Song Exploder - Kevin Morby - This Is a Photograph

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

Kevin Morby is a singer and songwriter based in Kansas City. He’s put out seven albums since 2013, including his most recent one, This is a Photograph, which just came out last week. For this episode, I talked to Kevin about the title track from This is a Photograph. It’s a story about his family, the pandemic, and memories of times that have happened — and times that haven’t happened yet. To learn more, visit songexploder.net/kevin-morby

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. Kevin Morby is a singer and songwriter based in Kansas City. He's put out seven albums since 2013, including his most recent one, This Is a Photograph, which just came out this May. For this episode, I talked to Kevin about the title track from This Is a Photograph. It's a story about his family, the pandemic, and memories of times that have happened, and times that haven't. happened yet. And this is a photograph, a window to the past of your mother and a skirt.

My name is Kevin Morby. I was getting ready to leave for a long tour, and we'd gotten together at a family dinner that we were having at my sister's house with her kids and my parents, and we were just having to sort of seeing them before a big trip dinner. And at some point in the middle of eating dinner, my sister was telling a story. And while she was telling this story, my dad just got up and started to walk away. And when we all looked over at him, he just sort of fell over. He hit his head against the wall, and it was this sort of terrifying, chaotic moment. I jumped up from the table, and I went over to my

dad, and I held his head, and my mom was calling the ambulance, and eventually the ambulance came, and they took him away, and he went to the hospital, and he ended up being okay. But at the end of the night, you know, we were all still a little shook from this, and we went to my parents' house. and for some reason we all ended up going through this old box of family photographs that I had never seen before. But I was really struck by this one photo where my father is standing on the front lawn, and this would have been in Lubbock, Texas. And in the photograph, he sort of had this stoic, almost overconfident look as if he was almost challenging the camera. And he wasn't wearing a shirt. And just earlier that evening, the ambulance had taken my dad's shirt off sort of in front of all of us to take his vitals when they first shirt.

showed up, it really did feel like that photograph was having a conversation with the event that just took place. In the photograph, that would have been the year that I was born. And that night was sort of the first moment that I ever really felt that the roles sort of got reversed where I was helping my father up. I didn't write the song right away, but this whole thing happened and it definitely sort of burrowed inside of me somewhere and later came out. I was on a flight a couple days later headed towards France and I had this idea of the

a series of poems that would be called, this is a photograph. It would be a photo book that literally had no photos in it. It would just be poems that said, this is a photograph of Paris, France, or this is a photograph of your father on the front lawn with no shirt on, or this is a photograph of your mother in a skirt.

I kind of put those aside. I went on this tour, and I was actually over there when the world started to shut down and I had to come racing back. Once I was home, me and every other musician's life, and everyone's life in general was put on pause,

but my girlfriend, Katie. That's Katie Crutchfield from Waxahatchee. We started doing these things on Thursdays. We would do an Instagram live show that we called the weekly rodeos. How's everyone doing on this Thursday night? Quarantine Week four. Week four.

We would play cover songs and we'd play our own songs and it was this really fun, warm experience that we would have every Thursday. One song that we were playing throughout this whole time was a Silver Juice song called We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing. The beginning lick to that song is so infectious and it's so good, and I had so much fun playing it, and I was just sort of playing it constantly. I was literally just playing that riff one day,

and instead of going up on the neck, I kind of went down on the neck, and it sort of just evolved into this other thing. And I have an early phone recording. Moments before that, I was playing the Silver Juice riff on the guitar, and then my hand stumbled into that, and I thought, oh, I got to absolutely capture that. At the time, our shed in the back of our house was a little studio that we had made.

So I went out there, and I knew this is going to be this particular type of song that I like to write, where it was going to basically just be that riff the whole time. And then I was on to, you know, maybe like a four on the floor kick drum is all I need here. Maybe I'll stay away from a traditional drum kit. And the only other percussion should be hand claps or, you know, congas. My idea of this song was just almost like a party, you know, that you could play on someone's front porch or something.

You just sort of needed a guitar and voices and handclaps, and you could kind of make this sort of anthemic, triumphant song. Then I wrote that second guitar part. The words, this is a photograph, very immediately fell out of my mouth. This is a photograph, a window to the past. So I came up with the lyrics to this song in a way before I ever came up with the music because I didn't know what it was going to be. Again, I thought it might be a book of poems. I didn't necessarily think that it was going to be a song until I wrote the right music.

I just ended up describing that night very quickly in describing that photo of my father. Of your father on this front lawn with no shirt on. Almost like a radio, DJ. Ready to take the world on. Telling you the news. Me, the West Texas son. telling the listener, this is something that happened. The year that you were born.

I see this song is almost broken up into four parts, where the first part is all about my father and this photograph of him on a front lawn in West Texas. The second part is I watched a documentary about Sugar Ray Leonard and his two fights against Roberta Duran. Famously in the first fight, Roberto Duran, he's sort of taunting Sugar Ray Leonard saying, come on, come on.

And he eventually wins. that fight and it was this big upset. But when they met again, Duran just sort of gave up. He threw up his hands in the air and he said, no maas, no mas. I couldn't help but sort of relate the younger version of my father as this sort of person who was sort of taunting the camera, almost as if he was saying, come on, come on. And then that night when he fell ill, it was this sort of like, no maz. Not that he was giving up on living, but just that he was sort of saying like, okay, there's a little bit more than I can take. Now tons of defeating. The heavyweight champ laughing in his face as it dance like Sugar Ray.

Used to be, come on, come on. But now, no maas, no mas. You know, I worked with producer and my good friend Sam Cohen on this record. And usually I go to him with barely anything. Sort of like, here's the lyrics, here's the guitar part. Help me build this universe around it. But with this one, I thought all I need to do by the time I get to the studio is exactly what I've done here. So the first session that we did for this record was in November 2020.

And we thought that we were going to be able to get more people into the studio and kind of have this coming back to life session. But, you know, the governor of New York had just put a mandate back into effect for COVID. So it was reduced to me, Sam, and our good friend, Nick Kinsey, who is an incredible drummer. And we were kind of just making do with what we had. You know, I was in a living room. and Sam and Nick were down in the basement on headphones. So Sam played bass and Nick played drums. We did my acoustic guitar.

We played this live. This is a photograph. The third part of the song, Oh, Window to the Past, is about my mother when she was younger. Of your mother in a skirt. And Sam suggested to Nick that he drops a beat into the third verse. When he first suggested that, I was like,

but it doesn't need that. But the moment Nick played that beat, Oh, that feels really good. Laughing in the cottage, back where it all started. A part of me and Sam building up the song was doing a second electric guitar part over that initial guitar part. So we recorded that whole session, and when Sam and I reconnected once his studio was built, things were a little bit lighter in the atmosphere. We knew we could kind of get more people in there, and now it was like, let's just throw everything in it. the opening verse felt super long to us.

And we felt something needed to happen to move it along. So we had our good friend Jared Samuel come play on the record. And Jared did these organ swells that feel like, it feels like something's beginning. It feels like something's growing or opening up. The year that you were born, the year that you are now, his wife behind the camera,

his daughter and his baby boy. We knew that we wanted to get our good friend, Coach Maya Gostellam, to come and play saxophone on it. Because the song reaches this breaking point where it's, you know what I'm saying, this is what I miss about being alive. This is what I miss about being alive. I wanted it to sound like tornado sirens were going off. This is what I miss about being alive. This is what I miss about being alive.

Like the whole city was being alerted that life is short and you've got to learn to love it and you've got to learn to celebrate the beauty of being alive. And so this was the first representation of that siren. But I wanted the backing vocalist to do that as well. So this part here is Alicia Shakur. She's such a force, and she can just push her vocal in this way that's so powerful. It's a couple layers of her, and we didn't want this to sound too precious or too pretty. Maybe danger was on the horizon.

Like, her top talent is being an incredible singer, but she's an unbelievable tambourine player. I thought, oh, anyone can play tambourine, until you see someone who really knows how to do it. In the last part of the song, I'm saying, and this is a photograph of me. Of me on our front lawn. Around this time in my life, I had also discovered Memphis, Tennessee. I think Memphis is so culturally important, and it's such a resilient and amazing, beautiful city. You know, it's where Martin Luther King was assassinated. where Elvis Presley lived and died.

I had gone there a few different times. I'd played there. I'd gone there with Katie. We actually almost tried to buy a house there recently. We didn't get it, but I think we'll own a home there one day. And so Memphis was really on my mind, and I wanted Memphis on the record. I wasn't quite sure what that meant.

I thought to myself, I'm going to put the line in the song. I'm going to put me on a front lawn beneath the Tennessee sun. It was almost like I was saying it because I was thinking to myself, if I put this in a song, then it'll have to come true. Ready to take the world on Beneath a Tennessee sun Inside the kingdom Got a glimmer in my eye

seemed to say After that, we knew that we were going to finish the record in Memphis. We had talked to my friend Nathaniel Raitliff And he had told us If you're going to Memphis to record, you should try and get in touch with some of the kids at the Stacks Academy. The Stax Academy is a program

that's ran in Memphis for kids to become musicians. They told us, us that school was out of session because we're doing this in August of 2021, but they could give us the name of some recent alumni. So I think they were anywhere from maybe 17 to 19 years old. And, you know, I could hear this sort of like la la la la part. And we just asked them if they would do it. And, you know, they were all good friends with each other and like making themselves and us laugh the whole time and yelling out some la la la. And that was the last thing that we ended up putting on the song.

Having, you know, this small choir in there and then having all the people who were playing on this song, the song really kind of had come to life as a party. I wanted to talk about death because it was on my mind, but I wanted to do it in a way where it was celebratory, not celebrating the fact that we all die, but celebrating the fact that we all live. You know, at that point in the song where I'm saying, this is what I'll miss about being alive, I'm speaking through the photograph of my mother. So I'm speaking as her in that moment,

but I'm also speaking as myself because I knew that at some point I'd be back on a stage and I'd be singing this song. And I wanted to have the catharsis of sort of yelling those words out at an audience telling them this is what I'll miss about being alive. I'll miss being able to perform and sing to people every night. I was wondering, how's your dad doing?

My dad is well. My dad is healthy and well. And yeah, my dad is doing good. Has he heard this song? He has heard this song. And before I kind of played it from my parents, you know, I kind of told my dad what was up with it. And, you know, I told him, you know, I'm going to be telling the story. And is that okay with you?

I don't know what I would have done had he said no. But he said, you know, of course, I'm so proud of you. And what you've accomplished with your career, I'm happy to have this story out there. You know, I have never discussed death too much with my mother, but I have a little bit with my dad. And I feel like he's always had a good take on it of, you know, you're here. and then you're gone and you need to enjoy it while you're here and it's something that happens to everyone. You know, a famous athlete or actor or musician

passes away that, you know, me and my father were fans of. I'll reach out to him and he'll say, he almost always has the same response where he'll say, life is so short and it's precious, but your music will live on forever. And now here's This is a photograph by Kevin Morby in its entirety. This is a photograph, a window to the past

of your father on the front love. with no shirt on ready to take the world on beneath the West Texas sun the year that you were born the year that you are now his wife behind the camera his daughter and his baby boy

got a glimmer in his eye see me say this is what I miss after I die and this is what I miss about being alive my body now times the undefeated The heavyweight champ Laughing in his face

As you dance like Sugar Ray Used to be Come on, come on But nah, no Mars, no Mars Come on, come on But now, no Mars No Mars This is a photograph

To the past Of your mother in a skirt In the cool Kentucky dirt Laughing in the Garden Where it all started What I miss about being alive This is what I miss about being alive This is what I miss about being alive

being alive, this is what I miss after I jack. This is what I miss about being alive. This is what I miss about being alive. This is what I miss about being alive. This is what I miss after I jack. To learn more, visit songexploder.net. You'll find links to stream or download. This is a photograph.

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, Rishi Kesh, 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, Vagabond, 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 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 were 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 is made by me, along with the show's theme music. I produced this episode with Craig Ely and Casey Deal, with artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith and production assistants from Chloe Parker. 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.

You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Your Way. Thanks for listening.