Switched on Pop - Brandy Clark's Life Is A Record

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

There is a type of country song that loves flawed characters lost on a winding journey ... likely down a dit road. One of the best songwriters in this style is acclaimed artist Brandy Clark. Her credits include a whose-who of country music—Kacey Musgraves, Reba McEntire, Darius Rucker, Lean Rimes—and her albums have received overwhelming critical acclaim. And her debut record, 12 Stories, earned her a 2015 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. We spoke with Brandy about her new album Your Life Is A Record, which asks what if your life’s journey fit on one LP. The songs are honest, and buck the all too familiar pop-country clichés. Clark writes songs about anti-heroes who make imperfect choices (“Who You Thought I Was,” “The Past Is The Past.”) All together her songs portray one whole life.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Euporia of Calvin Klein, the new collection elixir. Three new elixires perfume intense. Solar, magnetic, ball. Pulsa in the banner. Do the quiz and discover your fragrance euphoria. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

Today is the last of my third conversations about contemporary country music following an inspiring chat with Mickey Guyton and a genre-bending discussion with Keith Urban. More than just storytelling, one of the things I love most about a great country song how it can live in this gray area, where we're neither the hero or protagonist, just an imperfect human along for a ride, likely down a dirt road.

One of the best songwriters in this style is acclaimed musician Brandy Clark. Her credits are a who's who of country music, Casey Musgraves, Reba McIntyre, Darius, Darius Rucker, Leanne Rhymes, and her albums have received overwhelming critical acclaim. Her debut record, 12 Stories, earned her a 2015 Grammy nomination for Best New Yorker. artist. I spoke with Brandy the other week about her new album called Your Life is a Record, and we discussed songs like, I'll be the sad song, who you thought I was, and the past is the past. These aren't larger than life songs. They feel exactly the right size of life filled with anti-heroes who make imperfect choices. Here's my conversation with Brandy Clark.

On your life as a record, you've said that you are working to avoid country music cliches. could you speak to what some of those top cliches are and how you went about subverting them? I think for me, I've always, this is my third album, and definitely the album where I have felt the freest. I always had an idea in my head of what my music should sound like and what it couldn't sound like.

I've never gone into an album with a sonic concept. It's always been an idea. like my first album, 12 stories, we had two concepts, you know, in the beginning. It was either the day in the life of one woman or the length of a relationship. She hates her job, loves her kids, bored with her husband,

tired of the same old list of things to do. Neither of those were what it was, but it did help us pull together songs. At a time, I'd never made a record, so I had more songs than I've ever had, and we needed a focus. And then Big Day in a Small Town, when I wrote Big Day in a Small Town, I knew I wanted to make an album. This time around, it wasn't like that.

It was, you know, I was thinking about what I wanted to do. And Big Day, we had worked that at Country Radio. And I knew this album was not going to be worked at Country Radio. And so that gave me some freedom within myself, that it could say. sound like anything. And so I thought, you know, I was talking to Jay Joyce about us working together again, and Jay's a genius. Jay Joyce is your producer. Yes, Jay Joyce produced my last two albums. And he, I thought, man, it would be really cool to challenge a guy like him who's known for a more electric heavier sound to cut all acoustic. And so I did not knowing how he would feel about that. And he loved

the idea. And so we cut it. all the basic tracks with him, myself, and two other players, mostly acoustic. We didn't end up with an electric instrument here or there. But along the way, he suggested, what could we do to this to make it different than every other acoustic-driven singer-songwriter record? And we stumbled on strings and Memphis strings and horns to be specific. I feel lucky and feel like they landed on something that felt like kind of everything and nothing I'd ever heard all at the same time, you know? So this record came from a sound concept more than a lyrical concept.

And yet the record does have a pretty strong conceptual force in your lyrics. The idea of your life is a record. Can you speak to that? So that's the first line of the entire album on the song, I'll be the sad song. If your life is a record, people and places are the song. And we wrote that song myself, Jesse Joe Dillon, and Chase McGill. We wrote that on a writing retreat a couple years ago. And the idea was just, wouldn't that be amazing to think of your life as a record?

And different people and different places you lived were different songs. I'll be the sad song, your good love gone bad song. Making the case for a whole thing. album when it's a time where albums are maybe fragmented in our listening and yet you come up with this very clear artistic statement. Like this is this is an arc you want to stick through it. Since you're making this metaphor, I'm curious for you, is there a prototypical experience that you want to have in moving through a record from beginning to middle to end? I want to feel all those things. Mostly more than anything, I want to be sad when it's over.

Like that's how I know it's a great album to me is if when it ends I wish man I wish there was one more song And if when it ends I'm fine to go back to the beginning and listen again I want it to be a roller coaster but mostly when it's over I want to be I want to wish there was a little bit more Sounds like life got all the emotions and when it's over we want more So true This is where the past is the past where the meant to be is ain't meant to last whether maybe it out turns in to maybe we What happened along the way too

was right before I went in to record this Jay Joyce who produced it he pointed out to me you know this is a breakup record and I had gone through a breakup and I think I was too close to it to see it that that's what I was writing about

and I was like oh wow you're right I think it was a breakup of not only of a personal relationship to me, but also with my idea of where my music lived, like when I said that this album, I really took the handcuffs off myself of where we could go sonically. You are known for writing often very flawed characters, real characters, real humans, not prototypical caricatures. And here you say this is a breakup record. You open up with

saying, I'll be the sad song. How was this shift for you going from writing, often other people's stories to what sounds like a lot of your story. Well, I've always written a lot of my story. It just hasn't always ended up on albums. And this time it did. This just so happened. The songs that rose to the occasion on this album were more first person. And, you know, I'll be the sad song.

I mean, that's one of my favorite songs I've ever written. Because I think we all have a sad song. You know, we think of a person like, man, that's a sad song. But what we don't really think about sometimes is we're somebody else's sad song. Some night when it's raining, you're moving on songs fast asleep. You pour a glass of summer. Let your heart start running that summer at that bar on Division Street. That's vulnerable.

Yeah, for someone like me who lives in songs, you know, that's a powerful thing to say is I'll be the sad song. And, you know, kind of a bittersweet thing. You don't want to be somebody's sad song, but sometimes you are. It's something I find in a lot of your songs. There's always a lyric that kind of jabs at the main concept that subverts the core idea. In your chorus, you say, you know, couldn't be your happy song, but at least we had a song. Yeah, it's better to have loved than lost than never to have loved at all. The arrangement of these strings, horns, the acoustic nature, how do you feel that maps on to what you're saying here in sad song and starting off the record? I think that song sets everybody up for everything they're going to hear.

You know, you start with that, it's a baritone sax. To me, the beginning of that, it's like, okay, something's coming. It feels like a sunrise to me. There's a little bit of trumpet in it. and there's the beautiful strings. And so you hear everything that you're going to hear throughout the rest of the album subtly. In Sad Song, they get the overall tone of the record,

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Yeah, so you've established the lyrical themes. You've established an arrangement style. I want to go through two of the highlight songs. And first I want to talk about who you thought I was. So I was at the Americana Awards a couple years ago at the Rhyman Auditorium in Nashville. And John Prine came out. He wasn't introduced. He just walked out to the podium to introduce Iris DeMint.

And everybody stood up and clapped for, it felt like a good five minutes. But when everybody finally sat down, I think in an attempt to not get emotional, he said, well, I'm John Prine, but I'd like to go back to being who you thought I was. And it really hit me. Like, it hit me as someone who. I felt that way at the time about myself. Like, man, I'd like to be who my ex-partner thought I was. And so it hit me really hard. In fact, I remember I cried when he said it.

And then that was my first thought. And then my second thought was, I better put this in my phone right now because I'm in an auditorium full of amazing musicians and songwriters. And somebody, I'm not the only person who heard that as a song. So I wrote it.

down right away and went in the next day and wrote it once again with Jesse Joe, who I spoke about already, and Jonathan Singleton, because it was such a, it was an idea that was really pressing down on my heart, and it felt like it needed to be written right now. So that's how it was born. I used to want to be a cowboy. That's why I started. I used to want to be a cat. We wrote it, and Jonathan, who's a great singer, he actually.

sang harmony on the track. He sang the demo. And so when he did it, it was like a guy, you know, used to want to be a cowboy and all that. And so I didn't think about it for me. And so I played it for my manager. And I said, I don't know if this is right, but I just love this song. So I don't want to go into this process and not play it for you. And she was like, that's amazing. You need to record it. Don't change anything. Don't sing. Don't sing. Don't sing. I used to want to be a cowgirl, like keep it exactly like it is. That was a really fun. That was a fun song to record. It was a really fun song to write. And I love that John Prine's forever tied to it. Honestly, he's a big inspiration to me. And I got to tell him that I had written that song.

And he's like, I remember saying that. So that was a great moment for me. Wow. It's powerful. And we've, of course, tragically lost John to one of the great American songwriters. And we've lost him to the pandemic. It's so, tragic, but he lives on the lyric. I also hear him living on in the music a little bit as well. There's this musical moment where when I heard it was like, oh, that is like a John Prine thing. I play guitar similar to John. I mean, that guitar work you're talking about right there, that is Jed Hughes, who's a master and came up with, I mean, the way he's playing right there is so amazing. Oh, it's so amazing. I hear that. I think it's a great way to tell stories because I think

there is a metronomic that's a great word for it, almost hypnotic thing in a lot of finger-picking styles. I love to finger-pick. And I think it's a storyteller's style because the ear can almost tune that out and it's so metronomic and you can just pay attention to the story. I've never thought about that until you just pointed that out. I used to want to be else. Drive a pair of That makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, it really is entrancing. There's only so many songwriters like John Prine where their early middle and late material is all excellent.

And yet underneath all of it is often very similar guitar patterns, chords, ways of playing. And yet each song has its own identity. And I think some of that is that entrancing quality of the way that he plays, allows it to be in the background, sort of set the middle. mood and then you just go right to his voice. And I get that same quality in who you thought I was. Oh, thank you. I really like what you've done with a line here, this idea of who you thought I was because it feels like you're addressing not just the other person in the song, but also yourself. Yeah, I think we all get to a point where we think of all the different incarnations of ourselves

that we've tried to create. And then we get to a point where we think, man, I just, like to be who, even who I thought I was, you know? And so it does, it touches on a lot of different, you're right. That's another thing I hadn't thought about it. It's also coming to terms with who you thought yourself was or who you thought you were going to be. Does writing the song help provide you any clarity to that question? Oh, that's a great question. I don't know if it gave me any clarity, but it definitely was cathartic for me to write that. song. How so? Well, you know, I was going, I was going through a breakup and, you know, you feel, you feel, I mean, I'm not the first person to go through a big breakup, but you feel guilty and sad.

And, you know, you wish, even if what someone thought you were was there forever, you know, I wish I could have been that. And so it was sort of putting that to bed for me. And then, you know, maybe if I go even deeper and talk about, you know, how I said with this album, I took the handcuffs off myself. You know, I thought my last album, we worked at Country Radio, and I thought I was going to have a big hit single. And so I had to come to terms with that not happening, you know, who I thought I, where I thought my music fit,

who I thought I was in that regard professionally. I think it's a topic that I think continues in your song, Bigger Boat. Sharks in the water Got me thinking about a movie quote Yeah, we're going to nail I wrote it with Adam Wright Who's amazing We weren't planning on it being a duet

But I had said I'd love to do a duet On this album And so along the way Somebody said, you know what would be a good duet Is Bigger Boat? And then I said, man, you're right But I said, well, what about Randy Newman? And everyone was like, well, yeah, that's a great idea

But how are we going to get him? And Lenny Warnaker, who I work with at Warner, has known Randy his whole life. And so I said, well, I bet Lenny could get it to him. And he did. And, you know, Randy changed a line because it had a curse word in it. And I always wanted him to want writer credit on it, but he didn't. He's like, I'm not one of those. Write a word, get a third.

Yeah. So he came in and sang it. And that was a really a big dream come true. If we were looking at the We're taking a slightly broader look, it seems. And in other interviews, you've spoken about how you aspire to be a truth teller. And I'm curious what that means for you today, how it might connect in with Bigger Boat, especially. Well, with bigger boat, you know, at the time when we wrote that song, there were a bunch of floods happening down south and then fires were had just gone on in California.

Seems like you wrote the song today. Yes. So that's what I was thinking about. And I just always, it's always, it's always, it's always disheartening to me that we can't find a middle, that it's either all the way left or all the way right, like it says. Like, that is, as someone who's not really political, I'm always like, man, can we just find a middle? We're either all the way. And so Adam and I wrote that about just, you know, the crazy world we live in. And it is, the song, the world is getting crazier and the song is becoming more relevant. It's as relevant as it was when we wrote it. It's like, now we have a pandemic and a crazy election happening.

And we've got floods and fires again. I hate that it's more relevant. than when we wrote it, but it is. I wanted to tell the truth without taking a side on it. I feel like we did a pretty good job of that, just talking about what's going on more than our opinions on it. Yeah, I saw in an interview you did with Billboard that you said that you tend to keep politics to yourself, and this is not uncommon in the country world.

You've got, I'm sure, a very broad fan base. I think you even said in that same interview, You've got people who both like, thinking music and drinking music that listen to your music. And in that conversation, this back in 2018, you're sort of looking at like, well, if there was a tipping point, maybe you would speak out more and be more political. How do you feel today about that? Well, I've definitely spoken out more. Yeah. You know, I've lost a few followers in this year, which is totally okay.

Because at some point, you have to speak up. Yeah. What changed for you? Well, George Floyd. You know, I could no longer. sit back and not saying anything, which I've always spoke up more than I think a lot of people like, but I've never, I know, I never feel informed enough to really talk about politics, but I don't, and I don't even think of what happened with George Floyd as political. I think that's a human rights

issue. And if people want to say that's political, then we're going to get in a fight, but I got a little bit of hate over that. And I'm like, this is, this is about civil rights and basic human rights. I don't care which side of the, I don't care if you're a Democrat or a, Republican, that should matter. That needs to matter to all of us. Do you feel that there is greater pressure as a country performer to hide one's politics? Not the country music world I live in. Yeah. Can you speak to that? Yeah. I mean, I really straddle more the country Americana line. And I feel like everybody that's in that is, you know, we speak up. Right. So I've never felt any pressure to not speak up. And I've also always been, I've always been openly gay, which is not the norm for a country

singer. So I think I've always lived in that world that's a little more outspoken. So I can't really speak to that. Let's take this back into the song. What is building a bigger boat mean for you beyond just the literal, hey, there's a flood going on? Probably opening our minds a little to, you know, I had a really good conversation last weekend with a song. writer who believes very differently than I do. But he said some things that really made a lot of sense to me. And afterwards, I actually texted him and said, I really appreciate our conversation because I can see some things a little different than I have ever, maybe. And so I think that's part of the bigger boat. And I think we've got to look at ourselves a little bit. You know, I mean, one of my

favorite verses in that is you can't eat this, you can't eat that. Is there anything that ain't given cancer to rats. You know, I think we do a lot to poison this planet and poison ourselves. And, you know, if we want to leave it around for people that are coming behind us, we're going to have take a hard look at ourselves. The song is taking a bigger view. How does it apply for you in sort of thinking about its space in a breakup record, your life is a record? Is it an intentional pullback? Does it have sort of more micro metaphors as well? How do you think of? about it. I felt like, you know, there's an awful lot of heavy on this album. And even though in some ways, some could argue this is maybe the heaviest song on the record, but the music provides some

levity. And I felt like on an album like this, there needed to be a little bit of levity. And I felt like this song, Long Walk and Who Broke Whose Heart, all provide a little bit of that, even if it's, you know, just musically, to sort of cleanse your power. You've taken approach, where it's really clear that truth-telling matters, where whether it's a song about climate change in politics or a song about a relationship, it's never one-sided. You're always looking at this unusual perspective to take of like,

oh, I broke your heart. Like, I'm the sad song. I've set this up. This is a form of truth-telling, a way of looking at what's really going on. And I think it's something that many of the great country songwriters do. like I'm drawn to country music because of stories and truth that is told and I think the absence of that of certain stories is always is a loss and so I appreciate that you're not afraid to tackle difficult things speak out oh thank you know my favorite my favorite songs did that like there's a great Harlan Howard I don't know who he co-wrote it with so I apologize to whoever he co-wrote it with but he had a great song called Life Turned Her That Way.

And it's talking about this woman and all these things about her, you know, just don't blame her, don't blame her, don't blame her, life turned, don't blame her, I've turned her that way. And the bridge, it gives me chills to even think about the bridge, but the bridge says she's been walked on and stepped on so many times, and I hate to admit it, but the last footprints mine. She's been walked on and stepped on so many times. But that last footprints mine.

I mean, it makes me tear up, but there's so much honesty in that. And the truth is, we're not always the good guy. Sometimes we're the bad guy. And I always love a story. My favorite television stories, the main character is usually pretty flawed.

Because if we're being honest, we're all pretty flawed. I like to talk about that. The other doesn't interest me. Like, real really interests me. So let's get real. What's going on now? I was sad to see that you obviously had to cancel a tour. Life has changed a lot for everybody. What's going on for you? What's happening with music? Well, I've done as much as I can. Everybody, myself and my team, I feel like we pivoted really quickly. My album came out March 6th. I was fortunate enough to get to do a little TV. That was the last person that got to play the Today Show in studio. I mean, who gets to say that. But I've done as much online. as I can. I started a series called You Can't Come Over, but you can come in where I bring other artists in and we play music and talk. So that's really good. And then, you know, I'm just like everybody else in this, there are good days and bad days, you know.

I feel a little more free the last couple weeks. Hopefully I'm, you know, not getting overzealous. I always wear a mask. But, you know, hoping that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, Brany, it's been really lovely to get to chat with you. Thank you so much for sharing your music and sharing your stories. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And you're a great interview. You got a really pretty cat. It's all just about the cat. Have a wonderful day. You too. Bye. Switched on Pop is hosted by me, Charlie Harding, and Nate Sloan. Our producer is Bridgett Armstrong. Our engineer is Brandon McFarland, social media by Abby Barr and illustrations by Iris Gottlieb.

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