Song Exploder - Yo La Tengo - Here You Are

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

Yo La Tengo formed in 1984. The band is made up Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew. In March 2018, they released There’s a Riot Going On, their 15th album. They made the record themselves—they recorded it entirely in their rehearsal studio with James handling the engineering duties. The album came together slowly, over a few years. In this episode, Georgia, James, and Ira break down the experiments and accidents that led to the the closing track from the record, the song "Here You Are." songexploder.net/yo-la-tengo

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. Yola Tango formed in 1984. The band is made up of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNeue. In March 2018, they released There's a Riot going on, their 15th album. They made the record themselves. They recorded it entirely in their rehearsal studio, with James handling the engineering duties. the album came together slowly over a few years.

In this episode, Georgia, James, and Ira break down how they made the closing track from the record, the song Here You Are. I'm Georgia. I'm James and I'm Ira. When we started working on what ultimately became Here You Are, we were recording as a means of writing, as a means of rehearsing,

not consciously aware that we were working on our new album. We don't approach anything with a plan. The song just kind of comes out of whatever we're doing and we just follow where it's going. One thing leads into another, into another, into another, over a long period of time, and it doesn't move in a straight line at all. This song in particular.

The song had a completely different rhythm. There was a passio beat and drum kit and the upright bass layered them in together but we switched it up Ira took the Cassio and ran it into a looping delay

it sounds kind of like chirping birds and crickets and then we went back and recorded more to play it in a completely different mood in a different rhythm we had a little drum circle going but we didn't get rid of the original drums We lowered them in the mix

and layered them in together. We love the texture of things and the spatial quality of how different instruments take up room in a different way. One thing that's really special about our space where we record and where we rehearse

is it's just kind of a big mess of a room. You know, we don't clean up the studio because we have to get out or there's not an engineer who puts things away. It's just kind of like a room that you can just go into and go, oh look, that guitar's over there

and, you know, it's so open ended and we can walk away at the end of the day and come back three weeks later and it'll still be there. We might even have a loop still going three weeks later. That part is me playing guitar. Like a spacey

guitar loop. But it's not like an eight-bar loop. James just picks an arbitrarily long time to loop something. So some of the looped parts end at different times. This completely unplanned sound of things falling apart just provide a texture and like either support or pull interestingly against the chord we're playing and sometimes things that would have sounded like nothing but a mistake. Rather than get rid of it, just bring it down to where it's adding mystery.

I feel like sacrificing professional fidelity is worth it to get that feeling of excitement. That feedback, I put the guitar super close to the amp, and in the course of doing it, thought it sounded kind of cool the first time I did it, so did it again. It happens a few times in the song. It might be my favorite part. We kind of had all this mood stuff going, but we were trying to make it more cohesive in a melodic way. and then Ira came up with this acoustic part. And then there's another part that we added after that that also helps structure.

Just the jazz bass. I like the juxtaposition of electric bass and acoustic bass. I think it's kind of surreal sound to hear both at the same time. Personally, I'm all for it. That is a voicemail message left on Georgia's cell phone by Danny Ray Thompson from the Sun Ra Orchestra. He likes to check in now and then. And that's actually the sound of Georgia,

holding her phone up to a microphone and having it just play. James added the phone message to the beginning of the song, and that was where it occurred to me that this would make a really great last song of the record. I really enjoyed hearing him say our names. I thought that would make kind of a nice farewell

you know, wishing everybody a happy new year. It sounded kind of like something you would say as you were leaving. So when the words were being written, it was with the thought that this might be the last song on the record. So the first line I wrote was the first line of the song. We are out of words. That seemed kind of good to say for your last song. We out of words.

We had a sense that this would sound good if we were all singing together. There's three individual vocal tracks. We... But because of dissatisfaction with the way our voices were blending. There's a group vocal track where we're all singing the same part in unison. Most days, we circumvent, tune out the world, except our friends. So when we heard the way That track worked with the individual tracks.

We were satisfied with it. Tune out the word, except our friends. Honestly, I don't know what James and Ira are singing exactly. I know what it sounds like, but I'm not sure whose voice goes with what sound. That's the goal. That's the goal. All right. This song depends on a certain length.

This mood is created. that if it were a minute long, it would be different. You know, it's about letting it unfold. The song sounds like it ends at one point, but after a few seconds of silence, it comes back and then continues on. If I would describe the emotion that I felt, it was kind of like, oh, it's ending already?

I didn't want it. I could have listened to this song for another 20 minutes. Then it comes back, and it's like, oh, great. I'm so happy it's still here. We're all very fond of something that establishes a mood that you just hope never ends. I think song has an elastic definition. The moment we liked it, we knew it was a song. We just didn't know what kind of song it was.

And the comfort level that we have from having played together for so long allows us to try things that may not work. As I said, it's not like we're really going for something, and this record could not have existed any other way. And now, here's Here You Are by Yolatengo in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.net to learn more about Yolatengo, and for a link to buy or stream this 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 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, 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.

If you heard about a sponsor in this episode and you want to learn more, you can always go to songexploder.net slash sponsors to find all of the current offers available to songexplor This episode was produced by me, along with Christian Coons, with help from intern Olivia Wood. The illustrations for Song Exploder are by Carlos Lerma. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of fiercely independent podcasts. You can learn about all of our shows at Radiotopia.fm. Let me know your thoughts on this episode. You can find Song Exploder on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Song Exploder.

My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.