Song Exploder - KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See

Episode Date: March 1, 2016

Singer/songwriter KT Tunstall released her debut album in 2004. It was nominated for a Mercury Prize. The song "Suddenly I See" from that record was a hit on the radio and it’s been used in the soundtracks of big movies and television shows. But the song was originally written back before KT Tunstall had a record deal, when she was a struggling street musician, living in a small apartment in North London. In this episode, which was recorded live at the Sundance Film Festival, KT breaks down how she made the song, with help from producer Steve Osborne. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, MeUndies, and Lagunitas Brewing Company.

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 K.K.K. K.T. Tunstall released her debut album in 2004. It was nominated for a Mercury Prize. The song, Suddenly I See from the Record, was a hit on the radio and was used in the soundtracks of big movies and TV shows. But the song was originally written, back before KT had a record deal, when she was a struggling street musician, living in a small apartment in North London. In this episode, which was recorded live at the Sundance Film Festival, KT breaks down how she made the song with help from producer Steve Osborne. My name's Rishi K. Sherway. You're listening to Song Exploder. I'm Katie Tunstall. I'd spent 10 years trying to get somewhere as a musician busking and, you know, recording with my friends and playing in bars. I was thinking about making a record, signing a record deal, what kind of artist did I want to be, and the best auntie.

to that question is have a look at the artist that you love. Look at their songwriting. Look at what they were into. Look at their artwork. And it was the artwork that really was the seed of this song. One of my favorite female musicians is Patty Smith. Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine. And so I'm looking at horses, you know, seminal record.

And I'm looking at the picture on the cover. Patty on the front of horses. And it's blowing me away. There's definitely a maturity and a wisdom to her. And she's standing there and she's wearing this amazing, just very simple outfit of white shirt

and this jacket slung over her shoulder. And I'm looking at this picture going, I want to be her. This is what I want to be. And that's where the lyric came from. And suddenly I see this is what I want to be. suddenly I see.

So here's the picture of where I was working. There's an area of London called Tufnal Park, and I was paying so much money for this tiny little one-bedroom apartment in this basement. So I had a laptop Mac logic set up. This is one of the demos on this setup. Oh, no one's ever heard this before, by the way. And we can see she's a beautiful girl She's a beautiful girl

The biggest transition from the demo To what was released Was finding a producer Finding someone to work with Creatively who could hear What was good about what you were doing Shave away the stuff that was not good I mean the dream really

With a producer is to create something signature. And I'm forever grateful to Steve Osborne, who produced my first record, that he focused on that. It all breaks down really to the way she plays acoustic guitar. She's absolutely brilliant. The demos weren't a representation of what Katie actually sounded like to me at all. My name is Steve Osborne, and I produced Katie's first album. I'd heard a number of demos, and I went to see a play in a little folk club in London, and seeing her live, she was completely completely different to anything that I'd heard recorded. It was definitely looking for something more rhythmic, more energy, more live, you know.

Because I was explaining to him that I had all these songs and I would do these gigs on my own and I had got good at rhythm guitar because I played on the street, which we call busking. So I'd play on the street for money a lot. And he said to me, the most important thing about what you do is your right hand. It's like, what are you talking about? And he said, look at your right hand when you're performing. all my rhythm is coming from here. He said the problem that you have with your music

is that every time you play with a band, the drummer starts to play a stock beat. So it was just canceling out the fun of what I was doing. So we did a rehearsal. It was just me and a drummer. And he said to the drummer, you do that. He just pointed at me.

That's the backbone. That's what we're going to sort of base it around. And the drummer went. We did want to make everything quite lo-fi when we were recording. We were definitely not trying to be hi-fi. I just thought that would suit Katie's voice and neither of us wanted to make a really slick sounding record. I thought she should have one foot in a sort of a blues, you know, in blues really.

So we're very much immersed in getting an element of that sort of old sound. With this song, I mean there's like, there's what, there's three rhythms, the snare beat. The rims were sort of just to bring out the top end. top end, they're sort of doing a similar thing to the caon. A cajon, which is like a Spanish slapbox. That was one of the things she brought with her was like she wanted to use the caon. So that caon is on like all over the record.

I'd forgotten about that. And I remember there was one day and I came in and I was messing around and I actually just put all the beats together. There was an energy there. It was definitely working between the drums and the way Katie plays a guitar. I hadn't really played Electric at all. And I love it. The only difficulty for me is that I find that you have to be a bit more precise

because it's a more sensitive instrument. I'm not a very precise person. So it's messy when I play Electric. But for a song like this, that's not a bad thing. I think the backing vocals is my favorite thing. It's one of my favorite parts of making a record. Suddenly I see. Suddenly I see.

Why the hell of me so much to me? Suddenly I see. This is what I want to be. Suddenly I see. Suddenly I see. Why the hell it means so much to me. So what is the it? The very superficial answer to the question is why this picture of this woman is having such an effect on me,

why I'm drawn to it so much? So, you know, why the hell the cover of horses means so much to me? but from a wider, more personal point of view, I'm talking about why I'm doing it, why am I making music? Everybody would love to know 100% what their purpose was. And from a young age, I think really from when I was 15 and started writing music,

it was just hell bent. It's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to do anything else. This was the dream job for me. At that point in my life, I think I was 20, when I wrote that, you have to justify what you're doing, you know. You've got no money. I could never go out. I could never go on a holiday. I didn't buy new clothes. But I would always say to

myself, I'd much prefer to not have any of that stuff to really just bust my guts to try and do what I really wanted to do. It was scary. But I knew that I'd regret it much more, not trying it. Now, here's Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall in its entirety. Visit songexplor.net for more on KT Tunstall. Thanks to Charlie Ref, John Nane, and Jaram Rowland at Sundance for their help making this episode happen. 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 amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, 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. Next time on Song Exploder, One Oh, Tricks Point Never. You can subscribe to Song Exploder on iTunes, and you can find all the past episodes on the show's website, songexploder.net. Song Exploder is a proud member of the Radiotopia Podcast Network from Pee. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.