Allison Russell - The Returner
00:00 You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. I'm going to be on tour playing some shows this fall. I'm going to be in London on Wednesday, November 18th. I'm going to be performing solo at Rough Trade Records on Denmark Street, and I'm going to be in conversation about my music, moderated by one of my favorite actors and writers, Matthew Bainton. And a ticket to the show also gets you a copy of my album on vinyl or CD. And in December, I'm going to be on tour supporting S. Carey. We're going to be playing a bunch of shows in the Northeast U.S.
00:38 So I hope to see you in one of those places. You can find all the details and get links to tickets at songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Alison Russell is a singer and songwriter originally from Montreal and now based in Nashville. She's a Grammy winner and an eight-time Grammy nominee. And she's also won Canada's Juno Award. an Americana Award, and more. She starred in Hades Town on Broadway.
01:14 She spent years in bands and collaborating with others before she released her first solo album in 2021. Her most recent album came out in 2026, and is called In The Hour of Chaos. But for this episode, Allison and I talked about the title track from her second album, The Returner, which came out in 2023.
01:34 She recorded it with an all-female ensemble that included Wendy and Lisa of The Revolution. It was co-written with J.T. Nero, her husband, and Drew Lindsay, her brother-in-law, and the two of them also co-produced the song with Allison. My name is Allison Russell. I was on the road behind my first record under my own name, which was called Outside Child. And that record opened the doors of the music industry in an unprecedented way for me. A lot of that was to do with.
02:38 the other women artists who champion that record, people like Brandy Carlisle. And I was actually on tour with Brandy Carlisle when I started writing The Returner. The seed was planted actually at Newport. In 2022, Randy Carlyle orchestrated the greatest surprise ever, which was the return of Joni Mitchell to the stage for the first time since she had her aneurysm several years before. I was invited to be part of that circle of artists that support Joni and back her up. And in her band, we become her band. And I remember the electric response of the audience to realizing there she was, you know, decades after her debut there.
03:24 And when people thought she'd never sing again or speak again after her aneurysm. And I wrote a poem about that experience later. And in the poem I called Joni, Our Lady Returner. Do you, by chance, still have that poem? I do. Would you mind reading it? Here, let me find it. I've seen shadows of clouds on the mountains.
03:49 Shadows of clouds on the pines. I've seen shadows of ships' prows parting the waters. I've heard the foghorns low sigh. I've seen Joni, our lady, returner, sing both sides and laugh and stop time. There's no greater magic than music. There's no braver person alive. I am changed. charged, I am spinning. I'm touching the hem of her mind. Her garments are grit, grace, and glory.
04:15 Our Lady of Saskatoon skies. She carries the prairies within her, from the canyon to Newport, Rhode Island. Our Lady of Redemption. Our once and future queen. Our lady of death thrice defeated. Our prophet. Our holy wine. Hate shall have no dominion. Fear and despair overcome. When something's lost, something's won. Love, hope, and truth abide. When Joni sings, we cry. So that little kernel of this idea of being not just someone who survives, but who survives joyfully, who defies all expectations of what's possible.
04:56 That notion was planted in my mind that day. And it was almost like a mythic superhero in my mind, the returner superhero, you know. And that led to different poetic, and melodic exploration somehow. Like it wouldn't let go, that idea of the returner. Outside Child, the album that I was touring behind at that time was very autobiographical, very personal, rooted in my childhood, and I had a very, very young mother,
05:29 did not know my biological father, was in foster care that was abusive for several years, and my mother, whilst I was in the abusive foster care, married a man who was old enough to be her father, old enough to be my grandfather, who was a violently abusive in every possible way, adoptive father to me. And so outside child for me was summoning the ghosts and the demons of my past and like facing them and reckoning with them. But for the returner, I was wanting to embody music that felt like forward motion, that felt like a joy of fight song in a way, if you will, something like to feel embodied and empowered.
06:14 And that's when I started myself and Dimstar, my co-writers and co-producers, started writing the demos for what would become the returner song and album. Dimstar is J.T. Nero and Drew Lindsay, and they are brothers. We're coming into our 20th year of knowing each other and being creative, conspiracies. You know, we've co-written many, many songs. So we had a whole band together, J.T. and I called Birds of Chicago. And Drew came in and out of that band, too. And so we've always had this deep, deep artistic connection before we became, like, family
06:54 through marriage. You know, I ended up marrying J.T. And we've been married for 13 years, and we're coming up on 20 years of friendship. Drew was in Milwaukee, and J.T. was home holding down the fort with our daughter while I was on the road. But we were writing that whole time, sending demos and voice memos back and forth. Drew would send me these tracks and these groove ideas he had. Drew, as our beatmaker, he wanted us to be able to listen to the instrumentals and still locate the theme of the album. A celebratory soundtrack for getting tired of hating ourselves and deciding we're worthy.
07:36 He wanted for us instrumentally to be able to feel that even before the melody or the lyric was there. I just remember thinking, oh, this has got such a groove. I love this. And I knew it was the returner. J.T. and I have a wild thing where often one of us will, like, be writing the chorus to the song. And the other one, meanwhile, the verses have come through and will realize, oh, wait, these belong together. So that happened with this song where very shortly after J.T. sent me a voice memo of him singing the chorus. Goodbye so long, farewell all I've been
08:23 The ocean Ooh, I never learned to swim I'm a star child again And I come 10 million I'm a real light beam I'm worthy Goodness and the love that the world's gonna give to me Back ten times people are you ready
09:07 If you think you're alone When JT was writing those lyrics Yeah Was he trying to write in your voice? Was he trying to inhabit your voice? Yes, he was inhabiting me for sure. He hears my voice in his head. It's like he's singing in my voice, you know.
09:32 And it was him giving me like a triumphant fight song for myself that I could, words I couldn't write for myself. I'm a summer dream. I'm a real light being. I'm worthy of all the goodness and the love that the world's going to give to me. Do you know what I mean? Because I don't see myself as triumphantly as he sees me. But then it gives you that gift to like be that.
09:53 I'm going to be that brave. I'm going to be that strong, you know. And there's always some pressure with a second album of, you know, different people have different ideas. Like, oh, work with a name producer. Work with this, work with that. And I was like, no, I want to work with my family. I wrote several verses.
10:24 Now I let go everything that I've known. Let it go on, let it roll out with the tide. In the same way that the track rhythmically needed to feel like we're moving forward. We're not looking back going forward. I wanted the lyric to do that too. I can't think of a thing that hasn't been shut through with pain. Like a night and gays sung in the bed of the night. When I wrote the one that there's a demo with a verse that did not get used for obvious reasons when you hear it.
10:59 It makesone everything that I've sung, that it blossom, that it bloom now in its time. I can't think of a thing that hasn't been saved by the rain like a forest and flames at the break over by the night. It makes me laugh because it's just so unsingable ultimately. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just unscigued. I was like, oh, this was a good idea on the page. And then I like sang it. I'm like, I'm sure it was pretty quickly.
11:38 Like, this is not it. This is not it. Now I bestow everything that I've sown. Let it blossom. Let it bloom now in its time. I can't think of a thing that hasn't been saved by the rain. Like a forest in flames at the end of a violent night. Like it's like, what is she on about?
11:56 And so what for you made that not right? Because it's beautiful imagery. It's too many words. It's too many. And it's also they don't feel good to sing. It sounds unwieldy. It sounds like I'm trying too hard. And when I hear it back, it makes me laugh.
12:14 I had wiped it from my memory that I ever wrote them. Until Drew was laughing when he sent me the demo. He was like, listen to this. Is it okay if I send this to Rishi? I was like, okay, yes, you can, you can. It's all part of the process. More with Allison Russell after this. The bulk of the songwriting happened,
12:46 I would say, over a span of about three months. And we knew we wanted to co-produce and co-write the whole album. So we had the arrangements. And I knew who I wanted to cast the room with. In terms of the other musicians who'd be recording with you? Yeah, exactly. I wanted to really amplify this community of women that I've been meeting and growing through the years on the road. There's such an imbalance in terms of gender parity, right, at music festivals or anywhere.
13:16 So I was like, if I'm not going to hire people who look like me and who will, you know? So that was a joyful thing. And then Joe Henry sent some of our early demos to Wendy and Lisa because they're heroes to all of us. and we really wanted to have them on this record. So they said, yep, we'll do it, but they said they could only do it if we came to them. Originally we were going to do it in Nashville, but they've had their own studio at Chaplin here in L.A.
13:46 And we recorded pretty much all live together in the room. It was Lisa Coleman on the piano, Wendy Melvoin on bass, Megan Coleman on drums, Megan McCormick on electric guitar Joy Clark on acoustic guitar Elizabeth Poopo Walker on percussion I played clarinet
14:15 and sang live Now I unfold Every lie I was told Watch him wither Watch them scatter with the wind I can't The recording that hasn't been born of a dream, like a love supreme, like a circle unbroken.
14:50 The recording, it was done in three takes. If you cast the room with the right people, you don't need hundreds of takes. So we were doing the Neil Young crazy horse method, you know, like no more than three takes. And Larissa Maestro, who is an utter genius, did the string arrangements. on the violins Shanti Ross and Corenza Peacock and on the cellos Larissa Meistro and Moni Gros
15:22 and then Shanti Monique and Larissa sang the harmonies There's a real difference I think in the way that you sing it in the demo versus the way you sing it in the album Oh yeah Like I think in the demo it feels like you're singing the part
15:56 but in the album I'm beaming and I'm looking at all of these beautiful women that I adore So yes, it couldn't sound like that in the demo because it's me sitting in our living room, like, you know, just singing that this is what it is. But when it was live with them and all together, that's when it came to life. Goodbye so long, farewell. All my beautiful.
16:26 Watch me sweet. We still have a text thread amongst us called Volvatron because Wendy Melvoin at one point looked around all of us and was like, I've never been in a room with this many dames making such a room. good music. You talked about the idea of how J.T. saw you as triumphant. Yeah. After writing and recording the song and finishing it, do you think that the process of making it moved the needle at all for you in terms of how you saw yourself?
17:29 I think it did. I think that's the other wild mass. I think of words and songs and what they do for us. That feeling of deep liberation that the things you thought you knew are not what you know, the things that you believe about yourself, the lies that you believe about yourself that have imprisoned you, we don't have to continue to carry them. We actually can choose and we get to choose to let those go and discover something new. And I'm speaking to myself because I'm someone like many people who grew up in abusive circumstances,
18:04 is it's very, very easy for me to get trapped in miserable, awful loops, especially of self-hating talk in my own mind, you know. But there's such a comfort and a freedom in knowing that we get to change our minds about anything at any time, including ourselves. And now here's The Returner by Alison Russell in its entirety. Everything that I've known, let it go out, let her roll out. Visit the tide. I can't think of a thing
18:54 that hasn't been shot through with pain like a night and gets sung in the date of the night. Goodbye so long, farewell. Watch them with her, watch them scatter. It hasn't been like a love supreme, like a sicker.
21:11 Visit songexploder.net to learn more. You'll find links to buy or stream The Returner by Alison Russell, and you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan, and Tiger Biscop. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to subscribe to my newsletter, you can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website.
22:56 You can also get a SongExploder shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.
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