Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Sara Bareilles

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

“Being a human is so complicated for so many reasons,” Sara Bareilles tells Rachel. That’s why she’s trying to show more grace for both herself and others these days. In Sara’s new album and documentary, both titled “Good Grief,” she’s processing the loss of dear friends, and her struggles with fertility. She also tells Rachel about becoming an unapologetic crier, and outgrowing low rise jeans. To listen sponsor-free and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Just a heads up, this episode does have some strong language. You know, I'm at a time where, like, I've had to buy a random woman's eggs off of the internet who wants to open a burlesque parlor. But I really liked her, like, hotzpah. My mom is a big crier, too, and she loves to take credit for my crying. Mom, my crying is mine. And the wisdom that always came back is, like, you're doing the very best you know how to do right now. Like, can you just hold a little bit more grace for what is hard? Because what is hard is so hard.

Being a human is so complicated. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wild Card. The game where cards control the conversation. My guest this week is Sarah Borrellas. I have admired Sarah Borrellas for so many reasons for a very long time. Obviously, she is a phenomenal singer that's proven by her massive pop hits and are critically acclaimed performances on Broadway, especially waitress. But I got to say, after listening to Sarah's new album, I admire her more than anything for how she feels her way through her life.

Her new album is so beautiful. It is called Good Grief. And I am so, so happy to welcome Sarah Borellas to Wildcard. Hi. I'm so happy to be here. I really have been looking forward to this for a long time. I'm so glad we could make it happen. Thank you for doing it.

Oh, my gosh. Thank you. So, round one is memories. Here we go. Good luck. You don't have any. I'm like, I couldn't remember the word for like, I don't even remember what the word was. The other day, it's like the thing.

Anyway, I know. I forget why I walk into rooms. I mean, I do feel badly. When I ask these questions of people, I'm like, oh my God, if someone were to flip this one on me, I have no idea what I would say. Totally. But we're just going to go with it. I love it. Okay.

Okay. Here we go. First three cards. Sarah, one, two, or three. Okay. Three. What was your most intimidating move? Like a physical move.

Oh, God. It was moving from my apartment where I lived alone here on Elizabeth Street into, I can't believe this was the most intimidating move. Like more than moving away to college or more than moving to New York City. The one that really was the most intense for me was moving in with my husband. Oh, really? I was moving in with Joe. We lived in an apartment.

on the Upper West Side. Well, it's a big deal to move in with the person. And I think it was like a real, yeah, there was so much that we had to like grow up and into and out of. Like, there was just a lot that he and I had to really get through. There was a lot of fire to sit in for us. And I think I could feel the intensity of that. Um, had you lived with anyone before? No. I mean, I even, he stayed with me for like a lot. He stayed with me a lot, but I had always had my own space. I love living alone. I work from home. I write from home. So the idea of sharing space with someone all the time was frankly not that interesting. And I'm like, can we free to call this? Like, can we, and we just like have separate spaces. Um, I have now come to really love living with him. But, there are still things about it where I deeply miss what is autonomous and separate. And, you know,

it is, you know, it's the tradeoff. But that was a really intimidating move. And I remember I played, um, I sat in my empty apartment on Elizabeth Street and I loved this little apartment. Oh, it's a two bedroom. It was a great apartment. It was a great apartment. Um, no, I just cried. Oh, I just cried and cried and cried. Yeah. Yeah. Moving is so. Oh, yeah. Oh, my. my God, it brings up so much stuff. Yeah. It's so much grief. It's so much grief. I remember when my mom, when we moved out of my childhood home into like a new and bigger house that my dad was really excited about that was only on the other side of the neighborhood. I have such a vivid memory of my mother in the basement, weeping on this green shag carpet, crying, crying. And I just

were going, Mom, get over it. We're moving, you know, uptown to the fancy new digs. What is the problem? Totally. She couldn't care less about moving to the big. fancy house. She was like remembering this is where the kids ran through and touched their hands on this wall. And this is, you know, where I, you know, became myself and a quiet moment. Totally. Yeah, we hold ourselves in those walls. Yeah. It's so much more than just four walls. It's like, yeah, your whole life that has moved through. Is it a nice apartment, the one you live in now? Do you like it? Maybe I'm in a brownstone. Yes, you are.

We have since moved again. But no, that one, I mean, it was a very nice apartment, but it was not, oh, it was tough. That's why we moved. It was just not a good configuration. No. We need more separation. More floors. You really do.

I really, really do. For sure. Next three. One, two, or three. One. One. what's an ordinary place that feels extraordinary to you because of what happened there? LePan Quotidian.

It has ordinary in the name. Quotidia, just like, I don't know, daily bread, whatever. I can't go there without thinking of my friend Gavin, who passed away because it was when he, Gavin Kriel. So he was at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and that was when I got off the train, I would stop at LePan. and I would get some kind of food for the hospital room. And then, yeah, sometimes lots of food, sometimes just little snacks. But now it doesn't matter which one I'm going into. I always think of Gavin.

And so, yeah, I don't, it wasn't like an extraordinary. I mean, it is an extraordinary thing to have gone through losing him, but I didn't lose him in Le Pen Quigidia. No, but it counts. Yeah. Yeah. For those who don't know, Gavin Creel, was a big name on Broadway, much beloved. A dear friend of yours.

Yes. Did you meet him in work? Yes. I met him doing a benefit for Cindy Lauper's True Colors Foundation. This was like 12 to 15 years ago. I was in New York doing a – I didn't live here yet. And I did this benefit, and we were both singing that night, and that was the first time I'd ever heard him sing.

And I was like, for those who don't know, It was one of the great voices of humanity, in my opinion. Just the richest, most versatile, goziest, just the loveliest voice. And it was attached to the most incredible man. Just, he was just like a sparkler. Do you remember when you first met? Oh, yeah. Also, he's devastatingly handsome.

So I was like, am I in love with a gay man? And I really did for a while. I was like, I'm having actual romantic feelings, and I know he's gay. But what do you do? I like fell in love with him. And I think the more I talk about that. You're not the first straight woman to have. 100%.

And so many people. I know with him too. Totally, with him especially. I've talked to so many women who are like, oh, for sure. In love with him, for sure. Yeah. Jonathan Groff, I might be a little bit in love with him. You can be.

He's so lovable. Jonathan and Gavin dated. They were in love with each other. That's right. Yeah. I actually forgot that. Yeah. It's okay. Loveable people.

So may I ask, may I nudge on this for a little bit? How long was he sick before? Oh, God, it was like three months. Oh, it was very fast. It was really fast. Yeah, got the diagnosis in July. And then, yeah, he was gone in just a few months. It was just, yeah, extraordinary. And then felt just an incredible privilege to be invited into kind of an inner circle that was, he was so generous with his passing and like allowing a small number of people to kind of

walk with him through that. But oh my God, I'm not the first person to say this, but I learned so much about life from death. It's just like, oh, and an incredible teacher. Grief is an incredible teacher. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk more about it. Because his, his memory, that of another very dear friend of yours are all over your album. Yeah. Oh yeah. A lot of dead friends on this record. We'll talk about it.

Yeah. Okay, last one in this round. One, two, or three. Three again. Three. Once a time you realized you were on the right path. Like, I wrote this book of essays called Sounds Like Me. And it was so hard.

And I sort of hated writing this book. but I had this moment. There's a chapter in there. I made the chapters based on songs. And I have a song called Beautiful Girl, and it's sort of all about, like, feeling invisible and about relationship to beauty and wanting people to see you the way they see a beautiful girl.

And I started doing this, again, I'm not the first person to think of this, but I started doing this practice where I was writing letters to myself. at different ages. And it was so profound. It was so profound to really sit with the sense of myself at age 12 and at age 22. And the things that change and the things that stay the same in that kind of like wrestling with, am I enough? That it just like takes different forms over our life, I think. But I really felt like there's medicine in this. There's medicine in this for

me, there's medicine in this for other people, and that was a moment. I was sitting in the, in the lobby of the Marlton Hotel when I had my laptop there in the village, and I was like, crying. I'm like, so self-important. All my wisdom. But that's what, you know, that is actually something that happens to me. Like, I will like spontaneously start weeping if I kind of hit something that feels especially true or especially resonant. And so it's become a little mile marker for me where I'm like, oh, I'm on the right path when I'm like crying. When you feel the tears coming, you're like this is, but that's not, they're not sad tears. It's no, it's just like an ecstatic release of some kind. It's just like intimacy with the truth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You said that kind of the going through when you were thinking about writing letters to different younger versions of yourself. The central question was, are you enough? So the subtext of that is that when you were thinking about all those younger versions of you, you didn't feel like you were. Was there an age as you did this exercise when you're like, and here I got it? And here I started to feel like it was going to be okay and that I am enough. I think I'm only just like kind of getting, I'm like orbiting that now, 46. And I think what I would notice is that, you know, I write a letter from the perspective of being that age, like write a letter as a 12-year-old girl, write a letter from your older, wiser self, back to that person. And the wisdom that always

came back is like you're doing the very best you know how to do right now. Like, can you just hold a little bit more grace for what? is hard because what is hard is so hard. Being a human is so complicated for so many reasons. And so I think now there's like less distance between the part of me that gets like hooked in a story or a problem or an experience and the part of me that can step outside and be like, this is really intense. This is really hard. There's just like less distanced across, I think now. I wouldn't say that I'm like, wise-minded entirely, but I have done a lot of work to, like, cultivate more of that feeling, like, more grace for myself, more grace for other people. It's just, yeah, kind of forgiving nature.

Can I go back to crying? I love crying. I am a bit of a crier. It has perhaps been noted by listeners and watchers of this very program. It's one of the things I love about you. Why do Rachel's eyes always seem like they're tearing up? Because I'm crying. Yeah.

Because I'm crying. I love that. I'm a big feelings forward person. But I feel very insecure about it to this day. I do. Yeah. And I think a lot of that has to do. Wait, can I ask you why?

What is the insecurity related to? I think a lot of it is tied to my identity as a journalist. Uh-huh. Not about me, right? This thing that's very, very sad, not about me. You need to, like, shut that stuff down, which I did for many, many years. Maybe it's because now I'm giving myself permission to do a different kind of journalism that all of it's coming out. But my question is, do you ever, do you apologize when you start to cry?

Not anymore. My mom, my mom is a big crier, too, and she loves to take credit for my crying. Mom, my crying is mine. No, but she used to say this thing, listen to my words, not to my tears, because there is almost like a spontaneous overwhelm and just a crying that happens kind of when you're in a big conversation, where you're in conflict, when you're in. And I have had, I spent so much time, especially in early meetings, for example, like I remember meetings around, you know, boardroom tables in a, in the label for the first time. And literally just the sense of being in an overwhelming situation would make my eyes. I would just have my lips quivering and I'm like feeling overwhelmed. I need to cry.

And I was, I would fight it so hard. But I think at that time I also just lacked the language for even naming like, oh, I'm really never been any, and been anywhere that feels like this. I feel so overwhelmed. I don't really, I don't apologize anymore. I really think crying, my God, it means you are feeling into your own humanity. Yeah, I mean, I agree. It's just reflexive. I'm trying not to.

Yeah. But it is a reflexive habit that now when I notice it, I'm like, oh, that is what most people do and most women do. When you start to feel something that then triggers a physical response in the form of tears, it's just like, oh, I hope I'm not making you uncomfortable. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry if my emoting is making you uncomfortable. Oh, my God. May we all just learn to be a little more comfortable with emotions? Can you imagine what the world would look like?

No, like it's loud. Completely. When I think about talking to my best friends or my sisters, like, if they start to cry, it's not even, it's subconscious. Like, I'm immediately crying to because I'm like, oh, I'm with you in your, yeah. So go ahead and cry. I'll cry with you at any point. Thanks.

Not a problem. There are a lot of tears in this documentary. We'll talk about that. crying for like 90 minutes straight yeah but I loved it um okay so we're going to pull out of the game and talk about your album good grief it is a beautiful beautiful compilation of songs I hope you're really proud of it thank you um so you made a documentary in tandem with the album um about the making of the album you and how many musicians were with you have a dozen yeah five squirled away, locked yourselves away in, it looked like an old church? It is. It's a place called

Dreamland Studios up near Woodstock, New York. And yeah, I grabbed a handful of some of my sort of favorite collaborators. And we were in the studio for six days. And my friend Josh Alexander, who also has a house up there, about 10 days before we went in, I called Josh. And I was like, Do you want to see if we can, like, should we film this? I had been working a lot on this documentary called Come See Me in the Good Light, which Chronicle. Andrea Gibson. Andrea Gibson. Andrea Gibson.

And there's so much courage in that film. It made me feel like I think it was a big part of why I made the decision to want to document this period of time. because there was so much that was unknown. And I knew I was so raw and felt so vulnerable. And I was like, I think there's some, again, like medicine in this. I think I got to. So I'm imagining this is the first time that you wrote all these songs. It's the first time you're really getting to play them for an audience.

I mean, these were your collaborators. But still, you're performing these very intimate personal songs about grief. and there's a song in particular, just a kid, that was written for your dear, dear friend, who is a friend of yours, Chad Joseph from college. I mean, you guys had known each other forever, and then he was your manager for decades. And he died also of cancer in 2020. Yeah, he was 40. Yeah.

So you've written this song for him. what was it like to to sing it in front of people for the first time? Like a holy. Here we go. Yeah, it felt holy. It's like the more I, the more I, the reason I don't like crying is because I think I look ugly. And I had a friend be like, put that down like a bag over back, but I was like, I just like my face contorts and I feel the ugly. Anyway, now we're going to release that.

It doesn't matter. I don't like literally I I care but I don't care. I the more I can just get closer and closer to what's true, the more I feel free to just, you know, be with what breaks your heart. This life, I mean, look at our world. It breaks your heart. But the options are to collapse or to like, love. love it fiercely as you let it go. And that is the thing I'm like working towards is to just learn all the different ways to love it fiercely while I let it go. Because spoiler alert,

I'm going to die too. Like that we all have to just like find a way to make peace with this impossible reality that we don't get to stay. No one does. Yeah. So, my beautiful friends that I lost, being my shaman, my teachers, my, you know, like these wise,

brave souls that had to go, you know, into the unknown. Oh, it's a lot for you in those, in those years. Yeah. That's a lot.

Yeah. How, how did you know you were ready to make art about it, you know? Well, like with the example of that song, Just a Kid,

I was literally on my way home from the grocery store and my hands were full of grocery bags and I just felt this this whole record feels like it's full of transmissions like and I'm always someone music for me feels like the language of God I don't I don't have a lot of ownership over my music I think that it's for whatever reason in this life I've been given like the key to some portal where it's like okay, I can translate some of what's coming through. And I think that's my job. I think that's why I'm here.

And this was like a crazy transmission where I just felt like, oh, I have to sing. And I was singing into my phone. And it was about Chad. And I put my grocery bags down on the sidewalk and I'm singing into my phone. And then I went home and wrote the song. But that's very unusual for me. But that's also been like all this evidence in losing these friends where I was just like, they're not gone. They're just like, I just feel them everywhere. Like that's the chorus of this song. It's

like, this is for my best friend. He's everywhere. And I really believe that to be true. I just think we are energy and life is porous. And there's just like a very thin veil. Did you feel them more? I think the veil is really thin in the first few weeks and months. Sure. Did you, has it, That's a sad question. Has the veil thickened? Yeah, as the veil thickened. In some ways, yeah. In some ways, it's like, yeah, he feels, I mean, I think of both of them differently,

like Chad and Gavin both, they feel farther away some days, and then sometimes they feel really close. But that feels like not so dissimilar to how a relationship, with another human being feels. That's true. Sometimes we feel really extremely intimately connected and sometimes people feel like they're light years away. But I like the idea that it can imitate the contours of a living, breathing relationship.

Yeah. I like that idea very much. I want to ask about ladies in line. Oh, God, Sarah, this is just a gut punch of a song. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love this song. I love that it exists. Thank you. You have been open about your fertility challenges. Yes. And I mean, it's it is the silent burden and sorrow of so many women and couples.

Totally. Tell me about the song. Yeah. I wrote that song in its entirety sitting in the row of chairs at NYU. Langeon Fertility Clinic that any woman who has gone through or any couple who's gone through, but mostly women, if I'm honest, it's not a ton of men in there. Who just sit in those lines of chairs in clinics all over every city, all over the country, all over the world, and you're going for your blood draw or your hormone checks or you're checking with the doctor or whatever it is. And I wrote the song about, you know, the pursuit of motherhood.

And I found that when, you know, we've been trying for several years at this point. And it's so interesting. It's gone through its own, it's like its own journey that is morphing into different shapes and sizes. And I just was really struck by the volumin. of people. I've gone through many doctors and different clinics and places out of state. And I've done all kinds of things. And I'm just like, wow, everywhere you go, there's so many ladies in a line, like, each with their own story and grief and like who knows what. All you do is like walk into one of those waiting rooms and then you just like, you have your own stuff, but then you absorb.

Totally. You know, especially if you're like an empathetic person, it would be important. possible to not look around. Yeah. And it still was an interest, it feels still quite insular. It's not like a chatty place or anything. But I think when I was, you know, sort of first getting on the ride, I was surprised that I couldn't find as much. There's a lot of people who are willing, which I completely understand, I don't judge this at all, that are willing to talk about fertility struggles once they have a healthy baby in their arms. They're like, it was so hard to get here. And there are, there are some, but not as many, people willing to sort of talk from the messy metal, as

Glennon says. And, yeah, and I just, I don't know if I'll have regrets about it. I mean, really, the thing that I think is just, it's so human, but it's so annoying about humans is that everybody just has an opinion about like, oh, well, you just haven't tried, or when you, you'll see, when you finally stop trying, then you'll get pregnant. And I'm like, motherfuckers, if you. give me one more piece of advice or tell me to have one more fucking margarita with my husband. Like, I'm just going to, I want to throttle you.

Everybody wants to tell you what to do. Everybody has. Can I tell you this story? Yes. This is definitely TMI. Okay. There is no. T.M.

I was a guy that psychologist. I needed to have a procedure. I had endometriosis. This is many years ago. And I had to have a procedure to get rid of it. And the gynecologist who happened to have been a man, just here in New York, actually, was, how do we say this? In my body, when he, something clicked for him, and he was like, wait, Rachel Martin.

Oh, my goodness. Rachel Martin. Are you Rachel Martin from NPR? I want to murder this man. I was dying. And then he went, I was like, uh-huh. You take the speculum out before you ask me what I'm doing? Yeah.

And then he, so I like shut that convo down. But then after the procedure, he proceeds to tell me, he's like, so, um, are you married? Nope, not married. So no kids. Nope, don't have kids. Would you like kids? Yeah. Where's this going?

You should start on that yesterday. I'm like, I'm not in love with anyone. I don't, I'm like, I feel sad about being single. I don't know. What are you doing? doing. It was so hurtful. And I share that just because it's an example, people feel like they're helping. Totally. And I'm like, that is so not helpful. No. I have similar stories that are, I had a man with instruments inserted inside me. And I'm like, you doing anything fun on Broadway

these days? And I'm like, can you not ask? I also had a male doctor. And it's not, there are great male doctors out there. But I, but I also have. a male doctor was like, well, you're not talking to your ovaries very well. Like, you have to talk to them like plants? I'm just like, what do you, I'm like in, I'm in another state at a fertility clinic. I've like uprooted my life. Like, and there's no, like, the bedside manner. Yeah. Like, let's say, that is a caring thing for a doctor to be able to say, to say, can I share with you some

information about, like that timeline? Totally. Because what I tell, and maybe this is a great place to say it, is that what I tell young women, I'm like, if you can afford it, freeze your eggs. Yeah. Freeze your eggs when you're young. If you're like, I don't know if I'm on a lot of kids, if it's just a question, I just wish I would have done it because now, I'm at an egg donor, you know, I'm at a time where like I've had to buy a random woman's eggs off of the internet who wants to open a burlesque parlor, but I really liked her like chutzpah.

And so I, but I think that like, you know, we're going to, you grieve these little losses and it leads you wherever you end up. But nobody talked about it. Nobody told me. They tell you, all they do, especially if I grew up Catholic, so in Catholic school, it's like, don't even look at a man or you might get pregnant. But, you know, I think I remember the statistic. I'm not sure if it's entirely accurate, but only like there's like an 18 to 20 percent chance

of getting pregnant on a healthy month, on a young body. Right. So we're told it's so easy to get pregnant. And the truth is that for many, many people, it's not. It's just not that easy to get pregnant. So zip it with the advice, everyone. Yeah, zip it. That is also part of the grief of good grief.

Yes. Is that particular fertility journey. I wondered getting back to Come See Me in the Good Light and Andrea Gibson being part of that project. how did that how did it shift your your perspective on all this loss that you've experienced oh my god i mean for me andrea gibson is a prophet i believe they are continue to be they were and they continue to be like a like an actual prophet like the kind of wisdom and the kind of um guidance towards love with a capital L, like this, this, this gentle, open-hearted love of life that they really discovered from their cancer diagnosis.

I just think is a miraculous journey. And there was so much bravery in how they approached the own end. And so much humor. Yeah, totally. It's so funny. That film about, you know, sort of the last year of Andrea's life. is one of the funniest films I've ever seen in my life. I mean, they are hysterically funny.

And you sort of see, like, oh, if you're brave enough and you're courageous enough to get in, like, get into bed with your mortality and be able to smile and laugh about it, like, what else can I do? Yeah. It is also that film a testament to grieving and communion with other people, which your document. documentary does too. Yeah. Because, and this is what I especially loved, and then we'll get back to the game. But it seemed a pattern started to emerge in that film. Maybe it was the way the director cut it together. But there were these motifs almost of grief and comfort. And then again, grief and comfort. And the comfort would come in the form of physical touch or embrace from your friends or it was in the music that you made together. Or at one point your drummer just was. like, I need to light some sage or something. But it was this pattern that started to emerge where you saw that basically this was just a lesson in witnessing each other's pain. Bearing witness. Totally. It's like the biggest gift you can do for someone, I think, is to just be willing to stay. Like, you don't have to even have the answers. You don't have to say the right

thing. Like, that's one of the things. There's a scene where Charlie Drayton, my drummer, um, I was about to play the piano for a song called Forever, which ended up on the last day. The whole film was chronological, actually. So Josh Alexander, I think, really smartly, well, M was so sensitive with the footage. He's like, it didn't want to be manipulated. So he really just told the story of those six days. And on the last day, I was trying to, you know, record the song that I had written for Gavin, and it was so fresh. and I was so cracked open from all the music.

And Charlie comes into the room, and it was just like, you know, this lit a stick of Palo Santo. He didn't even touch me. He didn't even put his hand on my shoulder. He just was like, I'm here too. I'm just with you. And it was so, it was profound. You know, I think, like, having the courage to be in the depths and not try to change anything. Makes me think of that beautiful scene and inside out where sadness just sits.

Oh my God, it's going to make me cry. I'm just talking about that movie is my favorite movie where sadness just sits. And it's like, oh, you lost your friend. That's sad. Yeah. It's the greatest movie. Yeah. Just like an affirmation.

Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. Not trying to change it. It just is. Yeah. But it can be and we can be together. Yeah.

I'm not going anywhere. Yeah. Ready for round two? I can't wait. Okay. Let's go. New round. Three new cards. Insights. We've already had a lot of insights, Sarah. Yeah. Okay. Let's have some more. One, two, or three. Okay. Two. What's something you've outgrown? Low-rise jeans. Thank you. I'm going to have any time for that garbage. Need I see more? Enough said. No, you do not. You do not. I'm not interested.

Zero percent interested in those. Okay. Next to three, one, two, or three. One. One. How much do you rely on the validation of others? Oh, God. Okay. I think I rely a lot on the validation of others, but my definition of others has, I think, shifted and become more concentrated on making sure that I trust. the others. So meaning that like I don't, I, it feels nice to be, you know, to get a lot of accolades for your work or what you do or how you present in the world. But I don't, that's not like the engine. I don't, I think I have learned that like you can't really chase that because it moves any. way. So I do go to my, like, trusted sort of army of friends and loved ones, which is a very small group, actually. And I do want their validation. I do desire that. I mean, you got a huge

amount of validation after your 2007 huge hit, love song, right? I mean, what did that do for you? How did that sit with you? Because it was so much attention, so fast. I'm going to be famous for this. I mean, first of all, I loved it. But what I will say is that that song felt like it was one of those moments where I was, I got like a hit from somewhere else about how to get aligned. So I had been writing all this material that I thought would please the label.

I was like listening to the record. radio and then kind of trying to write songs that were like a knockoff up there. And I caught myself because I could tell that they, no one was asking me explicitly like, we need a radio song or we need a love song. Nobody said those words. But there was just this like, we're going to just give you some more time to write. We're going to give you some more time before we go into the studio. And I'm like, I have all these songs. I'm like ready to go. I knew what they were waiting for. Something different. Something different. Yeah. Something not like what you already have. And I, so I was listening to the radio a lot, and then I kind of caught myself.

And this was this fear of like selling out, that there was going to be some part of me that, like, get, that got lost in the machine of the industry. I caught myself. And I literally said a prayer. And I was like, please, God, help me remember myself. Like, help me remember the reason I started doing this, my love of music, my love of songwriting, my logo. my love of storytelling, like help me remember where I started. And that song, like, kind of arrived. And so when I got all that validation for the song, to me, it was a, it was like a surrogate for getting validation for that little motivator, that sense of, like, you go to the deepest, truest place in yourself, and you write for that. And you stay there. And you stay there. That is where you live. Whatever comes because of it or not because of it, that place is sort of like unimpeachable.

Yeah. And it has served you well. It has served me really well. Yeah. It really has. Which doesn't mean, you know, I've definitely made things that I'm more or less proud of over the years. But like that feeling of what I'm after has really not changed. That it's like I am really interested in being, in telling the truth, in telling the truth about myself. self and telling the truth about the world, I really, really want to. And I want to be someone who can be trusted to do so. Okay. Last one in this row. One, two, or three. One. Are you good at releasing control? No. No. No. Think about it again. Can I think about, yeah. I am getting better. I'm getting better at it. It is. It is. is hard. In what way? I mean, I can make an assumption that it's in the songwriting crafting process, but does that extend to other parts of your life? That's where I'm not really that

good at releasing control, because I actually, I'm not that interested in what other people have to say. I'm just like, I don't want your input on this. I'm just, I know what I wanted to be. But it's in other places. Like, getting married was an interesting, like, it was an interesting experience to watch this play out. Okay. Where it's like you're making, I'm, you know, I'm 46. We got married last year in October. We've been together for like 10 years.

And at a certain point, I mean, I used to, when I was young, very young, I was like, oh, I'm going to be married when I'm 26 and I'm going to have kids by 28. And I just had a very, and then you get older and like your life changes shape and your sense of yourself changes shape. And you start to ask yourself, like, I don't know if I really. Is this what I want? Do I really, do I care, do I actually really care about being married? I'm not sure. Yeah. So the questions come up. And then, you know, when I began my relationship with my current husband, Joe, my current husband. You only have one. Sorry. Okay. But when we began, you know, seeing each other and then I started to feel this, I was like, oh, I think it would be nice. I think it would be nice to be married. I think it would be nice to have children. I think it would be nice to have children.

I think it would, like all of these things started to feel very true and very organic. But the wedding is a trip. Oh, no, it's the worst. It's a trip. But I, it was like, what can you let go of? Yeah. When you, I mean, it's not so dissimilar to this thing about the songwriting where it's like, can you just stay with the thing that's the most true? And the thing that's the most true is that I really love this person.

Yeah. And I want the whole day to just be a reflection of how much. I love this person. I mean, people gave us great advice where it's like really don't sweat the small stuff. And so for a big part of it, I didn't sweat a lot of the small stuff. You let it go. And it was great. Yeah.

We're at round three. I could do this all day. Me too. Mostly because I'm talking about myself. And another thing about weird. And another thing that I think the world should know about me. Okay. Okay, beliefs.

One, two, or three. Two. Two. Do you prefer mystery or certainty? That is such a hard question. I think now I prefer mystery. I mean, I think I'm more comfortable in certainty. Oh, you're more comfortable with certainty?

I think I'm more comfortable with certainty. And have that up to them. But I prefer, when I really think about like what does my soul want, the mystery. I think in everything, that there's, it's so laughable that we think we get it. Yeah. We like have anything figured out. We're so silly for thinking that. And I, and the more I learn about the world and myself and others and like real connection, it's, I think I prefer the mystery. I love that you can know someone your whole life and there's things you don't, you still don't know, that we are infinite to each other. I think that's really mysterious.

I think awe, that sense of awe is in nature, in beauty, in art. That is mysterious. Music is mysterious to me. I think that the things that make the biggest impact on making my life better have more to do with mystery than certainty. They don't fit into boxes. They defy kind of definition. You say that now you're in a place where you appreciate the mystery. Was that not you before? I guess I'm just trying to understand who, if you feel like you're better at it now, more comfortable in it, what did it look like when you weren't? Anxious, deeply, deeply anxious about anything that would show up that I couldn't either understand or I'm thinking about lots of times, you know, as a young artist on tour, I mean, a lot of times my anxiety would play out in terms of my relationship to my body or what I looked like or like a kind of a rigidity that would come about. I don't know what the, I don't know what I look like on the camera. Like I don't have a sense of what that is.

So I don't feel like I can be free. And I just think over time that has, like, maybe just got a little boring for like two. It's just too hard to care about that stuff for too long. It takes up too much time. It really does. Next three. One, two, or three. Will you choose one?

Choose the next one. Oh. Sarah. I'm going to ask this one. Have you made peace with mortality? No. No. No.

That's actually not what I thought you were going to say. Yeah. No. I don't want to die. Yeah. Well, you cannot want to and also be maybe... You're right. I mean, I am at peace with the fact that it happens. I know that it happens. Do you have anticipatory sadness over it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just brings up.

I'm so happy to cry for a second time on the tube. No, I think that it just makes me think about Gavin because he just was like, I just want more time. Yeah, more. Yeah. It's like, oh my God, there's so much to love. Yeah. Just wish I had more time. I'm not dying anyone.

I'm just, I'm fine. But yeah, I don't know. I don't think I'm at peace with it yet. Yeah. No. Don't kill me yet. No. Also, your grief is still too raw, I think. Those losses are still very recent. Yeah. And you're still missing. Are you at peace with that? I am sort of at peace with that. I'm always greedy. We're all greedy. I want more. There's so many things I want to do. I just, yeah. You want more.

Totally. But I don't feel, I was very scared of it after my mom died. was really scared. I was like going to the doctor all the time and crying on the doctor's table. She's like, there's nothing I can do for you. But here's the number of a therapist. Totally. Yeah. But I do think in time, you know. What I know to be true is that I have loved my life. So like I, in that way, I do feel like I'm at peace. Like, and Gavin and I used to talk about it. Just like, if you're on your plane and you hit some turbulence, you're like, you know what? If it goes down, it was, it was, it was, great. I loved it. I just loved being here. What a lucky thing that I got to be here at all. Yeah. Yeah. Last one. There's no death in these cards. I'm just going to tell you right now. Okay. Great. Well, let's

well take a break. Two or three. How about three? Three. Oh, what do you look forward to when you're older? Ooh, when you think about you in like 20, 30, 30. Years. What's going to be cool about that? Besides still being alive. I know. Besides still being alive, I think I look forward to what else I can shed about my own insecurities. I'm curious to meet who I will become because, yeah, I think I think I'm doing.

some decent work in terms of trying to lay the groundwork for like, how else can I just feel free to be with myself and love myself and love the people I'm with? I love the idea of growing old with Joe. He's got a really bad back. I'm just like, I'm going to have to like carry him places. But I love the idea. I hope I have a child. I hope I have, you know, a Christmas with a family. Like, you know, those are the things that, that sort of percolate. But really the thing is, like, getting to know myself even more of who I think I am becoming. That feels, like, interesting and exciting to me. And, like, are we going to be here or is AI actually going to kill us? Oh, my God. I can't wait to find out. I said to my sister the other night,

I was like, okay, I know it's terrible, the idea that we're all going to be. to die from it. But isn't it interesting that we're here? Like if I am going to, if, if there is going to be the end of civilization, I'm kind of happy I get to see it. Right. I mean, it will be terrible. And I don't want it to happen. No. I know I'm being a little bit glib about a very terrifying, awful thing. But I'm just like, you know, when you look at them sort of meta, you're just like, if the world's going to end, kind of interesting to be in the cast of characters that's here when it does. Okay, Sarah Burrellas, we end the show the same way every time with the trip in our memory time machine. Okay.

In the time machine, you revisit one moment from your past. It's not a moment you want to change anything about. It's just a moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. What moment do you choose? Oh, my gosh. And it doesn't have to be the moment that sums up everything. It's just whatever comes to the four right now. Yeah.

My dad and I, my dad used to drive me to school. And we got on this little kick where we were doing this bit where we were doing the Jeopardy theme to each other in different syllables. Like, rea, rea, rea, rea, and it made me laugh so hard as a little kid. It made me laugh so hard. So that's what's in my mind right now. It's just like laughing with my dad. I love it. Yeah.

I love it. Sarah Brillis, her new album, is called Good. grief. There's a documentary about it too. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much. If you'd like to watch this episode or any of our interviews, you can do so by checking out our YouTube page. Just search for NPR Wildcard. This episode was produced by Alicia Zhang and Summer Tomad. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and mastered by Jimmy Keely. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolana Sangweni. Our theme music is by Ramteen Arablewe. You can reach out to us at wildcard at npr.org.

We're going to shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you there.