of people to not keep writing the same song. I think you have to be aware of writing the same song over and over. On the other hand, if you write the same song over and over, you might finally get it right. And I think there's a lot of writing with variations. You're almost writing the same song, but you manage to make it different enough that people won't notice too much.

But you know what you're aiming for. You're aiming to perfect that particular kind of song. But on the whole, I think you're trying to perfect that particular kind of song but uh on the whole i think you're trying to not repeat yourself and that gets harder and harder of course um so um there's always uh this this idea that you have to come up with something that's different and when you do come up with it with a song that is you think well no one's written this song before i know for certain this is something that no one has tackled before. It's a great feeling. It's a wonderful feeling. And it's a rare thing, you know, because of how much we all love

songs and how many songs get written and how many people want to express themselves. So being original does get harder and harder. Richard Thompson, thank you so much for talking with us. It's always such a pleasure to have you on our show and to have an opportunity to play a lot of your music. Oh, well, it's a great pleasure. Thank you so much, Terry. Richard Thompson speaking to Terry Gross in 2022. His new album, Ship to Shore, is available now.

And he scheduled a concert tour for this summer, including dates in Cape May and in Woodstock, New York. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews Janet Planet, the first film from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker. This is Fresh Air.

Janet Planet is the first feature film from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker. The movie is set in 1991. Julianne Nicholson stars as a woman looking after her 11-year-old daughter in western Massachusetts during a long, hot summer. Janet Planet is now in theaters. Here is Justin's review. Amid the current crop of summer movies, I can't think of one that captures the feeling of summer more evocatively than Janet Planet. Much of the story takes place in a rustic house in

woodsy western Massachusetts. By day, sunlight streams in through enormous windows, and at night, chirping crickets flood the soundtrack. The celebrated playwright Annie Baker, here writing and directing her first film, has uncanny powers of observation and a talent for evoking time and place. She also has two memorable lead characters and a sharply funny and moving story to tell. It's the summer of 1991. The story begins when 11-year-old Lacey, played by the terrific newcomer Zoe Ziegler, calls her mom from camp and demands to be taken home early. Her exact words are, I'm gonna kill myself if you don't come get me. Lacey is a shy misfit, with big, owlish glasses and a flair for deadpan exaggeration. She and her single mom, Janet, who's played by a subtly luminous Julianne Nicholson, are extremely close.

As we can see when Janet duly comes to fetch Lacey and bring her home. Later at their house, Janet puts Lacey to bed and listens to her vent. You know what's funny? What? Every moment of my life is hell. I don't like it when you say things like that. But it is. You actually seem very happy to me a lot of the time.

I tell. I don't think it'll last, though. As you can tell from the dialogue, Baker isn't one to hurry her characters along. Her plays, the best known of which is her Pulitzer-winning 2013 drama, The Flick, have been justly praised for bringing a new kind of naturalism to the stage, especially in the way the actors retain the stammers and silences of normal conversation. She brings that same sensibility to Janet Planet. Baker includes a few loving nods to her background in theater. At various points, Lacey plays with a small puppet theater, complete with handmade clay figurines. And in a later scene, she and Janet attend an outdoor performance featuring actors in elaborate costumes.

But the movie never feels stagey. It was shot on 16mm film by Maria von Hauswolf, who previously filmed the visually stunning Icelandic drama Godland, or significant other of Janet's, who becomes a houseguest for a spell. First up is her boyfriend Wayne, played by a gruff Will Patton, who has a daughter around Lacey's age, but doesn't take too kindly to Lacey herself. He's soon out the door. In the second chapter, we meet Regina, played by a wonderful Sophie Okonedo, a free-spirited drifter who comes to stay with Janet and Lacey after leaving a local hippie commune. Basically a cult, though everyone is careful not to use that word. Regina initially brings a breath of fresh air into the house, though she proves insensitive and tactless, especially around Janet, and soon overstays her welcome. The third house guest, Avi, played by Elias Koteas, is Regina's ex-partner and the leader of that hippie commune. Avi is the most mysterious presence in the movie,

and it's through his short-lived relationship with Janet that we fully grasp how profoundly unhappy she is. The title Janet Planet has many meanings. It's the name of the acupuncture studio that Janet operates out of the house. It's also a passing reference to the nickname that Van Morrison gave the songwriter Janet Rigsby, who inspired a lot of his love songs during their five-year marriage. But the title is most meaningful as it frames our understanding of Janet, whose quiet magnetism really does seem to draw other people, especially men, into her orbit. As we see in

Nicholson's heartbreaking performance, it's been as much a curse as it is a blessing. One of the movie's subtlest achievements is the way it clues us into Janet's perspective, even as it keeps Janet herself at a bit of a distance. Much of the time, we're studying Janet through Lacey's eyes, and what's uncanny is the way Baker captures a sense of the girl's growing disillusionment. That intensely specific moment when a child begins to see even a doting parent in a clear and not always flattering new light. By the end of Janet Planet, not much has happened, and yet something momentous seems to have taken place.

You want Baker to return to these characters to show us how Janet and Lacey continue to change and grow together and apart in the years and the summers to come. Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed Janet Planet. On Monday's show, why have cast members of the popular reality TV show Love is Blind accused the show's creators of exploitation and false imprisonment? New Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum tells us about her article, Is Love is Blind a Toxic Workplace?

And we'll talk about her new book, Cue the Sun, The Invention of Reality TV. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Sherrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional

engineering support by Joyce Lieberman and Julian Hertzville. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salant, Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi,

Joel Wolfram, Heidi Saman, and Kayla Lattimore. Our digital media producer For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli. communication at work is costly. That's why over 70,000 teams and 30 million people use Grammarly's AI to make their points clear the first time. Better writing, better results. Learn more at grammarly.com slash enterprise.