Revisionist History - Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

In this Valentine’s Day special from Pushkin Industries, Malcolm breaks down the perfect break up song. But first, Broken Record hosts Justin Richmond and Leah Rose make their cases: is R&B ...the undisputed sound of love? Are sad songs more romantic? Can country win the day? Plus, Ben Naddaff-Hafrey writes a love song of his own, and the legendary songwriter Babyface talks about how young love shaped his most enduring ballads. Whether you're mid-swoon or nursing a broken heart, this episode is Pushkin’s Valentine to you. Listen to Broken Record’s interview with Babyface.  Listen to a Revisionist History episode about sad songs. And hear more from Ben’s band, Rookin. Plus, our battle of the playlists continues… here’s Leah’s sad songs playlist. And Justin’s for love songs. Pick your fighter and… enjoy!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everyone, welcome to all you lovers out there. This is Justin Richmond. And I'm Lea Rose. We're the host of Broken Record where we interview your favorite musicians and bring to life the stories behind their music, behind some of your favorite recordings. If you're listening to this in the Broken Record Feed, welcome back. But if you're hearing us as a listener
Starting point is 00:00:31 of another Pushkin show, that's because today we're doing something special. That's right. This is our Valentine's Day special. And today to celebrate the music we love, Justin and I are going to do what we love, which is argue about music. We're also gonna be talking to some of our friends here at Pushkin, people who have equally strong opinions about the songs they love. I'll be talking to Malcolm Gladwell, who has a very Gladwellian take
Starting point is 00:00:50 about why he believes country is the best genre for love songs. And I can guarantee it's not for the reason you may think. It's depressive music. That's what it is. We'll also hear from Ben Nadeff-Hoffrey, the sometimes host of The Last Supper, who has been a great singer and a great singer. And I can guarantee it's not for the reason you may think. It's depressive music. That's what it is. We'll also hear from Ben Nadef-Hafri, the sometimes host of The Last Archive, about a love song he wrote that's so good,
Starting point is 00:01:13 it helped him score his forever Valentine. I think that folk music does love songs the best. But first, Justin, I'm gonna ask you what I think is the central question of today's episode. I think I know what you're going to say, but out of every genre and subgenre that exists today, which one do you think does love songs the best? R&B. I knew it.
Starting point is 00:01:40 Look, when you think about it, it's really the shorthand in music and in audio for love. If you were scoring a love scene in a movie for Netflix, for the most amount of people possible to watch, you would probably throw in an R&B song. Maybe Al Green, Let's really, those are the sounds of love right there, you know? It's very much like what song are you choosing for the first dance at your wedding? The first dance, right. The first slow dance, it's your junior high welcome dance, you know what I'm saying? Or your senior prom, like it it's gonna be R&B.
Starting point is 00:02:26 It's kind of the cliche genre that we go to. And I don't, I think, I should give a deeper reason here because I think R&B kind of gets short shrift in the music world. Like, you know, rock and roll and hip hop have taken up all the air in the room for... 60 years now? Yes. Since the British invasion.
Starting point is 00:02:45 A couple of years were spent on EDM, but yeah. Couple of years, yeah, right. Skrillex was big there for a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not a sexy topic for some reason. I think because it's so ubiquitous, because in some ways it's so ever present, and we just find it very easy to ignore.
Starting point is 00:03:00 But when you think about the fact that R&B comes out of, really, like it comes out of gospel, like gospel is about love and devotion to a higher being, to God. And at some point all these gospel musicians that go out, they wanna write popular songs or sing popular music instead of just singing in the church. And they take everything they've learned in gospel music
Starting point is 00:03:21 about how to sort of create a stir and a fervor around God. And they just sort of sent a romantic love a fervor around God and they just sort of sent a romantic love. So they just take God out and put in a man, a woman, a lover, you know, a classic example is Sam Cooke who's originally with the gospel group, the Soul Stirrers, and he releases a song, He's So Wonderful, which is, you know, it's a gospel track. Then when Sam Cooke wants to cross over, like about a year later, and wants to just make an R&B cut, he reworks that same song and instead of wonderful becomes lovable. So then how could you not say that R&B isn't like the preeminent genre for love songs? It's like it's it it has to do with the the ethereal and the theological down to the romantic
Starting point is 00:04:24 and the platonic, like it's everything. And then it just gets dirtier and dirtier as the years go on. And then we land at the thong song. Yeah, Cisco's thong song. Shout out to Cisco, I love Cisco. That's a great album.
Starting point is 00:04:35 I love Cisco too. R&B does do love very, very well. But there's other genres too. I mean, look at Dolly Parton on Jolene. She's begging and she's pleading and she's out of her mind. Please don't take my man. But then who takes, and we love Dolly, but then who takes a Dolly song like I'll Always Love You
Starting point is 00:04:54 and takes it to the next level? Whitney. Whitney. And I will always love you And I will always love you. I will always love you. Speaking of Whitney, someone who could sing anyone's song and make it sound phenomenal, this makes me think of the interview you did
Starting point is 00:05:22 with Babyface for Broken Record back in 2023. And he wrote some of Whitney's biggest hits. I mean, he wrote some of my favorite Whitney songs. Forget about his. These are some of my favorites. And, you know, a million other unforgettable songs that, you know, yeah, they also happen to be hits. Boyz II Men's End of the Road, Moriah Carey's We Belong Together, Breathe Again by Toni Braxton. Yes. That was such a great interview. Yeah, man, I mean, I'm sitting there with Babyface and I'm watching him play guitar in front of me.
Starting point is 00:05:51 It was just crazy, you know, and he's left-handed, he plays upside down like Hendrix. I mean, he's not as good as a guitar player as Hendrix, but I mean, it was just incredible to be that personal up close with him and seeing how he wrote these songs. And he played for me a song he's never recorded with anyone. It was the very first song he ever wrote
Starting point is 00:06:09 about an early love of his, his first love actually in high school. Let's hear some of that. Here I go falling in love again. That was my first song. And I wrote it for a girl because I was like in love and stuff. And so the guitar really was just an instrument my first song and I wrote it for a girl because I was like in love and stuff.
Starting point is 00:06:29 And so the guitar really was just an instrument for me to get these songs out of me. I always like to say even when I play and learn things on the piano, I play, I'm not really a piano player. I learned things to support my songwriting and that's what I did then. I turned that into my songwriting. And that's what I did then. I turned that into my first song. So I was just learning chords to support all my little songs.
Starting point is 00:06:51 Wow. And for you, songwriting was about writing songs for the girls you were in love with. Yeah, the girls I had crushes on. Yeah, crushes and stuff. And it was purely kind of an escape, so to say. Wow. It wasn't anything but that.
Starting point is 00:07:05 I didn't think they were gonna go anywhere. But that was the drive. And you would have been like 11, 12, 10, 11, 12? Yeah. Can I play a Deal song? Sure. Sweet November? Yeah. November will tell us a story that will bring us back the love that we both know.
Starting point is 00:07:33 Wow, man. That's a great song. I wrote that right out of high school. Out of high school? Yeah, it was because I was a man child so it was Second year something 78 or so 78 79 right in that time. So this is a girl It was like this one girl she was like the most while we were in high school, we were really good friends and There's no way I would have ever thought I would have been with her. But since when I got out of high school we were really good friends and there's no way I would have ever thought I would have been with her but when I got out of high school we we started talking and then we actually started
Starting point is 00:08:10 dating I remember Darryl was like how how is this even happening how do you have her and then I remember we went to go see Brooke Shields Endless Love when saw Endless Love, went and saw Endless Love together. And then something happened, I think, right before we were going away in Manchow, all of a sudden she stopped calling me and I couldn't reach her. And I don't know what happened, but it was just like, we were just like broken up.
Starting point is 00:08:43 And then there was no cell phones. There was no good, you couldn't reach out on a phone. No social media with their doors. It was just done. And I was really messed up about it. And that's when I wrote this, cause that was the time period. It was in the fall.
Starting point is 00:08:59 And I was thinking, maybe when I come back, maybe this November we'll get back together and find it. So that was actually a love song that was written way back then. And would you have written the words? Or would you write the words first? I sat at the piano and wrote it. You sat at the piano?
Starting point is 00:09:15 Yeah. Wow. Because it's kind of beautiful even just divorced from the music. If you just look at the words, it's like, it's high level, you know? Yeah, it was when autumn first arrived, you were my lady, we were dating.
Starting point is 00:09:29 It was the second rain of autumn, we shared a feeling. Yeah. Come on, that's... It was like we started dating and then all of a sudden we like, I remember it was raining. And like, looks like something's gonna happen here. So that song was really personal. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:43 Exhale was more from watching the movie. Watching the movie. You don't necessarily have to write from personal experience. You can, but you can watch others. No, yes, it's really about watching others and how they feel and how they, imagining having to go through that. I'm always asked, how are you able to write for women?
Starting point is 00:10:06 And said, if you just kind of think of it and think of whatever they go through and think of how you'd feel, it's not that hard to figure out, damn, that's fucked up. I think I'll write about that. And as a kid that was always falling in love and thinking I was in love.
Starting point is 00:10:25 Feeling like you were in love. You know, that's what it was. I mean, my very first song was about a girl named Rhonda Newbo, I would say her name. And that was in, Here I Go Falling in Love Again. And the second song that I wrote that I clearly remember was about the same girl, which was two years later from sixth grade to eighth grade, because she broke my heart, was called The Bitter Taste of Life. I wrote that I clearly remember was about the same girl, which was two years later from
Starting point is 00:10:45 sixth grade to eighth grade because she broke my heart, was called The Bitter Taste of Life. Oh. Yeah. Those are feelings that I had and everything was exaggerated. I had written a song called So Shy. So there would be pieces of songs that I would write. I wrote a song called Toneata,
Starting point is 00:11:04 wrote a song called Shelly. One of the best songs I ever wrote was a song called Last Song Forever, which was, I wrote that when I was in my senior year. Never recorded it. I think I let a group record it as they turned into a gospel record. Do you remember any of it?
Starting point is 00:11:20 Yeah. Could you play a little of it? I don't know what my voice is like right now. Take a look. Yeah. Could you play a little of it? I don't know what my voice is like right now. I think of special moments Those were special times you told me you cared You know when autumn comes the leaves will float away I hope you know by now my love will always stay I know I will love you forever You should know my love can't get no better
Starting point is 00:12:11 Last song forever I couldn't love you no matter Um, how's it go? And I do right now And now it's forever That's a little piece of it. You can hear all of my conversation with Babyface in the Broken Record episode that we're going to link to in the show notes. There's so much more to it, including how some of his biggest influences
Starting point is 00:12:45 were singer songwriters like James Taylor and The Beatles. Coming up after the break, Pushkin producer Ben Adepafri tells Leah about writing his own love song. I think that folk music does love songs the best. That's star Pushkin producer and sometimes host of The Last Archive, Ben Nadef Haferi. Folk or country, either one would be my leading contender for the genre that is best at love songs. I think it's because on some level, I think a breakup song or
Starting point is 00:13:33 a lost love song is superior to a straight up love song. Me too. Because I think if you're in love, you don't really need a song. You feel this symphonic happiness. There's something specific if you're in love, you don't really need a song. Like you feel this kind of symphonic happiness. Like there's something specific that you're experiencing with another person. Like if you are experiencing lost love or unrequited love, there's something about a particular breakup story or sad romance song that like creates a community with
Starting point is 00:14:03 you when you maybe feel otherwise alone or bereft. But I think that there's like wistful folk music, wistful country music, kind of toes the line between these two things. To be honest, I also think that sad songs might make the best love songs. But the real reason I wanted to talk to Ben is because I learned at our holiday party that he also has a second life as a musician and as a songwriter with the band Rukin. Yes, and this is part of my long con
Starting point is 00:14:31 to get interviewed on Broken Record for my music. -♪ PAULA LAUGHS I was tipped off by our producer Izzy about a love song that you wrote a couple years ago and it actually ended up having sort of like a big impact on your life. So I wanted to ask you about this song, If I Didn't Know You By Now. So set the stage for us, how did this song come to be? Well, I wrote this song about like a year after I first moved to Brooklyn. So I was like just out of college and I had moved to Brooklyn and I was living with a bunch of friends
Starting point is 00:15:11 in what was actually quite a nice apartment. I had not made my corner of the apartment particularly nice. I was not having the best time that year. And I had, I think as an expression of vague despair, just like not really done anything to set it up. I don't remember why this is, but I remember I had like a tarp in the corner of the room. I had a tarp in the corner of the room, like a mattress, and then a saw on the wall. I thought it would be like fun to put on my wall,
Starting point is 00:15:45 but it looked terrifying. And that was like pretty much it. And I remember distinctly walking into the apartment one time with a good friend of mine from high school. And I had like change in my pocket and I like took the change out of my pocket and I threw it in the corner. And she was like, why did you just throw
Starting point is 00:16:07 the change in the corner? I was like, that is the corner of the apartment where I keep my change. And it was like, it was indeed like next to the tarp, like a pile of change. So there were no shades on the window. This was like a crucial thing. I just was like, not super taking care of myself. Like everything was totally fine,
Starting point is 00:16:27 but my life was not in order. And then I started dating a friend of mine from college. Her name was Julia. And she was living in Nashville at the time. And we sort of like picked back up, talking to each other at a distance. And then when she came to New York, we would hang out. And I noticed that like, as Julia and I had been talking more and started seeing each other in Nashville and also in New York, that slowly I had begun to set up my room. I got shades for the window. I put like, they didn't actually fit, but I got like handkerchiefs that extended them to the bottom. I got rid of the tarp. I did in fact leave the saw on the wall.
Starting point is 00:17:08 Cause that was by then a crucial part of the decor and my identity and remains so. I don't remember what I did with the change corner. There's a good chance the change corner sort of remained. The growing up process is a slow one. The growing up process is a slow one, but it began, it began with fixing up that first room. There was a moment I remember where she came and visited.
Starting point is 00:17:32 It was early spring and we had this really wonderful weekend together exploring the city and she'd grown up in New York and I was kind of new there and she was showing me around. And we went to like a Lebanese church and I'm Lebanese. And it was kind of like a, they just wandered in because they were having like a food festival kind of thing. Like there are a lot of wonderful serendipitous things. Yeah. And I remember it was after that visit, I think on the day that she had left that I was hanging out in my room and I was playing guitar and I started writing this song.
Starting point is 00:18:16 Like a lot of hack guitar players, I use a lot of open tunings. And around that time, I had been playing the Rain song by Led Zeppelin, which is a version of open C tuning. And so I just would like keep my guitar in that. And I remember figuring out the sort of main guitar line and then messing around with the words over it. Whatever, hang the plans up on my window Phone away and pack up all my clean clothes Without complaining You know, I'm not a professional songwriter. This was a song that like definitely did not come easily to me,
Starting point is 00:19:04 but it felt sort of like inspired by that moment and that feeling. It was like a reflection of the fact that I was noticing that my life was changing, and an expression of gratitude to her for bringing me to the place where I wanted to do that. At what point did you realize I'm writing a love song for Julia? I think that that is just what it was. I think it's just because that was sort of where it came from. So I don't think it was a realization ever. It was just kind of that was the feeling it started from.
Starting point is 00:19:53 So yeah, I was in a long distance relationship both then with Julia, because she was living in Nashville, but then also with the lead singer of my band, Adam, who he was in the UK getting a master's in medieval literature or something. And we were always working on an album in the background, usually as like an escape hatch from like one or another job that we didn't want to do. Yeah. So we were always like kind of trading versions of things. We spent a lot of time basically on every song, just like trying to get it right,
Starting point is 00:20:18 recording and re-recording, that kind of thing. And I would always share those things with Julia. And she, like a joke evolved where she sort of teasingly would be like, is this song about me? A thing that I would always like flatly deny. She'd come to shows and she would like, we would always have these long introductions to our songs about, often we wrote historical songs. It was like Mark Twain's brother died in a steamship accident.
Starting point is 00:20:41 And like there would be a long preamble to the song about Samuel Clemens' brother who dies in this horrible way. But there would notably be no preamble or introduction to this song. And so this was the thing I was often mocked about. And it kind of reached ahead when we were like crowdfunding an album that we were doing, which is a fancy way of saying like asking our friends for money. Yeah. And there was a thing that we offered that was like a handwritten lyric sheet with a story behind the song.
Starting point is 00:21:12 And so Julia bought that, requested a lyric sheet with the story behind the song for this song. Oh wow. Which as a way of like cornering me into having to admit the provenance of the song. And I did not fulfill that lyric sheet for like, quite a while. And it wasn't until, again, sort of as like a joke in return, but it wasn't until we got engaged that I then did actually deliver the lyric sheet with the story as a kind of
Starting point is 00:21:43 like, you know, obviously, this is a song about you and the way I feel about you. Do you have a favorite part of the song? I always love everything Adam writes. He wrote the last verse that I think kind of takes it to a totally different place. It gets a lot darker right at the end in a way that I Wouldn't have done But think it gives it a lot of heft Then we'll drive there in the dark while there's still time We haven't closed all of the doors till the night Still feels good to lean my head into your side
Starting point is 00:23:01 Cause if I didn't know the way you come to me Through the first snow you find me there, Found it before that. When I told you I was hopeless, you said, all right. We're carrying you back through the big night, the big night. Well, thank you so much, Ben. Thanks for having me. This was fun. Happy Valentine's Day. Such a beautiful song.
Starting point is 00:23:34 Again, that's If I Didn't Know You By Now by Rukin. I'm not sure if Ben's going to convince Justin that folk is the best genre for love songs, but in a minute, Malcolm Gladwell weighs in, and he gets us thinking about this question in an entirely different way. Yeah, I don't think country music does good love songs. I think it does good breakup songs, heartbreak songs. It does the reverse. Malcolm Gladwell is a bestselling author, the host of Revisionist History, and Pushkin's resident country music aficionado.
Starting point is 00:24:22 When I heard we were doing a Valentine's Day music episode, I knew we were gonna have to get a stake. So country music, which is consistent with its role in American popular culture, it is the downer to rock music's upper, right? Rock music, and I did a whole Revisionist History episode on this. It was, you know, the striking thing about
Starting point is 00:24:45 rock music is the inability of rock musicians to write effective sad songs. Their sad songs are terrible. They're just not sad, right? They're not believably sad. They're rock and roll songs that are kind of, you know, trying to pretend to, like I gave the example of wild horses, which is supposed to be a sad song. It's not sad. What's sad about it? And also it's like totally- Oh, sad, enfo country, huh? It's also banal and like wild, wild horses, like what is going on? I mean, it just like, it doesn't work. Country though, is totally comfortable in that kind of emotional morass. That's the
Starting point is 00:25:29 whole, it's depressive music. That's the whole point. It's the South. It's like white guys who lost the Civil War, never got over it. That's what it is. You know, I was talking to some guy yesterday about the Church of Christ, which is an almost overwhelmingly southern denomination of Christian denomination. And Nashville is the heart of Church of Christ. The music in Church of Christ churches is insane. The Church of Christ famously has no orchestral music. It's all a cappella, which is way more demanding.
Starting point is 00:26:05 The Church of Christ, it is not a happy denomination. It's not Pentecostals jumping up and down and welcoming the risen Lord. No. It's like white senators bemoaning the laws of their status and like be bowing their head in the face of a vengeful God. And no piano to lift their spirits. No piano to lift their spirits. No organ, no piano, no nothing. Use your own voice, damn it. Which is why, by the way, so many countries singers come from the Church of Christ. Amy Grant is Church of Christ. Merle Haggard is Church of Christ. I could go on and on. Listen, if you look it up, it's insane.
Starting point is 00:26:40 Yeah, I'm looking at this church. I'm like, this is Roy Orbison. They're all Church of Christ. They're all Church of Christ. Loretta Lynn. Woody Guthrie. So like, is there any surprise country music which comes from Nashville, the epicenter of the Church of Christ, is like the least happy music known to man? No, it's like, it's like depressive. So stands the reason then, that like, in the continuum of, you know, when it comes to love like in the continuum of, you know, when it comes to love songs and the continuum of sort of emotions that go along with love,
Starting point is 00:27:10 country music would fall more on the side of sad over a breakup, sad over unrequited love, sad because I'm in a marriage and I don't want to be in, but I'm still in love with my high school sweetheart or whatever, you know, whatever those songs are, that these sad kind of loves not going right or breaking up. One of my favorite country songs about Heartbreak is,
Starting point is 00:27:30 I think it's George Strait, Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind, which is a classic, I mean, you can't, if we're gonna talk about country music and sad songs, we're starting with George Strait. Now, okay, so I'm gonna read to you some lyrics to Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind. This is the opening stanza.
Starting point is 00:27:50 Cold Fort Worth beer is how it begins. Just ain't no good for jealous. I've tried it night after night. You're in someone else's arms in Dallas. Does Fort Worth ever cross your mind? Darling, while you're busy burning bridges, burn one for me if you get time. What's hilarious about this is this song is all about parsing the cultural distinction between Fort Worth and Dallas, which looms large in the minds of people from Texas.
Starting point is 00:28:39 And the rest of us are like, this song makes no sense to anyone who's not from Texas. I want to give you, you left me here to be with him in Dallas and I know it hurts you at the time. Well, I wonder now if it makes a difference. Does Fort Worth ever cross your mind? It's 20 miles away. It's a whole song about a stretch of interstate. It's just so fantastic. This is what's so hilarious about it. It is like, it's so petty and so, but like this is why rock and roll can't do a breakup song because a breakup song requires a certain level of emotional and narrative specificity. And rock and roll is too obsessed with being universal. Yeah, they're not enough in the details in rock.
Starting point is 00:29:29 No, no detail. Did Prince ever write a song about, did St. Paul ever cross your mind? No, no, no, because that's not the business he's in. He's not in the business of evoking this kind of strong emotion. He was aware of the distinction between Minneapolis and St. Paul,
Starting point is 00:29:48 but chose to overlook it in his songwriting. That's why he's a rock musician or a R&B musician, not a country musician. So he's saying that, you left me to be with him, he's saying Dallas with a level of disdain. I mean, that's a- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, with the level of disdain. I mean, that's a, with the level of disdain. No, no, no, no, you have to understand the song here. The reason why it's not, does Dallas ever cross your mind?
Starting point is 00:30:13 That's a wholly different song. Yeah, yeah. That Fort Worth is the ugly stepsister. Fort Worth is one step down the rung. So she left him to upgrade in Dallas. To move up. Yeah, that's why it hurts. If she left him for a dude in Fort Worth,
Starting point is 00:30:30 he's fine, he's moved on, he's finding another girl in Dallas. No, no, no, no, no, no. He's in Fort Worth, what did she do? Got up one morning, drove down to the interstate and upgraded her situation, leaving him in a pile of tears in Fort Worth. Well, you see, this is why,
Starting point is 00:30:46 and you know, I wanna talk to Lya, this is why I think R&B is the greatest genre for love songs. I don't ever wanna be the guy in Fort Worth pining about the woman who left me to upgrade to go to Dallas. Like, that's why Whitney Houston, like, you know, in her song, she catches like the guy cheating and she says, it's not right, but it's okay.
Starting point is 00:31:06 I'm gonna make it anyway. Like I want, I wanna, you left me fine. I'm not gonna wallow. I'm just gonna move on with my life, bigger, better things. Like that's where I wanna live. No, no, it's that you just, what you're just identifying is that she's made it stronger stuff.
Starting point is 00:31:20 That's what that's about. And some of this is like, is bathos. Am I pronouncing that right? Is it bathos or bathos? Yeah. Pathos. Pathos or bathos? No, I think bathos is the word I want. Bathos? B-A-T-H, bathos, definition. Yeah, anti-climax created by an unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous. Like that's what, does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind
Starting point is 00:31:47 is bathos, right? That's what that is, right? That's the appeal of the song. Is there a hope for the country music family? I guess there are country music songs explicitly about love, they're just not as good. They're just not, they're not the A tier country music songs, right?
Starting point is 00:32:07 I mean, there's like Forever and Ever, Amen, Randy Travis, people play at their wedding. But that's a song, but think about that song. The way he sings it, he sings it like it's a sad song. I'm gonna love you forever and ever. It's very wistful. Forever and ever. It sounds like wistful. Forever and ever. It sounds like he's committing to a prison sentence.
Starting point is 00:32:27 Ah man, like. What does it say about you Malcolm, that when you're asked to think what genre might be the greatest for love songs, your mind goes to the breakup song. I once had a friend named Mike, and he didn't know me me very well and we decided to go to a ballgame together. This is in the 80s. And we drove from Washington DC to Baltimore to see the Orioles. And I played some mixtapes in the car. And at the end, he turned to me and he said,
Starting point is 00:33:03 I had no idea how depressed you are. Because every single song in the mix tape was a song about some kind of broken heart, suffering, sadness, death. I don't know, that's what I wanted a song. But there is no part of being around you that feels mired in sadness or depression. No, but I don't like upbeat songs. It's my problem with rock and roll.
Starting point is 00:33:27 It's just like, just calm down already. Like, can we wallow in our emotions for a moment here and not just beating our head against the wall in ecstasy? It strikes me as unseemly. ["Sweet Home Alone"] I love country music dearly. I think songwriting is impeccable and they certainly do a love song and a sad song incredibly well. But, you know, I just, I guess I just, I just like a more happy song.
Starting point is 00:34:06 I like a more, I just, I don't know. I don't know if I can live like in that kind of misery. I think it's so funny. I mean, you know that I love a sad song over a happy song and I'll take a depressed, unrequited love song over, a happy over the moon love song any day. Well, Leah, you know, I feel like we're back to where we started, which is, you know, I mean,
Starting point is 00:34:28 you're probably right. Look, the whole idea of genre is, and it's a manmade creation, and there's probably no way to categorize what sort of genre and what culture does the love song the best. It's just- It's so subjective.
Starting point is 00:34:46 It's so totally subjective. And you know, it's for me, based on my personal experiences, still R&B. I mean, I think I'm even further entrenched in my position at this point, but you know, I love that Malcolm and Ben both have their strong feelings. And I love that you're ever sort of non-committalness around any of this.
Starting point is 00:35:08 Yeah, I know, I'm just gonna keep it open. I'm keeping it open for new experiences and I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna celebrate Valentine's Day by listening to songs that make me cry. Well, no, no, no, celebrate Valentine's Day. I made a great playlist of love songs. Listen to that. We'll put that in the show notes and listen to that,
Starting point is 00:35:28 not the sad songs, please. Wait, I just saved a playlist, and this is real. I just saved a playlist from Spotify called Classics for Crying. So I'm getting that queued up. This episode was produced by Isabel Carter and edited by Sarah Nix. Our mix engineer is Sarah Bruguier.
Starting point is 00:35:49 Special thanks to Ben Nadeff-Hoffrey, Malcolm Gladwell, Costanza Gallardo, Owen Miller, and Eric Sandler. I'm your host Justin Richmond. And I'm Lea Rose. Happy Valentine's Day!

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