Song Exploder - mxmtoon - Mona Lisa

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

Maia from mxmtoon released her first EP in 2018. She was 18 years old, recorded it in her bedroom, and self-released it. It went on to be streamed over 100 million times. This year, she put out her second album, Rising, and in this episode, she breaks down her song "Mona Lisa." She told me about how different it is from the songs she used to write when she was teenager. And how she found something authentic and honest by connecting with a part of herself from even earlier in her life. For more, visit songexploder.net/mxmtoon.

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. Maya from MXM-Tune released her first EP in 2018. She was 18 years old and recorded it in her bedroom and self-released it. It went on to be streamed over 100 million times. This year, she put out her second album, Rising, and in this episode, she breaks down her song Mona Lisa. She told me about how different it is from the songs she used to write. right when she was a teenager.

And how she found something authentic and honest by connecting with the part of herself from even earlier in her life. I'm MXMTune, but my name is actually Maya. In the past, it's been easier for me to kind of play this part of being MXM-Tune rather than actually thinking about who I am as Maya. A lot of my work has really been about kind of hiding in the background and not really sharing my experience and story proudly. And I don't think I was making music that felt representative of the type of songs I really love to listen to in my free time.

And with this song specifically, I think it was this really important quest to figure out how I could make something that felt empowering without trying to hide myself. And so it was a challenge that I had posed for myself to make something that felt like a pop song that could be about celebrating myself. When we were in quarantine, I found myself going back to a lot of the music that I loved to live. listen to growing up. And it's cheesy, but I had Mamma Mia on a CD that I would listen to constantly. And I had hairspray on CD. I was a big musical kid, I guess, growing up. And I listened to all of these things, and I just remembered the joy that I felt for the first time when I found those records when I was six years old. And I remember thinking, I need to make songs that make me feel this way. I like you now. Yeah. That's cool. I walked into the studio the day I was working on Mona Lisa,

knowing that I would be collaborating with two people that I really, really look up to and love, and both of them are incredible, strong women in music. Pompom is the producer of the song and the co-writer Rosie, who has her own artist project as well. And I feel like the excitement in the session room that day was just really palpable. I was talking with them about how I wanted to make a song that could kind of just be about seeing yourself as beautiful and seeing yourself as art and just make it really playful and a fun way to reference a bunch of other art. Pompom picked up a ukulele and she played the verse chords and it just felt like this really like happy and light strumming pattern.

And then from there, we really worked on trying to figure out the chorus melody. I want to be a Mona Lisa that I don't know, musica. Like the one I see in museum. Is that weird? No, I like that. It's kind of strange, but like... You know, I didn't grow up with a lot of forms of representation that. that really felt like reflected my identity or self.

And even thinking about something as famous as a painting like the Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa is a white woman. And so I didn't really necessarily see myself in major forms of famous media, whether it was paintings or plays or movies or TV shows. So it was fun to kind of think about, okay, I'm going to make a song that has a very famous painting as the title. And I'm going to be the famous painting. I want to be a Mona Lisa.

I first learned how to play the ukulele when I was 12 years old. It was very new to me. I had only been classically trained on cello and violin, and so there was this new instrument that had no rules when I really loved it. And I kept playing the ukulele through high school and eventually releasing songs with it. So it was just kind of this through line that existed through everything. And I think it was important to me to kind of figure out a way to move on from it.

I don't want to be the ukulele girl for the rest of it. of my life. I want to be just a girl. So I was really adamant about the fact that I was like, and this needs to be bigger. It needs to be a lot grander than just this instrument. And that's why the song had so many more elements that we added on. We wanted to make it sound really sweeping. And I knew that we couldn't do that with just the ukulele. I love strings. As somebody who was trained on playing strings, I think I am a big proponent of putting them into my songs. I think they add a lot. but I am not the pickiest strings player that ever existed in the world. So the string sounds are literally just a plug-in that POM had on her computer.

Session musicians are awesome, but if you can just get an idea across and put it down on the day of or whatever it is, doesn't need to be more complicated than that. I've always played the part of Shakespeare. I hide behind the ink and pen. My brain is very satisfied by the idea of playing in the play as Shakespeare. who's a playwright. Like, okay, we get it. Like, you nailed the joke into the ground.

Like, that's fine, whatever. I'm so tired of being a book on the shelf. Tired of stories for somebody else. Think that I'm ready to start a new chapter. We wanted to make it sound sparkly and, like, have Disney vibes and make it kind of feel fantastical. The writing for Mona Lisa was kind of proudly

taking that sort of campiness in the lyrics and the writing. and just running with it and not trying to hide the fact that it's kind of an absurd concept to think of yourself as the Mona Lisa, but viewing it more as kind of a performance allowed for more honesty and vulnerability to come through. When I wrote that lyric, it was this question of like, why am I even writing this in the first place? Is there somebody else that could do this for me? It's exhausting to make art constantly about your experience and everything. How nice would it be to have somebody else take the reins and do it for you

and not have it fall upon your shoulders? I'm so tired of being a book on the shelf. Tired of stories for somebody else. Think that I'm ready to start a new chapter. It's really fun to make songs with the intention of performing them live. And Mona Lisa was one of those songs that was made, knowing that there would be areas where people shout back. and, you know, sing with you.

And it's like, I'm so tired of being a book on the shelf, tired of stories for somebody else. Like, these are these big moments that I put into the song knowing that it would be something that people were going to sing with me. I've been looking for some way to turn it around, looking for someone to give me the crown. I want to feel like I finally matter. I think that gang vocals add, like, this really great texture.

It also is a great way to include, like, these people that you're working with into the song what you're making. and I love having this kind of joint experience of everybody being involved in the recording. We were just trying to get the clap track to have more texture to it and just adding kind of weird ad libs throughout it, but it just ended up kind of going off the rails. We were all just having a little too much fun and ended up sounding like, quote, Dad's at a baseball game where we're just going, whoop, yep, in the background.

Three strikes. Okay, I think we got it. Luke Nicolai, who executive produced the song after Palm, finished off her main framework for it. He's an incredible guitarist, so he can kind of just pick up anything and add it. So we put birds into the song to kind of also build maybe something that feels more fantastical and airy. I guess they haven't really airy quality about them. I mean, they're birds, for God's sake, you know? So it makes me think of like a Disney princess montage scene where like she gets,

out of bed and the birds are like carrying her out of the bed and then she's dancing around and like I feel like it was just like a cute little touch. I'm my close up baby. There's nothing left to do and nothing left to lose. Let me be your mute. I test all music that I make on my younger cousins. I need to make sure that they enjoy it. If they like a song, then I've done something correctly.

I could care less if like a dude in like his 50s tells me that he doesn't. doesn't like my music, but I care so much if my seven-year-old cousin does not like my songs. I gave it to her, and I made her listen to it. And she just danced to it the whole entire time. And I remember thinking, this is exactly the way I want my music to make people feel. That unfiltered joy is just more important to me and makes me feel so much more satisfied with the work that I'm doing. If they have fun dancing to it, that's the thing that they're going to remember. that'll be their hairspray and their mama mia. It's going to be my song, Mona Lisa, and that's awesome.

And now here's Mona Lisa by MXM-Tune in its entirety. To learn more, visit SongExploder.com. You'll find links to stream or download. this song, and you can watch the music video. 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. Song Exploder and the show's theme music were made by me. 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 and Nick Song.

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, Instagram at Rishi Hereway. And you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexplloter.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.