Song Exploder - Vagabon - Water Me Down

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

Last year, Vagabon released her third album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, which I’ve been listening to a lot. So I wanted to revisit an episode that I recorded with her back in 2020, about her breakout song "Water Me Down." The episode also features the voice of Eric Littmann, who co-produced the track. He passed away in June 2021, way too young. Vagabon’s new album is dedicated to him. If you haven’t heard this episode before, I hope you like it. When Laetitia Tamko started making the second Vagabon album, she really wanted to produce the entire thing on her own. It would be a new sound, and producing was still a relatively new skill to her, but she wanted to tackle it head on, and do it all herself. On this song, though, "Water Me Down," Laetitia actually has a co-producer, Eric Littmann. It’s the one exception to her otherwise entirely self-produced album. In this episode, she breaks down how she and Eric made the song, and why it was worth making that exception. For more, visit songexploder.net/vagabon.

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 Hirway. Last year, Vagabon released her third album, Sorry I Haven't Called, which I've been listening to a lot. So I wanted to revisit an episode that I recorded with her back in 2020 about her breakout song, Water Me Down. The episode also features the voice of Eric Littman, who co-produced the track. He passed away in June 2021, way too young. Vagabond's new album is dedicated to him. If you haven't heard this episode before, I hope you like it.

When Leticia Tamco started making the second Vagabon album, she really wanted to produce the entire thing on her own. It would be a new sound, and producing was still a relatively new skill for her, but she wanted to tackle it head-on and do it all herself. On this song, though, Water Me Down, Leticia actually had a co-producer, Eric Littman. It's the one exception to her otherwise entirely self-produced album. In this episode, she breaks down how she and Eric collaborated to make the song and why it was worth making that exception.

I'm Laticia Tamco, and I make music as Vagabon. I was at my friend Eric Lippman's house in Bushwick, New York. We met at a mountain show. Our friend used to host these shows where you hike up a mountain with your instruments in Cold Spring, New York, and you play at different points. of the hike, so I performed one, and Eric just needed a ride. So we met through the carpool and became great friends. He is someone who has been really supportive of my journey as a producer. During the winter, every Wednesday we would get together and make music.

So we were in his very small bedroom. And the plan was to demo a Vagabond song that I had started writing a few days earlier. So I came there with the intention of recording another song and then he showed me this synth line that he had started working on for another project. I heard it and I was like, oh my God, what is that? I'd been playing around a little bit with my mini logg and I made this patch.

It's a very soft keyboard kind of sound. I was just playing around with a couple chords and then I was playing around with a lead line with some delay where the notes kind of cascade into each other. And then, you know, I added this fluttery MS20 lead line. The MS20. It's a synthesizer, a bass synthentially. And you can kind of make any sound from it.

I heard this 909 kick. I didn't have a big intention going in. I was just kind of chasing a feeling and was just kind of excited by it. And it was this kind of like soft, pulsating little housey. This is all kind of going on, and Leticia had come over on my roommate, supposed to let her in or something, and she kind of overheard me kind of playing around with this, and like her ears kind of perdom's like, oh, like, what's that you're playing around with? You know, like, oh, I kind of want to play around with this, actually.

And I don't know what we were planning on doing that day, but this became our focus. I was like, I have to have this song. And so I asked him if I can hop on it and just do some vocals. So he gave me the room for 30 minutes. And, you know, immediately I had an idea for melodies and lyrics. Oddly enough, I had just gotten off the phone with someone I was dating at the time. And it was the most infuriating phone call that I had been on in a long time. And I think I had this epiphany moment where I was like, wait, I don't need any of this.

I'm not in survival mode. I don't need anything that doesn't serve me or make me feel good. I need more. I was having this conversation in Eric's room, so as soon as I got off the phone, I had just had all these things that I wanted to say to the person, and so I sat on his bed with a microphone to my mouth, and I just sang the entire song.

Never meant to be you, never meant to be me, never meant to be yours. It was very much like I wish I said it on the phone, but I used those feelings very much in the moment and that's why it came pouring out. I was just in it. In a time when you don't know how to communicate with someone, it has served me well in my entire career so far to put those messages that I wish I can have with people into songs.

I was entirely freestyle. I was entirely freestyle. and improvising. I've come to find that my strengths are just getting on a microphone and singing whatever comes to mind, and it tends to be pretty accurate and raw, and I prefer that. So I'll take my time next time,

and I'll do it raw. The vocals on the final track is exactly the same as those vocals that I tracked that night, and I actually redid the vocal, but the performance was not emotionally where I needed it to be. It was too perfect almost. It was too like, okay, this is rehearsed and I know it now, whereas this is very off the cuff. It really waters me down.

I left and made a cup of tea for a bit and come back like 30 minutes later and she had just recorded all those verses and it was just amazing. And I was just like, holy hell, this is incredible. And Laticia's voice is just incredible. and her melodic sense. It's like I'm constantly amazed by the melodies that she comes up with. Never meant to be you, never meant to be me,

never meant to be yours. I often contribute top lines and vocals and melodies and drums to his own project. So there are just so many of my melodies that he has on his computer and that I can't really reuse again. And this one was one that I couldn't part with. I didn't tell him right away that I wanted it to be a vagabond song,

but after I tracked the vocals, I had this thought that was like, this is too good to not be a vagabond song. So as soon as I said that, he just got excited that I felt so strongly and passionately about it and kind of let me take the reins of the whole entire track. And so when I got home, you know, I took the whole project because I was like, this is my song. I took the whole project and I bumped up the BPM of this track from where Eric was doing it originally by a whole lot. After that, I started to work on the drums.

Eric and I made our own samples. The only electronic drum is the kick. Everything else was recorded in the bedroom. We attract some snare in his bedroom with brushes. on the snare, I threw in two tape delays to kind of have that, like, dancey house beat. The hi-hats are live hi-hats. And then we did another track where we pitch shifted it. And that's me snapping.

I consider myself a student. I like to learn things that I don't know. And I've always liked electronic music, R&B music, dance music, but making it. it has never felt accessible on my last records, largely indie rock record, all guitars for the most part. I was playing with a lot of punk bands, but with this album, I set the intention of working on being a good producer. I wanted to have the experience of making an album be one where I'm learning something and practicing a skill. I like to have a practice. And so this one was, I want to be the sole producer.

But the way that Eric and I worked together and our friendship was very much tied to the making of this song. I would be lying if I said I didn't grapple a little with relinquishing the control of sharing the producer role. But it has taught me that through collaborating, you can actually make something really special

and open a part of your creativity. So trusting the person that I'm collaborating with, not just their tastes and their technical ability, but just how they are as a person, made it easier, and I'm a better producer for it. That's Oliver Hill on viola. He made this three-part harmony that's very mournful. I wanted these strings that sounds sad if you isolate them.

If you isolate the strings on the vocal, you have a whole different song. with these lyrics that are really raw and emotional and ending. It feels like an ending. But within the context of the beat, you have a whole other world because the instrumental feels like the beginning. That is exactly what that phone call felt like.

And so I really wanted to chase that. I wanted to express the truth triumph of feeling this thing, but not feeling like it's the end of the world. Water me down, it means to be diluted, like someone taking away from the pure concentration of a person. And so the way that I'm using it in the song is this really dilutes everything that is good about me. Do you know if the person who you were talking to on the phone ever heard this song? I don't know for certain, but I'm positive. I'm sure of it.

Almost immediately, I was like, I know he's going to hear this, so that's perfect. You know, a little petty behavior turned into a pretty good song. This was a very specific time in my life too. I demoed this in March of 2017, which is right when my first album came out. And here I am, my life has changed. I am a computer engineer by work. Like I'm full-time coder at the time,

and I'm about to quit my job. So it really was a time of such transition. And really coming into who I am going to be, and this person just didn't fit the mold. And so I had this breakthrough moment, and I wasn't sad. This was not an ending that was sad. That was exciting to me.

Coming up, you'll hear how all of those ideas and elements came together in the final 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 got to be a little bit of my own music career. 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, RishiCesh.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Here's Water Me Down by Vagabon in its entirety.

I meant to be us. Never meant for you to love, never meant for you to try. So I'll take my time. Visit songexplore.net slash vagabon. You'll also find the music video for Water Me Down and a link to buy or stream this song. This episode was originally produced by me and Christian Coons,

with production assistants from Olivia Wood. This reissue was produced by Craig Ely, Theo Balcom, Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan, and myself. Our artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. 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 Radio,

If you'd like to hear more for me, you can sign up for my newsletter, which you can find on the Song Exploder website. You can also follow me and Song Exploder on Instagram, and you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi-Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.