transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You can visit Norah Jones' channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Hey, I'm Norah Jones, and today I'm playing along with Madison Cunningham. Hey, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. I'm here with Sarah Oda.

Speaker 2:
[00:30] Hello, hello.

Speaker 1:
[00:31] Welcome to our show. We have an awesome episode today. We have the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist Madison Cunningham. She has collaborated with tons of people, including Lucy Dacus, Remy Wolfe, Mumford & Sons, Lucius and Andrew Bird, a lot of our podcast homies. She's an incredible songwriter. Her lyrics are very emotionally sharp, and she's a real storyteller. I love her music. It is something about it. It's just like arresting, and it's very, very beautiful and heartfelt. But also she's an incredible musician and it's complicated. So it's all the things wrapped up in a perfect vessel. Her voice is incredible too. So beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[01:23] Yeah, you're going to hear her beautiful voice.

Speaker 1:
[01:25] You're going to hear kind of how she became such a poignant lyricist and also some of the musicians and artists that inspired her along the way. And yes, amazing music as always from across Madison's catalog, including her latest album Ace that came out last year in 2025. Very beautiful album. Yeah. Come join us with Madison Cunningham. There is some spicy language in this episode, so listener discretion is advised. It's not that bad, but just so you know, it's there. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[06:25] Ooh, I have chills, that was amazing.

Speaker 1:
[06:27] Yay!

Speaker 2:
[06:27] That was amazing.

Speaker 1:
[06:29] That was the hardest one.

Speaker 2:
[06:30] I know, we got it. You're so good. That voice is just...

Speaker 1:
[06:35] Oh, your voice has been making me cry all week.

Speaker 2:
[06:38] Oh, man.

Speaker 1:
[06:39] It's so beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[06:40] It just felt like music. That's how it should feel.

Speaker 1:
[06:42] That is what it is. Yeah. Wait a second.

Speaker 2:
[06:46] It's music, oh my God.

Speaker 1:
[06:48] It's music, oh, that was so beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[06:50] Your feel is so beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[06:51] Oh, your feel. That was amazing. This is going to be a compliment salad.

Speaker 2:
[06:54] Yeah, this is a compliment salad. Coming right up.

Speaker 1:
[06:58] I love your guitar playing.

Speaker 2:
[07:00] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[07:00] It's so amazing.

Speaker 2:
[07:01] Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:
[07:02] How do you do it?

Speaker 2:
[07:05] How do I do it? I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[07:07] I don't know. When did you start?

Speaker 2:
[07:09] I started playing guitar when I was about four or five.

Speaker 1:
[07:14] Oh, wow. Okay. That makes sense now.

Speaker 2:
[07:17] Yeah. My dad, he played guitar, he played acoustic guitar. And as a kid, I was told by my parents that I wanted to play kind of immediately. And I think I just really wanted to be close to my dad and wanted to share some sort of language with him subconsciously.

Speaker 1:
[07:38] That's really sweet.

Speaker 2:
[07:39] Yeah. It was almost like picking up a baseball bat or something and being like, let's go play catch. You know, that was the feeling of learning to play, which was, yeah, I mean, my love for it has grown, changed, and morphed over the years. But I think watching his passion for it also was just naturally going to be infectious.

Speaker 1:
[08:00] Okay. Yeah. Was he professional or hobby?

Speaker 2:
[08:03] He was. I mean, within church circles.

Speaker 1:
[08:07] Oh, cool.

Speaker 2:
[08:07] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:08] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:08] And he's still doing it, still performing and writing his own music. And he's, yeah, he's been a big support.

Speaker 1:
[08:18] That's great.

Speaker 2:
[08:19] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:20] That sounds really sweet.

Speaker 2:
[08:21] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:21] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:22] Very sweet.

Speaker 1:
[08:23] Did you take lessons when you were a little?

Speaker 2:
[08:25] I started taking piano lessons first.

Speaker 1:
[08:28] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[08:29] And my piano teacher was very quickly caught on to the fact that I couldn't read music. And she was trying to teach me and I couldn't like, it never stuck, so she was like.

Speaker 1:
[08:43] Is it because your mind was too fast with the music part and you already kind of knew what you wanted to hear by ear?

Speaker 2:
[08:49] I think it must have been that. I was like, I could replicate what I heard pretty quickly by just, yeah, by just memory. And I think she was like, let's just focus on ear training. And I do regret not having learned where I wish that that would have kind of settled.

Speaker 1:
[09:10] Do you really?

Speaker 2:
[09:11] I had a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[09:13] Really?

Speaker 2:
[09:14] It hasn't really come up, I guess, but like it was.

Speaker 1:
[09:17] Exactly, and it's not gonna.

Speaker 2:
[09:20] It was like math. It's like, I don't know, I really, really needed that. But yeah, anyway, that was kind of the, that was where the love for it started.

Speaker 1:
[09:32] That's cool.

Speaker 2:
[09:33] When did you start playing piano?

Speaker 1:
[09:34] I was seven. I started taking lessons.

Speaker 2:
[09:37] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[09:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:38] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[09:38] I didn't want to practice though, so I wanted to quit.

Speaker 2:
[09:41] Yeah. Did you hate it? You must have hated it.

Speaker 1:
[09:43] My teacher was really nice. I wanted to take lessons. I wanted to play piano. My teacher was great. I mean, it was just the classical programs, and I didn't really vibe with my brain, I guess. And then I quit after five years because my mom said I could after five years. Only after five years. So I quit. And then about a year later, I got into jazz and that worked with my brain.

Speaker 2:
[10:08] Were you reading? How were you ingesting it?

Speaker 1:
[10:12] I was just listening to it. And then I had this great teacher. I started playing saxophone and then my saxophone teacher turned me on to this great teacher in Dallas named Julie Bonk, who taught me how to read chord changes. And she encouraged me to write, even though I was a little shy with that. But she taught me how to outline chords instead of reading staff paper, just chords.

Speaker 2:
[10:34] She was teaching you the sketches of learning how to write songs.

Speaker 1:
[10:39] She really was.

Speaker 2:
[10:40] That's so cool.

Speaker 1:
[10:41] Yeah, she was cool. I mean, she still is. She's still around. But yeah, sometimes you just need another way in.

Speaker 2:
[10:51] Yeah, right. I was actually homeschooled and I feel like I used this parallel, like the whole way through, never stepped foot in a classroom.

Speaker 1:
[11:03] I have so many questions.

Speaker 2:
[11:05] I'm open. You can ask me anything. It's all I know, so I don't have a lot to compare it to, but I feel like every kid needs to learn differently. And the beauty of being homeschooled was I think my mom was my teacher. She was able to kind of curate the curriculum for what worked with my brain. And I think that's how music's always been too. Like I grew up kind of thinking like I was like slow or something. Not because my family made me feel that way, but because I was like, oh, the way that people learn, I'm not learning that way.

Speaker 1:
[11:43] It's different.

Speaker 2:
[11:44] Yeah, it's different.

Speaker 1:
[11:45] And you realize that later.

Speaker 2:
[11:47] Realized it later. Yeah. In the moment, I don't think I had language for it. I just was like, I just know that I enjoy this and I want to throw out all of the rule books that come with it. And yeah, I think I love that music is that it's like any one of us can find our own entry point into it and it's almost it's the most necessary also if you're writing songs to find your throw the rule book out throw the yeah, it's like yeah, it's almost not worth learning the rules.

Speaker 1:
[12:20] Yeah, it's not well, it's not because you don't want to follow a formula. Yeah. Because what's so magical about your music is that it's I've I felt kind of transformed when I was listening to all these songs. I mean, it's just your way of writing. It does. I was going to ask you how you how you got so good with lyrics, you know, like are you in a poetry or maybe it's just the way things form in your brain with your background and like it's just so beautiful. These words, everything. Yeah, your writing is amazing.

Speaker 2:
[12:58] That's so funny. Lyrics are the thing I'm the most insecure about.

Speaker 1:
[13:01] Really? Do you work a lot at them?

Speaker 2:
[13:03] I work very hard at them. This last record was such a weird, it was kind of the exception to the rule. Like usually I take a year to write a record and this one was written basically and within the lifespan of like two months. And it was just, I think it was the first time I had ever really experienced heartbreak. And so everything was really clarified.

Speaker 1:
[13:31] It's hard and fast, right? Whenever you're feeling it.

Speaker 2:
[13:34] Yeah, exactly. And what was so scary was leading up to that, I was feeling all of it and had no way to articulate myself and it felt like a trap and I like lost the power of language and I felt really distant from music and just distant from myself, the whole thing. But these lyrics were like, I definitely edited them and really cared about it, but I felt like it was, the more that I messed with it, the more it put up a fight with being messed with. And usually I've found that it's like, for the better when I've really sat and toiled with lyrics and editing. And it also must come from, because I was homeschooled, I have a stigma about just naturally not being good with words.

Speaker 1:
[14:25] Really?

Speaker 2:
[14:26] It's very silly, but it's something-

Speaker 1:
[14:27] Because you're so good with words.

Speaker 2:
[14:30] Maybe it's been my way out or my way of finding my footing or value in myself. And I'm always, again, very unsure that I'm being understood or that they're good. Yeah, it's an interesting thing.

Speaker 1:
[14:48] I think we all kind of feel like that. Yeah. But that's interesting because your lyrics are pretty jaw-dropping to me. I just find them really- They're so poetic that you think, or I think coming from this as a listener, I think, wow, she must really work at these. But at the same time, they're so heartfelt and it doesn't feel like they're overworked.

Speaker 2:
[15:14] Does that make sense?

Speaker 1:
[15:16] Which is a really nice place to be. Because when things just come out, I feel like it's the most emotional. You really just want to capture the emotion, right?

Speaker 2:
[15:25] Right. There's such a fine line between it coming out as your first attempt at a thought, at forming a thought, and then you don't want it to ever feel like you're being a scholar at someone.

Speaker 1:
[15:41] Exactly. You don't want to feel like you've made it perfect, but there's no emotion in it. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[15:47] I bet you get this asked this question a lot, but someone recently was like, how do you know when a song is finished? I've always just had the worst answers for that, and just recently I feel like the answer that I actually get behind and is the most true for me is like, I don't know when a song is finished. I just know if it's alive or if it has something that will continue to percolate and need to be said as the years go on.

Speaker 1:
[16:15] That's beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[16:16] And that's the thing. As long as the conversation feels like it's fluid and alive, even if it's a little bit clumsy and even if it's a little bit elementary, it's worth saying and it's good.

Speaker 1:
[16:30] It's a sketch that you can tell what it is and you can show it to people.

Speaker 2:
[16:35] It's language. It's like the thing that communicates what is happening in your heart space to strangers and to people that you love. And it's the most... That's all we got.

Speaker 1:
[16:45] Yeah, that's beautiful. You're coming at it from the right place.

Speaker 2:
[16:48] We're trying. The motives get skewed, but we try.

Speaker 1:
[16:52] I know. It's beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[16:53] And you're so good with lyrics too.

Speaker 1:
[16:55] Oh, I appreciate that. I came to it much later and I've always felt kind of not good at it as well. But the last five or ten years, I feel like I've kind of hit a stride where I'm proud of the songs from the last, like, ten years from a songwriting perspective. And I'm happy about that. But I also feel like I'm a little bit opposite where I'm really excited when I feel like a song is done. And I just like, I don't want to mess with it anymore.

Speaker 2:
[17:24] Totally. Yeah, you know what it's like. But also, do you ever re-write songs from stage? And by that I mean, like, after they're recorded and you get to tour them, do you ever go, oh, that was the lyric I really wished I would have done. Why don't I just correct it now?

Speaker 1:
[17:42] There's a few lyrics that I have done that to, yeah. I think it's maybe one or two where I just, the old lyrics make me cringe.

Speaker 2:
[17:50] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[17:50] And then there's one or two where the situation was very specific and I just want to re-write that story a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[17:56] Yes, right.

Speaker 1:
[17:57] You know?

Speaker 2:
[17:58] Yeah, is it usually in the songs or the ones that make you cringe, is it usually the songs that people really want to hear?

Speaker 1:
[18:05] No, luckily. But it is, it's just older songs that I think were written before I really found my stride as a songwriter, before I learned that putting my heart out is okay. And I would try to take all the you's and me's out and clean it up from the casual thing. But really, the you and me is what it's about. So when I would clean it up, it would just kind of fall flat.

Speaker 2:
[18:30] What did you think wasn't okay or acceptable? And just to put in a song, what felt to bear to you? Was it just that, you's and me's?

Speaker 1:
[18:42] I think it was more like just cliches. And now I realize that cliches, if you mean them, they go right to people's hearts. And it's like that's what it's about.

Speaker 2:
[18:53] It's the same reason that I will want a steak for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1:
[18:58] A steak?

Speaker 2:
[18:59] A steak. It's a classic. It's a classic, exactly. It's a cliche, but it's like, it is for a reason.

Speaker 1:
[19:05] It is.

Speaker 2:
[19:06] And cliches are so important. And I think the best songwriters are the ones who recognize that and go, how do I just reframe it? How do I re-dish it, re-plate it?

Speaker 1:
[19:18] Yeah, I'm never looking for a cliche, but if something comes out and it happens to be pretty simple and like universal and maybe used before, maybe in a different way, but I'm like, I'm fine with it.

Speaker 2:
[19:28] Are you a Friends fan, you know, the classic sitcom?

Speaker 1:
[19:32] Heck yeah.

Speaker 2:
[19:32] Do you remember the episode where, oh my God, I'm forgetting his name. He's like, he's like the dumb one.

Speaker 1:
[19:38] Joey.

Speaker 2:
[19:38] Joey. He writes this letter of recommendation or something, or like a birthday card or something. He's like tasked with writing this letter and he goes to the thesaurus and punches in every single word and it's just like this unreadable letter with these insane words. I feel like the more profound that we try to be, we sound like that.

Speaker 1:
[20:01] Yeah. And totally.

Speaker 2:
[20:02] The less that we try, it's all about just making the veil as thin as possible. Yeah. And that's the key to I think relatability obviously, but also like true poetry.

Speaker 1:
[20:17] Connection.

Speaker 2:
[20:18] And connection. Yeah. Yeah. It's just funny that we always think that we have to find the craziest ingredients to make it worth somebody's time. And that's usually the thing that people, they don't really have time to listen to. It's too rich.

Speaker 1:
[20:33] I think they can see through it. I think I give them, you got to give them a lot more credit.

Speaker 2:
[20:37] We have to. Yeah. I know. Why do we make our audiences so dumb in our minds?

Speaker 1:
[20:42] I don't think we do. I think we're doing it the right way. I think we're just trying to be, you just try to be vulnerable and hope that people can latch on to something.

Speaker 2:
[20:53] Maybe it's like the people around, the people who like talk about music so much. People in the industry that go like, let's dumb it down. Let's prepare a happy meal for the people.

Speaker 1:
[21:05] I want a steak.

Speaker 2:
[21:06] I want a fucking steak and I want you to make it really well.

Speaker 1:
[21:10] Sometimes I do want a happy meal.

Speaker 2:
[21:12] No shade. I want a burger.

Speaker 1:
[21:14] Are you kidding?

Speaker 2:
[21:15] With the toy? Yeah, absolutely. Not above anything.

Speaker 1:
[21:19] This is already so fun.

Speaker 2:
[21:21] This is the best day I've had in a long time.

Speaker 1:
[21:25] Where do you live?

Speaker 2:
[21:26] I live in Frogtown.

Speaker 1:
[21:28] What is that? Is that here?

Speaker 2:
[21:32] That's so fair. Yeah, it's here. It's backed up to the Los Angeles River. And it's on the bike path. Actually, most people in LA, when I say that name, they're like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1:
[21:45] Did you grow up here?

Speaker 2:
[21:46] No, I grew up in Orange County, which is, you know, 45 minutes south from here. But we, it's such, two such different worlds and cultures that like, It's not that close. I have to clarify. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[21:57] Gotcha.

Speaker 2:
[21:57] I would love to claim Los Angeles, but it's, yeah, it's, it's Orange County. And so Frogtown is like this little island of Silver Lake, I would describe it. And it used to be back in the 40s, 50s, infested with frogs. So it got dubbed that name and the frogs are no longer there, which is kind of sad.

Speaker 1:
[22:17] Oh, I know they got Magnolia.

Speaker 2:
[22:19] Yeah, they migrated. They croaked, so to speak.

Speaker 1:
[22:23] Oh boy. Well, do you want to do another song from your new record, which is so beautiful?

Speaker 2:
[22:31] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[22:32] I really love it.

Speaker 2:
[22:33] Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:
[22:34] Congratulations. It just came out a few days ago, right?

Speaker 2:
[22:36] Yeah, it did. It did.

Speaker 1:
[22:38] Yeah. Yeah, it's really beautiful. And you play a lot of piano on it.

Speaker 2:
[22:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[22:43] And I love your piano playing.

Speaker 2:
[22:45] Thank you. That means a lot coming from me. I kind of just, it was just out of interest and love. It wasn't meant to be like a statement, really. It just felt like it was the right sound and shape for the music.

Speaker 1:
[23:02] Is it how you wrote the songs?

Speaker 2:
[23:03] Some of them, I mean, some of them, my full name, the one we're about to play, was written on guitar first. That's interesting, you changed. Well, what I was doing when writing those songs, there was a lot of just me testing the strength of the song, and I feel like kind of switching instruments is really helpful, to be like, oh yeah, this still stands without the branding of an instrument. Because that has been the trap I think I've found myself in, which is being like, oh, I'm a guitar player, so then I write riffs, right? And I very quickly, like, this record was never going to be a riffs record, there was no room for it. But I was also growing out of the, I was changing anyway, so the piano felt like this interesting way forward, and it's still, it's just fun to me. That's like one of the first instruments I started on, and it's just, you know what it's like, it's just a beautiful, fluid instrument that like has everything's laid out for you. Yeah, it's different.

Speaker 1:
[24:13] But I think it's fun to switch, and it's really fun to, I love playing guitar. I'm not great, but it's like...

Speaker 2:
[24:20] I didn't know you played.

Speaker 1:
[24:21] Yeah, I mean, I write more on guitar. I feel like it opened up writing for me in my early 20s. I had a hard time running songs on piano, because I was used to jazz chords, and then when I stripped back the 7ths and stuff, it just sounded like a square piano chord, and I didn't know how to make it sing yet. So when I started playing guitar, it opened up songwriting for me.

Speaker 2:
[24:48] Who are the people that made songwriting make sense to you? Who are the North Stars that made you go, can I try and write a song like that?

Speaker 1:
[24:58] I mean, probably all the ones. All the ones, probably Willie Nelson because his songs are deceptively, they sound simple, but then they always have like a little twist.

Speaker 2:
[25:11] Oh, it's absolute perfection.

Speaker 1:
[25:14] It's pretty great.

Speaker 2:
[25:15] Yeah, it doesn't get better.

Speaker 1:
[25:16] Dolly doesn't hurt.

Speaker 2:
[25:18] Dolly doesn't hurt. I was just thinking about her today as I always am.

Speaker 1:
[25:22] Yeah, me too.

Speaker 2:
[25:23] That song, Here You Come Again, it's a fucking masterpiece.

Speaker 1:
[25:27] It's so good.

Speaker 2:
[25:29] All the twists and that, I mean, there's some really bold key changes, but you don't feel it.

Speaker 1:
[25:34] That's the thing. That's the mastery part.

Speaker 2:
[25:37] Yes, it's the sleight of hand.

Speaker 1:
[25:39] What about you? What did you grow up loving?

Speaker 2:
[25:42] I grew up with nothing. I mean, I was like, me and my parents laugh about this now because they're such different music consumers now. But at the time, they were really young and they were just really worried about what we were listening to. And there was just a lot of rules around what we were listening to.

Speaker 1:
[26:00] Was it a lot of religious music?

Speaker 2:
[26:02] Yeah, it was. I mean, there were some bands I still really get behind. A band called Isley, these sisters, and I met them recently. And I think they still had such wonderful musical ideas, even though they're not a band anymore. And a band called Mute Math I loved. And that was kind of still within, I don't know if they would align as Christian bands, but adjacent to that world. Acceptable. Acceptable, yeah. And those are the things that I was into as a teenager, but I didn't hear The Beatles till the day I, like the actual day I graduated high school.

Speaker 1:
[26:42] Really?

Speaker 2:
[26:43] Yeah, didn't grow up with it. Didn't grow up, I mean, really with a lot of the people who are like, who changed music for me and changed the way that I related to it. And it's all about permission too, you know? It's all about like finding the artists that allow you to be yourself and to like give way to your strangest impulses, like, and I think, or bravest or whatever it is, like, Joni, I had a real, obviously, I mean, everybody has, but had an awakening with her when I was 18 years old was like, I ended up in Portland. It's a really long story, but I just, someone lent me their car and I was just driving across all this, the bridges and listened to court and spark. And I just was like, this is what it means to be a woman. She's singing about who I want to become.

Speaker 1:
[27:38] Yeah. That's a good moment when you can just, you can remember that moment.

Speaker 2:
[27:45] I can still smell it. I remember what the car looked like, felt like and just how it came through the speakers. And I ended up at this mansion with all of these roses. And I just think, it was insane. It was like a psychedelic experience, truly.

Speaker 1:
[28:02] That is another story. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:04] That's another lifetime. We were about to jump into a song. But anyway, probably our heroes are probably similar. It's like just the grandmothers and grandfathers of everybody.

Speaker 1:
[28:17] Yeah. It's such a good thing to have that moment with a record. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:22] I know. And you never forget it.

Speaker 1:
[28:24] It's a real special place to have a listening experience.

Speaker 2:
[28:28] Yeah. Do you have a car? Do you drive in New York?

Speaker 1:
[28:32] Very little. But I had a 71 Cadillac Sedan DeVille when I was in high school in Texas. And it had no AC one summer, which sucked. Love it. Yeah, in Texas. But I still just wanted to get out of my house and drive around at night. And I just remember listening to Otis Redding in the car over and over on this cassette. And it was the best thing ever. That's my moment in a car.

Speaker 2:
[29:00] In a car. There's always going to be one, especially given that you tour and I tour. It was always in our bingo cards.

Speaker 1:
[29:10] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[29:12] Do you want to try Michael Naim?

Speaker 1:
[29:13] Yeah, let's try it.

Speaker 2:
[29:14] I'm going to move over here. Okay. Do we just keep going?

Speaker 1:
[29:20] All right.

Speaker 2:
[29:21] This is the easiest thing. This is so wonderful. Amazing.

Speaker 1:
[32:53] That's a beautiful song.

Speaker 2:
[32:54] Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:
[32:58] Start crying.

Speaker 2:
[32:59] Man, hearing you play Whirly reminds me of this record that I love so much by you. And I'm forgetting the title of the record, but it has that song, Goodbye, on it.

Speaker 1:
[33:10] Oh, Say Goodbye? Yeah, yeah, that's got Whirly, I forgot.

Speaker 2:
[33:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[33:20] It's got weird chords, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[33:22] Is it that same key?

Speaker 1:
[33:32] Yeah, it's got a weird chord structure. That's not right.

Speaker 2:
[34:12] That's a...

Speaker 1:
[34:13] it's not an F.

Speaker 2:
[34:15] Is it? Is it a different key?

Speaker 1:
[34:22] No, it is right. Yeah, nice. I love that.

Speaker 2:
[34:58] When I made my first album, that was a... I'm adding myself, but that was like a big reference track for me. It was like, how do we make it sound like this?

Speaker 1:
[35:07] That album sounds so specific, because I made it with Danger Mouse. And those chords specifically on that song, I mean, those were his chords.

Speaker 2:
[35:17] Okay, you wrote that together?

Speaker 1:
[35:18] We wrote all the songs on that record together, and he's an amazing songwriter. And I had never written with someone in the studio before.

Speaker 2:
[35:26] So you were doing it on your own and then bringing it in?

Speaker 1:
[35:28] Or I also sang a lot of songs up to that point by band members and did covers. The album before that, I did write all the songs, kind of, and then, but yeah, I brought them in. I didn't write them in the studio.

Speaker 2:
[35:42] Did you feel scared to write in a studio, or was it liberating?

Speaker 1:
[35:49] Yeah, Brian and I were friends at that point, so that was good, but I was still kind of freaked out, like, what if I can't come up with anything? Yeah. And it was a huge, it was like one of the turning points in my songwriting, I think, because I realized he said the best thing. One day we were kind of tooling around with something, and I couldn't figure out a bridge, and we didn't have any ideas. He's like, it's fine. We'll figure it out, maybe tomorrow or the next day or the next day. Whoa. And I was like, oh.

Speaker 2:
[36:16] You can do that?

Speaker 1:
[36:17] You mean I don't have to worry about it? He took that off my plate, and then we did.

Speaker 2:
[36:24] That's so magical, because that is how the creative process should be, is that you're taking things off of your own plate and trusting that it will roll out.

Speaker 1:
[36:35] When it's ready.

Speaker 2:
[36:35] Yeah, when it's ready, and it will be the thing that you want to say.

Speaker 1:
[36:40] That was the biggest lesson, and ever since then, I don't force anything. And so, now it's easy. And it's not that it's easy, it's that I'm not trying to pull something out that's not there.

Speaker 2:
[36:53] Well, right, it's never easy, but you're not deliberately getting in your own way, or making it harder than it has to be.

Speaker 1:
[37:00] Yeah, exactly. It comes when it comes.

Speaker 2:
[37:02] Yeah, it's so zen, it's so like... There's so much surrender in it, and I love it so much. It's probably the thing I'm the most like, I'm learning to be more loose with, because it's true, I've had the same experiences with people. I've been lucky enough to be around musicians who are so good at that, and they know time management, and they know that morale is the biggest thing. It's like the, you know, it's the thing, like my dearest friend Mike Viola, like his whole thing when we've recorded together is very much like, are we not feeling it? Then let's walk away.

Speaker 1:
[37:45] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[37:46] It's not because of apathetic, he is not apathetic, he is not, he just knows when it's going to like soil an idea for good.

Speaker 1:
[37:55] Yeah, that's also, anytime I've recorded something, and it's not feeling right but we still finish it, that's bad, Juju.

Speaker 2:
[38:02] It's bad, it's mistrust.

Speaker 1:
[38:05] Sorry, that was a weird.

Speaker 2:
[38:06] She's spitting and she's coughing.

Speaker 1:
[38:08] I'm like, what is in my throat? Yeah, that throat coat is loosening.

Speaker 2:
[38:12] Betraying you. Excuse me.

Speaker 1:
[38:14] But yeah, it's a rule thing.

Speaker 2:
[38:16] Yeah, that's a good way to put it, like if it don't strangle something into existence, that's not going to, I won't do it.

Speaker 1:
[38:25] Yeah, but at the same time, you know, we've put in the work and we know the language.

Speaker 2:
[38:31] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[38:32] And that is work. It's not like, you know, it's so easy. It's just that we've already done that part. You know, we've learned the language so that we can shake it all up and then, like, let it just come out.

Speaker 2:
[38:43] Yeah, unlearn, unlearn.

Speaker 1:
[38:45] You can unlearn it a little.

Speaker 2:
[38:46] So I guess maybe I'll take back my previous statement where I said, like, the rules aren't worth learning. I think they actually are. But so is flexibility. And so is, like, like you have to do it all at once. Yeah, I used to. I mean, I think I'm a recovering perfectionist for sure.

Speaker 1:
[39:05] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[39:06] That's I wonder if you have a similar thing just because of coming from the classical world. Like that must have been you don't know.

Speaker 1:
[39:13] I'm lazy. I'm the laziest.

Speaker 2:
[39:16] You'd never ever know that.

Speaker 1:
[39:18] OK, I work I work hard because I'm always working. Yeah, but I don't practice well. Like I won't sit at home and work. Yeah, unless I have something to work for.

Speaker 2:
[39:28] I think that's good.

Speaker 1:
[39:29] So that's kind of why I like to stay busy.

Speaker 2:
[39:31] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:32] Busy enough.

Speaker 2:
[39:33] To keep yourself sharp.

Speaker 1:
[39:36] Yeah, that's why classical music didn't work for me because I was too lazy.

Speaker 2:
[39:40] Yes, it's not for the faint of heart.

Speaker 1:
[39:43] Yeah, it's hard.

Speaker 2:
[39:44] And I mean, also, like, you must have had back issues from practicing for that many hours.

Speaker 1:
[39:51] No, I didn't practice.

Speaker 2:
[39:52] That's the problem. Oh, I see. I see. You didn't even go through a phase.

Speaker 1:
[39:55] I didn't. I never went through a phase. I failed my college piano injury because I'm getting the sweats just thinking about it. Because I didn't practice. Because it was classical. Because I was in jazz school and that was great with the classical part that you had to do. I failed and then I dropped out.

Speaker 2:
[40:13] I mean, that's badass.

Speaker 1:
[40:16] Don't do that, kids.

Speaker 2:
[40:17] I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:
[40:18] Kids at home do that. Did you go to music school or anything after home school?

Speaker 2:
[40:26] No, I really thought about it and had a few months in my senior year of high school of stress. Because I just was like, I have not been planning for where I'm going to go. I always knew that I wanted to do music, but I didn't know that you could actually very possibly make a career out of it till I was 16. So I don't know, I'm still trying to even figure out what it means to make a career out of music. It's very strange.

Speaker 1:
[40:57] Well, it's a lot harder now than it used to be.

Speaker 2:
[40:59] Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[41:00] In a way.

Speaker 2:
[41:01] It's harder and it's stranger. It's getting weirder.

Speaker 1:
[41:04] It's weird. And in a lot of ways, it's easier if you're good at social media.

Speaker 2:
[41:09] Yes, which I am not.

Speaker 1:
[41:11] Most artists aren't.

Speaker 2:
[41:12] It's not my time.

Speaker 1:
[41:14] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:14] Yeah, most artists aren't. It just feels like this secondary job, obviously, that nobody wants to do. No one wants to do it. No one is skilled at it. That's probably why the younger generation of artists are doing very well or selling out tours in 30 seconds because they've figured out.

Speaker 1:
[41:34] They know how to be themselves on it, too. That's what it is. It's not that we can't do it. It's that we have to find a way to just be true to ourselves and do it. That's the only way to do it.

Speaker 2:
[41:45] And people don't always... It's not immediate to people if you're like, well, this is how I relate to it. The platform or this is how I want to use it. It's never going to be probably or most likely won't be in favor of metrics.

Speaker 1:
[42:01] Yeah. Metrics.

Speaker 2:
[42:03] Metrics.

Speaker 1:
[42:03] Where do we go? Where do we just go?

Speaker 2:
[42:05] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[42:06] Have you used that word before? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:09] Yeah. I've never used it.

Speaker 1:
[42:11] I don't think I've ever used that word.

Speaker 2:
[42:12] It's in my Rolodex. I love it. I recently because I, like, when it's time to release an album, all this stuff gets tossed around all this language.

Speaker 1:
[42:22] And you're like, huh? Not that word.

Speaker 2:
[42:26] And then I just said it.

Speaker 1:
[42:28] Then it's in your head.

Speaker 2:
[42:29] It's in my head. I'm actually not going to tell the story. I was going to tell a story that I'll just tell you off air someday.

Speaker 1:
[42:37] Tell it, tell it. I told a story about Depends in the last podcast.

Speaker 2:
[42:43] So permission?

Speaker 1:
[42:43] Yeah, we're going to delete it, though.

Speaker 2:
[42:47] I love it. I love it very much. Yeah, basically, the moral of the story is I just, I don't. Social media hurts my feelings.

Speaker 1:
[42:54] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:55] You read it.

Speaker 1:
[42:55] You read it. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:57] Yeah, I mean, I guess I mean that in less of like, it actually hurts my feelings. It's more just like the idea of technology and trying to get good at it. That kind of technology, I'm just like, that's not my bag and I will get left behind. That's fine. I don't want to like try and compete on TikTok. I'm not going to do it.

Speaker 1:
[43:18] Until you want to sell a tour.

Speaker 2:
[43:21] Yeah, right. That's when the deal with the devil is made.

Speaker 1:
[43:24] It's like there's all these if thens. Don't count it out.

Speaker 2:
[43:28] Yeah, no, I know.

Speaker 1:
[43:29] Talk the tick.

Speaker 2:
[43:30] I'm going to talk the tick.

Speaker 1:
[43:31] Tick the tock. Tick tock the tick.

Speaker 2:
[43:33] Do you want to tick tock?

Speaker 1:
[43:35] I don't know. I don't even know. I do videos and sometimes my manager posts them. It's great because I don't know how.

Speaker 2:
[43:44] Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1:
[43:46] I don't have my log in info.

Speaker 2:
[43:48] When did it become apparent that you were like, oh shit, the Instagram and everything is a, I have to like play this game.

Speaker 1:
[43:57] I'm still pretty, I still come from the before times. So, you know, I had like a built in audience in a lucky way, but I think, you know, I think during the pandemic, I started doing these live streams and those were fun. Yeah, because I was just playing.

Speaker 2:
[44:16] Interactive.

Speaker 1:
[44:17] Yeah, and I was just playing.

Speaker 2:
[44:18] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[44:19] So that was cool. That was my way. I love that. But I don't do that anymore. I probably should.

Speaker 2:
[44:27] No, like I don't believe in should. If you want, you should do it.

Speaker 1:
[44:31] Yeah, exactly. It's hard. At that time, it was good for me because it was the only time I played music all week.

Speaker 2:
[44:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[44:38] I would do once a week and it was the only time I touched any music.

Speaker 2:
[44:42] Did you have a kid at that point?

Speaker 1:
[44:44] I had two little kids.

Speaker 2:
[44:47] So you have two or more than that?

Speaker 1:
[44:49] Oh God, more. That would be hard.

Speaker 2:
[44:51] No. You're done.

Speaker 1:
[44:53] I'm done.

Speaker 2:
[44:54] Let everyone know you're done.

Speaker 1:
[44:55] So done. Did you grow up with siblings?

Speaker 2:
[44:58] I'm the oldest of five girls.

Speaker 1:
[45:02] What?

Speaker 2:
[45:02] Yeah, which is wild. Excuse me? I know.

Speaker 1:
[45:06] All homeschooled?

Speaker 2:
[45:07] All homeschooled. My mom is in the last year of...

Speaker 1:
[45:11] She's still doing it.

Speaker 2:
[45:13] Yeah, she's in her senior year.

Speaker 1:
[45:14] Hats off. Well, interesting.

Speaker 2:
[45:16] Megan's a badass. She really is. And has remained kind of in love with it. And it's really cool. All my sisters are awesome. Like in a big family, there's usually room for someone to get lost in translation or for there to be one kid that you're like, I'm worried about. And all of them are just like, they're so intelligent and funny and beautiful. Like the people that I would probably want to be friends with if we weren't blood related, it was just really like that's not a given. That's really sweet.

Speaker 1:
[45:50] That's amazing.

Speaker 2:
[45:51] Yeah, it's a fun. It was a crazy household to grow up in, as you can imagine.

Speaker 1:
[45:55] It sounds a little crazy.

Speaker 2:
[45:56] Yeah, there's a lot of like fights over clothes. That was like the only tension that we had among us as well, at least like the three oldest, because we started to like have the same shoe size at some point.

Speaker 1:
[46:13] I can't relate. I grew up an only. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[46:17] Did you want siblings or were you like happy?

Speaker 1:
[46:19] I did. No, I did. And I grew up an only child with a single mom.

Speaker 2:
[46:23] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[46:23] But then I have a half sister and we met when we were grown, pretty much, and we both wanted that. So it was good. Now I have like a grown up sister and we're pretty close because we met when I was 18. So at this point, we've known each other a pretty long time. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[46:39] And that's like, those are such formative years.

Speaker 1:
[46:42] Yeah. I mean, we missed the main formative years, but still had some.

Speaker 2:
[46:47] That's so sweet.

Speaker 1:
[46:48] Yeah. You want to switch back?

Speaker 2:
[46:50] Should we do one more?

Speaker 1:
[46:51] Yeah. Just do one more song. So you use a lot of different tunings, right?

Speaker 2:
[46:58] A lot of different tunings. I was in this like strange, suspended tuning for the first song we did, Wake. It's C G D F A C. And I like found it online and wanted to like, at the beginning of the new year of 2024, wanted to do something that felt like I was stretching myself. And I was at war with it for like a week straight, just kind of like almost like banging my head against the wall, going like, why? Why? I don't understand how this works. And I love songs for this reason, because you can find like a tiny little pattern of chords and then just, or like a thing that works. And you go, I think I understand where to put my fingers. And you understand, like you figure out where else on the neck or in the tuning. There's more possibilities. It's so, it's really fun. But this song is in open D.

Speaker 1:
[48:00] Oh, it's pretty.

Speaker 2:
[48:02] She's a classic. This is a steak of a tuning. That's the steak of an alt tuning.

Speaker 1:
[48:07] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[48:08] The open D.

Speaker 1:
[48:10] Thanks, Beth. And you always play an acoustic through an amp?

Speaker 2:
[48:15] If I'm playing, right now I am, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:17] But do you usually on stage?

Speaker 2:
[48:19] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[48:20] I didn't know you could do that until I realized that Willie Nelson plays his acoustic through his nylon trigger.

Speaker 2:
[48:26] Does he?

Speaker 1:
[48:27] He plays it through an amp. That's why it sounds so specific.

Speaker 2:
[48:30] Have you ever sung with Willie?

Speaker 1:
[48:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[48:33] Oh, I would love to hear that.

Speaker 1:
[48:34] He's so fun to sing with because he phrases weird, but then when you're singing with him, he's kind of following you, but you're also following him. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[48:44] It's like a fun chase.

Speaker 1:
[48:45] It's like a fun, it's like a wormhole, but a good one.

Speaker 2:
[48:50] Spiral staircase. Tom and Jerry episode.

Speaker 1:
[48:55] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[48:57] Okay. Once you go, I'm always yours. That's perfect.

Speaker 1:
[54:10] That song makes me cry.

Speaker 2:
[54:12] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[54:12] It's so beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[54:14] Thank you. The man, I just got lost playing with you. It's funny that you just said about yourself that you're like, I'm so lazy. Everything about the way you just played is like proof of someone who's put in so much work. And also to be free. And everything you've played just works. It plays around and within the rhythm so beautifully that I feel overwhelmed. Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[54:44] Me too. I'm glad you changed the key because you were also very free with this song. You must have played it for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. So it's much different from the recording. So I'm glad I got to throw my notes out.

Speaker 2:
[54:56] Me too.

Speaker 1:
[54:56] And we just got to play. It's always better that way.

Speaker 2:
[55:00] It's always better to just, yeah, play music. That's what it's for.

Speaker 1:
[55:04] It was beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 2:
[55:07] Thank you so much for having me today. This made my whole week.

Speaker 1:
[55:11] More, please.

Speaker 2:
[55:11] Let's hang. Let's play. I'll see you in New York. Cool.

Speaker 1:
[55:15] Yeah. Yay. I knew we'd be friends.

Speaker 2:
[55:17] I knew it. I felt it in my bones. Those songs are so... just...

Speaker 1:
[55:27] D's the perfect word, arresting. They are. Those three songs we did specifically are, they're all good though. Everything I've listened to of hers is, I'm always like, what is that? I hope we can do more together because she's so good. If you want to know which songs we played in this episode, the first song was Wake from the album Ace, which is from 2025. The second song we played was My Full Name, also from the 2025 album Ace. And the third song was called Life According to Rachel from her album Revealer recorded in 2022. Special thanks to Madison Cunningham for joining us today. And we'll be back next week with Jason Moran. Norah Jones Is Playing Along is a production of IHeartPodcasts. Visit Norah Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. I'm your host, Norah Jones. This episode was recorded at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles, California by Thomas Warren. Assistant engineer was Danforth Webster, backline tech Jason Moser, mixed by Jamie Landry, audio post-production and mastering by Greg Tobler, additional recording by Matt Marinelli, creative consulting by First3, artwork by Eliza Frye, photography by Shervin Lenez, produced by Norah Jones and Sarah Oda, executive producers Erin Wong-Kaufman and Jordan Runtog, marketing lead Allison Cantor-Greber. Thanks for listening, watching, and tell your friends. I don't know why I said that. I don't know. We're keeping it. Tell your friends. All right.