Song Exploder - Hozier - Nina Cried Power (feat. Mavis Staples)

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

Andrew Hozier-Byrne is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter from Ireland. His debut single from 2013, “Take Me to Church,” was a massive, multi-platinum hit. In September 2018, Hozier released the song “Nina Cried Power,” which features the legendary gospel singer Mavis Staples. In this episode, Hozier breaks down how he made the song, and Mavis Staples tells the story of how she got involved. songexploder.net/hozier

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. My name is Tau Wyn. Andrew Hosier-Burn is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter from Ireland. His debut single from 2013, Take Me to Church, was a massive multi-platinum hit. In September 2018, Hosier released the song Nina Cried Power, which features the legendary gospel singer Mavis Staples. In this episode, Hosier breaks down how he made the song and Mavis Staples tells the story of how she got involved. My name is Andrew Hosier-Burn.

I go by Hosier. Early 2017, after tour, I moved back into the countryside near where my family is from and kind of was living alone in a bungalow in County Wicklow in Ireland, which is just where the countryside begins, near the coast, and was kind of taken some time out and I was getting back. into the writing process. I fell into kind of a late night sleep schedule

where I'd work till, you know, three, four, five in the morning and sleep till whatever time. Late one night in Wicklow, I just was playing around with some dark chords in a minor key on this piano I had in the house. For a certain type of ballad, maybe it seems to be a place I tend to go to,

but I might just be a sucker for a dark piano sound. I fell on, I think, a chord progression. And then just one sort of couplet, one sort of lyrical idea of, it's not the waking, it's the rising. It's not the waking, it's the rising. It was just this kind of tongue-in-cheek inquiry into language of political awareness

that we hear kind of bandied around on social media about being woke and the language of wokeness, etc. Being aware and being conscious of an issue which affects people negatively and could change, that is a very, very positive thing. But there is the awareness of something and then there is the actual doing of something about it. there is the first step of being awake

and then there is the second step of actually getting out of bed. It is the grounding of a foot uncompromising. It's not for going of the light. It's not the opening of eyes. It's not the waking. It's the rising. That first night,

I didn't achieve much more than a few rattley verses. I recorded them into a session. And they were kind of jangling around my pockets for a while until the rest of the same. song started to make sense. I was making the demo in a room in my house. This room had a bathroom off of it with a shower. So late in the night, like two, three in the morning when you're stuck with an idea, I would just point the monitors into the bathroom and just take a long-ass shower. When you're fishing for an idea, it's always when your brain is out. So I would just loop the verses

over and over and over and over again. And then, you know, give yourself 20 minutes or an hour away from it and some seed will be planted. At some point, I had hammered out a rhythm in my head, something that leaned in a certain way and then I was looking through loads of loops that kind of carried the same gate or had that same kind of locomotive momentum to it and found a loop and it was sort of

a placeholder until we recorded the drums. In the demo, I'm getting the broad strokes out of the way and getting the arrangement stuff out of the way. So like, you know, what guitar part might come in or bass part might come in? What are the backing vocals doing? What are the harmonies doing here? So there were these verses

it's not the talk and it's doing, etc. But, you know, what to be done? Like, what is worth doing? I was trying to find a reason for the song. In the last few years in Ireland, there was a huge amount of social changes which were delivered by people pushing for change that they felt was necessary and long overdue,

like the equal right to marriage for the LGBTQ community and women's reproductive rights. And it has been really inspiring to kind of watch it happen and watch people help deliver that change. but also there was this frustration in me because I was watching this eye rolling and this fatigue set in and this vilifying of protest

you'll often find that it's from communities that are unaffected by issues that affect other communities it's always this is just them acting up or this is attention seeking for attention seeking sake or whatever so essentially became a song that was trying to credit protest in the spirit of protest

and the spirit of direct action and everything that has given us throughout history I Could Cry Power is the mission statement of the song So basically to cry power into the face of institutionalized power And I could cry power That was definitely a linchpin thing for me as going Okay, this is why, like this justifies the song

But I thought about abandoning this song time and time again I sat on that song for so long going like, no, like this is way too much It's too so boxy No one wants to hear this And then I thought, you know, we are wealthy with this legacy of work by really, really fantastic and brave artists who just sang about and wrote about what felt important to them. You know, when Woody Guthrie was writing songs about fascists,

did he think twice about it? When Joni Mitchell is writing about the destruction of the natural world for profiteering, etc. Did she stop and think this is too preachy? It was like, well, look, here is a list of artists that did they overthink this, or did they just stand up and sing about what they felt was important to sing about? And then the rest of that chorus kicked in.

And the decision to put the artists in it, that was a big part of it. Nina Simone was one of those artists that just switched a light on in me for a lot of reasons, not just for her voice and the songs that she wrote and how she sang them, but just making me think about what a song is. But also, there was this Sinner Man reference. Sinner Man is a traditional African-American spiritual. It's been recorded by a bunch of artists. Nina Simone recorded a version on her 1965 album, Pastel Blues.

When I was a kid discovering soul music and jazz music for the first time, I used to listen to that before class at like 14, 15. Just fascinated that that's an eight or nine minute piece of music. And that's one take. And then there is that literal Nina Simone crying of power. I don't think it was a conscious reference at the beginning of it, but once that awareness set in and it just made sense for the song to be named, Nina cried power.

Mavis Staples was a member of the Staples singer, somebody who was so central to this incredible linchpin moment in Western democracy, somebody who sang after Dr. Martin Luther King's speeches during the civil rights movement. I didn't think that I'd be on her radar at all, but I had heard that she was singing part of Take Me to Church in one of her sets. Take Me to Church was Hosier's debut single. So she liked the song, and it was always in my head. If I don't get a chance to work with Mavis at some point, I'd never forgive myself.

So when this song came to fruition, it was like, yeah, this is a no-brainer. When he called me to sing this song with him, he really made me a happy soul. Every part of the song made my skin tingle on my bones. My first reaction was just loving it. I flew to Chicago, and we spent a day and talked about the song. I also wanted to make sure that she was cool with the lyrics and what the sentiment that the song was about. I was with her in the vocal booth for a little time, and then we just, wrote in what we thought would sound great,

and everything clicked into place. The kind of roof just came off the song a little bit. And I could cry in a cry power. The song is just a different thing with Mavis on it. I just have great admiration for Mavis as an artist, and also I just see her as a bit of a hero and a legend. There was also just the overwhelming feeling of having written something that Mavis is singing on and seen her sing on it.

There was one line in particular that she really loved, which is the I could cry power, His power has been cried by those stronger than me straight into the face that tells you to rattle your chains if you love being free. That verse just went all through me. I felt it very strongly. I was like, take it, please, please sing that.

And her performance on that line in particular, I think is just really spectacular. It's just so Mavis. I could cry power by those stronger than me straight into the face that tells you to rattle your chain. If you love being free Right after you say Rattle your chains, you give a little laugh.

Well, it sounds like a laughter, but actually it was the spirit. The spirit hits you, you know, sometime when you're singing a great song. I'm a gospel singer first. That's home for me. And whatever you hear me sing, if it's a love song,

if it's a country song you're going to hear some gospel in it if she was getting into the vibe of it we stood on either side of the glass her in the vocal booth me in the live room outside of it both of us had headphones on both of us had microphones

and we just traded and riffed doing the chorus section and just working off each other's energy which was amazing that was just a surreal experience we recorded the drums in London the drum performance is by

Rory Doyle who tours with and we shaped it around what was on the demo and then just kind of took him off the leash. He has quite a heavy hand, he really hits the drums. That's pretty wild. I did a lot of backing vocals, a lot of the choir sounds, and we looked into getting some vocalists to put a female tone into the choir.

So it sounded more like a choir and less like my attempt at a choir. And then the organ parts, that's a whole other story. So when I was on the road last year, I received a message on Twitter from Booker T. Jones. He had said, basically, if you ever want to collaborate on something, I'd be totally up for it. And I was like, you know, what? A lot of his work is the reason why I just fell in love with music to the extent that I did.

And the first band I was ever in at 14, we used to cover Booker T and the MGs. So this was a big deal for me. We had a week with him playing B3 across the album, which was just a dream, you know, and just amazing getting to see him work. We kind of played around with getting these lovely, glassy, ghostly, clean organ tones. And when played with the choir sounds, you don't know where one begins and where the other ends. We just really fell into loving that sound. This song, it's a history song. It's a song about letting the youngsters, the new generation, know where it all comes from.

And all of these artists that we call out have contributed songs of freedom. And it was vital that they did it. And it was so important to the causes that they were involved in and that they felt strongly about. And if we didn't have that example, we would be bankrupt in so many ways. So the song would want it to be this thank you note to that. And now here's Nina Cried Power by Hosier, featuring Mavis Staples in its entirety.

Visit the waking, it's the It is the ground It's not forgoing of the light, It's not the open and it's the right It's not the shade we should be past it It's the light and it's the obstacle to cast it It's the heat that drives the light, It's the fire it ignites

It's not the way It's not the song, it is the singing I could cry Visit songexploter. for more information on Hozier and Mavis Staples. You'll also find a link to buy or stream this song. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length,

and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music talking to other artists. And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope.

I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different, an amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, Rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash Live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks.

Song Exploder was created by executive producer Rishi Kesh Hairway. This episode was produced and edited by Christian Coons. Carlos Lerma made the artwork, which you can see on the Song Exploder website. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of fiercely independent podcasts. You can learn about all of our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can find Song Exploder on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Song Exploder. And you can find me at Tao Get Stay Down. My name is Tao Wyn. Thanks for listening.

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