Song Exploder - Jewel - You Were Meant For Me

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

Jewel is a singer-songwriter from Homer, Alaska, who’s received four Grammy nominations and sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Her debut album, Pieces of You, came out in 1995, and a 25th anniversary edition was released in November 2020. That album contains the hit song "You Were Meant for Me," but it turns out it wasn’t a runaway success—not at first. In this episode, Jewel traces the history of making “You Were Meant For Me,” starting with the demo, and moving through all the different versions that were made along the way. songexploder.net/jewel

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. This episode contains explicit language. When I was in high school, my girlfriend made a mixtape for me. The first song on it was You Were Me from the debut album of a singer named Jewel. I probably listened to that mixtape a hundred times over the next few months, so I knew the song really well. A little while later, I started hearing it on the radio, but it sounded different. And then later I heard yet another version, and that was different too.

For years, I had no idea why the song kept changing. But then I got the chance to do this episode and ask Jewel directly. Jewel is a singer-songwriter from Homer Alaska, who's received four Grammy nominations and sold over 30 million albums. The 25th anniversary of that debut album of hers, Paces of You, came out last month in November 2020. It turns out it wasn't a runaway success, not at first. So in this episode, Jewel traces the history of making You Were Meant for Me,

starting with the demo and moving through all the different versions that were made along the way to becoming a massive hit song. I'm Jewel. The time of my life, just before I wrote You Were Me, was spent in San Diego. I think I was 18, and I had just been discovered. I was a homeless kid living in a car. So I started gigging in a local coffee shop to try and just work my way out of it if I could develop a following and get some door money.

It was a tiny little coffee shop and a strip mall nothing very viby. But all the local musicians would come and play and sit in and do open mics and it just created a lot of draw. A local radio station put a bootleg of mine on air and that caused record labels to start coming down, which was surprising to me.

And I think I wrote this song after I signed, my record deal with my friend Steve Polts. I recall Steve asking me if I wanted to go to Mexico to write songs. He was like it's two hours door to door, but 13 hours later, we ended up lost on some washboard dirt road in the middle of nowhere in Baja. And we found an abandoned town, and we broke into a little lodging motel. And we woke up the next morning in Paradise. So we're sitting on the beach.

It was on the Bahia de Gonzaga, this beautiful bay on the Sea of Cortez, pink sand and blue water. So we stayed there and we wrote three songs. And one was, you remember me. Steve was a better guitar player than I, so he usually would play the guitar and I would start making up lyrics. I liked writing very visually. I grew up reading a lot.

He didn't listen to a lot of music, but I read a lot. My favorite writers were very visual writers, where you can almost smell and taste the writing. And we had just eaten breakfast, so that's why breakfast makes a center roll in the song. I hear the club at 6 a. I feel so far. ...and my pancakes too. I got my maple syrup, everything but you. It was just a little vignette, a little movie, you know, of a person that was tragically in love.

But it wasn't returned. And I wrote the lyrics so that people could see the same movie. that was in my head of this girl that was racking her brain thinking of all the things she thought made her unlovable like leaving towels on the floor and all the little things that really aren't what killer relationship but what you fixate

on when you're done. Wipe the spots above the mirror don't leave the keys in the door never put wet towels on the floor anymore. After we wrote the song, we did that demo. Steve's singing harmony. I remember being a little embarrassed

by the song live because most of my other work tended to be very wordy, and I thought smarter. And this was just such a plaintive, simple love song. You know, it made me feel like a teeny bopper somehow. When I got discovered, they brought in a lot of really fancy producers, and I met with a lot of them. And they were all super nice, but they all made me uncomfortable. They all kind of wanted to change and lend their incredible expertise and experience to my lack of experience. And it didn't feel right. And so I looked at an album I thought was really honest and simple. And I loved the Neil Young Harvest and Harvest Moon Records. I saw that Ben Keith had co-produced him. And so I asked

my label to reach out to him. And because of Ben's relationship with Neil, we made it up at Neil's studio on his ranch. Getting to Neil Young's ranch was trippy. I mean, I couldn't believe that I was at Neil Young's studio. It was this log camp. cabin with killer vintage gear, killer vintage amps, and the stray gaiters. I mean, the stray gaiters were incredible. I was Neal's band on Harvest and Harvest Moon. It was like, it was an insane experienced band, and they would look at me and go, what would you like? And I was like, I don't know. Like, I was definitely the least experienced, least qualified person in the room. but they definitely looked to me to kind of lead the ship.

We cut everything, you know, live in the studio. I brought Steve up with me, and I remember Steve was playing guitar. Tim Drummond played bass with Elvis and James Brown. I mean, to this day, one of the best players I've ever been around. And Kenny Butree on drums, you know, played on a lot of Bob Dylan records. And Spooner, old Ham on Key. keyboards. He played the famous riffs and all the Mussel Shoals records. That's him. I was just singing. I remember being very, very nervous and my throat really tightened up and I have this very frog-ish tone in my voice. I was swallowing my chest voice because singing in headphones was so hard for me. And that's my vocal sounds so weird.

Having a band on me definitely felt a little uncomfortable, but this band definitely followed you. They were highly supportive. They only cared about the song. I turned the album in. You know, it was no surprise. I made a folk album at the height of grunge. Grunge was cool and angsty and cynical, and I was not those things and a girl to boot.

And so radio hated me. They hated me, vehemently hated me. The press hated me. I mean, imagine Nirvana and Soundgarden and you hear a song like you're meant for me and you go, no. It was too long. They wanted it faster.

They wanted no intro. And so the song got recut many, many, many times on its way to becoming a hit. In September of 95, I recut it with Juan Petino, who did Lisa Loeb's stay. And we did a super poppy version. We sped it up and I cut down the chorus.

And I hated it, but it was expensive. And I was too embarrassed to tell the label how much I hated it. But, you know, my label never once did anything except support my decisions. I know a lot of people say they hate their labels, but my label had a lot of heart, and they really cared and fought for me. And I remember going into the label, and I ran into Danny, who was one of the radio, promoters and he was like, Jewel, I heard the new version with Juan Patino and we don't want you to change for radio. We want ready to change for you. The record was considered a complete failure

after selling about 2,000 copies in two years. And so I made a second record, but this album never got released ultimately. And while I was in the studio making the second album that never was, we decided to recut the bass line and the vocals on Yermint for me and take another go at it. I went in the studio with a guy named Peter Collins, and Flea was a friend. He'd been a friend for a long time since I was homeless, actually. I met him when I was homeless of all things. That's Flea, the bassist from Red Hot Chili Peppers.

We redid the vocal in the bass. Flea played bass. I re-sang the vocal. And then things started taking off. I remember, you know, I was doing an interview somewhere in a shitty hotel at a Motel 6, exhausted, and the radio guy was like, what's it like to be famous? And I remember looking around at these stained, you know, duvet covers in this nasty hotel room going, am I famous? Did it happen?

But things started to shift, and when they shifted, it was tectonic. I started selling at one point a million albums every single month, and I did it for over a year. And it just kept exploding. Shockingly, the song that nobody ever thought would make it went on to break a record. It became the longest running single of all time. Mill Young asked me to open for him. And so I went on the road with him. You know, him and Bob Dylan just really believed in me.

They really believed in me when nobody did. And they really just grilled in my head that being a singer-songwriter is different and that you may never get radio. And it doesn't matter. You're not allowed to do anything that is inauthentic as a singer-songwriter. Part of me always knew it was an incredible long shot. But I also sang every night and I saw what people, how people felt when I sang.

And it might be three people, but I could tell what I did worked. And so I didn't want to give up on that music, and I didn't want to give up on being sincere, and I didn't want to give up on being a fulky, and I never thought it was going to be a massive success, but the more I got disrespected just made me incredibly determined

and hard work did not scare me. Tenacity and endurance were kind of the name of the game. You know, songwriting's a lot like being a minor. It's solitary work. You're alone in a dark cave. And you just chip away every day. And most days it's dirt. And sometimes it's gold.

But with songwriting, you don't always know. And now here's You Were Met for Me, the final version that Jewel did in its entirety. I've got my eggs and my pancakes too. You've got the maple syrup, everything but you. I break the oaks and make a smiley face In my brand new place I wipe the spots up over me Don't leave the keys in the door

I never put wet towels on the floor anymore Because dreams last for so long But I didn't want to talk so I picked up the paper It was more bad news More hearts being broken More people being yours Put on my coat in the pouring rain

I saw I'm moving it just wasn't the same cause it was high It made me miss you Oh, it should be I pick up a cup And turn the sheets down And take a deep breath I'm happy like that

I try and tell myself It'll be all right I shouldn't think Or visit songexploader. not net slash jewel. You'll find links to buy or stream you were meant for me, as well as the entire 25th anniversary edition of Pieces of You, so you can hear all the different versions of the 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 of 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 be

begin with a conversation about the album with a different 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.cash.c.com. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live.

Thanks. Song Exploder is made by me, Rishi Kesh Hirwe, with producer Christian Coons, production assistant Olivia Wood, and illustrator Carlos Lerma. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of creative, independent podcasts. You can learn more about all of our shows

at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at Songexploader.net slash shirt. You can also follow the show on Twitter and Instagram at SongExploder. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.