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Hey, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with Jason Isbel.

I'm just playing lousy, I'm just playing in lone uzy.

Hey, I'm Nora Jones with me as always a Sarah Oda.

Hello, welcome to the show, Jinks.

I like your jacket.

Thank you.

It's fresh from Japan.

It's lovely.

We have an incredible episode today.

We're joined by Jason Isbel, the Grammy winning singer songwriter who you may know from his time with the Drive By Truckers or from Jason Isbel in the four hundred Unit.

His latest album just came out this year.

It's a new solo album called Foxes in the Snow, which is a stripped down acoustic album that really features his raw vocals.

It's very intimate and heartfelt, very beautiful album.

It's a very beautiful album.

We had fun playing songs from it, and yeah, I just I just loved hanging with him and playing music.

We've met before, but we never got a chance to really interact much, so.

It was very fun in this episode.

You're going to hear about his on screen film debut, about navigating how to write a love song, and what kind of manicure he likes to get.

Oh, I forgot about that.

Yeah, And as always, we have great music coming up, including a really great surprise of a cover that you do cover surprise, So stay tuned.

Here she is our episode with Jason isbo Enjoy.

Hey, you want to play song?

Let's do a song?

Yeah?

Let me?

Yeah?

You want to count it?

To just start playing?

Okay?

Started out like it always start.

Try to hold the hunger bad.

You don't anticipate a broken heart.

I can't see nothing but to try a diamond earring in a bowery bead.

You kicked your shoes across the floor.

You regret the things that went on the set?

Have you heard it all?

For Ily?

You should have seen this coming soon?

Right me to be along for all my.

Ily thought the truth was just a room that show.

And it ended like it always ends, somebody crying the phone.

Tell each other you could still beet friends.

You both know you're all on your own.

My own behavior was a shock to me.

I never thought I'd have a nerd.

I hope you're sleeping through the night alley.

I hope they're grading all the curve.

Ily, you should have seen this coming soon?

Why me me alone?

For all mind Ily, you thought the truth.

Was just a rumor.

That's sure.

Somebody broke my heart.

Was I was useless for a week.

I didn't leave my apartment, I.

Didn't need I didn't sleep.

Then I found the letter show against the wall behind the bed said forever as a dead man's show.

That's the only thing that said.

I should have seen this come in simple.

Right, me me alone?

For all mydy I thought the truth was just a rumor.

That shore way, that's it sounded good.

That was so pretty.

It was really good.

Yeah.

It's interesting because I you know your songs.

I'm dying to sing harmony all over the place.

But there's there's so intimate on this record.

It's all solo, right, the whole thing.

Yeah, and also I think there's something about certain lyrics that can be hard to have two people.

That's true.

Sometimes it feels weird to have a second voice in there.

It does, But I just had to do it.

How do you?

Yeah, I want you to do it.

I had to do it.

They heard the version that just has me on her, they can find it easily.

Yeah, we're going to do something.

I had to do it.

But yeah, it was like there's such a tender song and such a you know, seems like a lonesome lyric, you.

Know, Yeah, I think so, it's where do you where do you put the line?

Because it's tough for me to choose, Like, I want to put harmonies on everything.

Me too.

I grew up listening to harmony vocals and like studying like David Crosby and Mike Mills and you know, Everley's and all this stuff, and I want it.

I want to put it on everything.

And then I hear it and I think that's way that's way too much harmony.

That's like putting too much seasoning on a dish, too many ingredients, Yeah, exactly, Yeah, yeah, And I don't know, it's it's it's a tough line.

I think you can usually tell after you do it, if it's you know, overdubbed or you know, you rehearse it, you can tell where to leave it eventually, and then once you put it in, it's like the magic bloss.

It's so perfect, right, Yeah, it's so perfect.

I remember like for some reason.

That was one of the things I think maybe when I was a kid, I just thought that I was going to sing harmony and play guitar.

Really, I didn't realize I was going to be singing lead vocals on anything.

And so that's what I listened to.

Super closely, and I remember certain moments like like on like time after time, that harmony vocal is one of the best harmony.

Kind of angular it is.

It sounds like Elvis Costello, but it sounds like you know.

But then it's like I remember also like you're so vain, like Mick On, You're so vain.

It's basically just unison.

He's not even really singing harmony, but it's so perfect, you know.

I remember trying to figure.

Out why, what is it that makes one harmony part better?

Well, it's like the whole Gillian Welsh David Rawlings thing.

I'm always singing along a third part when I'm listening to them.

But the truth is, it's much cooler when it's just two of them, It's true, and they find these weird sevens and like they don't pick you know, Dave doesn't always do a typical harmony.

No, he never does a typical harmony.

He'll do like a weird line and then I'll go lower than her and then higher than her, and it's like it's just more special.

Yeah it is.

And it's like I feel like it's rewarding for those of us who you know, build music for a living or take it that seit, but also for people who don't and just listen.

They think this is weird in a good way.

Yeah, they don't.

He told me a really cool story once about I think Time the Revelator.

He said that somebody sent a comment online about how his guitar was out of tune because it was dissonant, and he was playing this weird like yeah, using that, and he just got such a kick out of it.

Yeah.

They didn't understand that the difference was actually correct but supposed to be weird.

They just thought it was out of tune.

Yeah yeah, and I mean it probably being that old Olympic, it probably was also out of tune.

Probably that's not what they were here.

Yeah, yeah, he does.

He came and sat in with me on some solo shows in Nashville.

You know, I feel like sometimes like he's arts from a point of like this is not good.

I don't want this to make perfect sense, and I'm going to figure out how to get back down the lamb into the tree.

Yeah, and it makes me so happy.

Yeah, you're right.

I can kind of picture.

It's like it's like I'm going back for the tree, but you know, I'm not going to start from a typical spot.

Yeah.

It's so nice because it never sounds superfluous that way.

It's it's always like, Okay, this is here for a reason, and it doesn't always land, Like when I try to do that, it does not land half the time.

But he's just really good at it.

He's really good at doing like chromatic oh yeah, falls and walks and landing on that third or landing somewhere where it's like, oh now I'm comfortable.

It's like a cat on the list exactly.

It is.

Yeah, Yeah, he's so good.

Tell me about your guitar.

This guitar is is a Martin.

When I was in Oklahoma filming Killers of the Flower Moon, very coolat either way, that was very thank you.

That was really weird, like I just don't do that.

And we were in the pandemic and I was like, well, I can't tour, and so I asked my agent if I could get like auditions or something.

Really Okay, Yeah, so you were proactive about it.

Yeah.

I wanted to, like if somebody's got a set where they're testing and filming a show where a movie, now might be the time.

And you know, I got an audition, I got called back, and I'm like in my house, you know, in the in the bedroom with my laptop, you know, just like with Marty and and DiCaprio, like on the Zoom, and I'm terrified.

It's hilarious.

Yeah, And I finally wound up getting it and getting out there and no clue what I was doing, just you know, but I just told everybody, I don't know how to do this, so tell me how to do it, and I will do my best.

And they're like, oh, okay, that's refreshing.

You know.

Delayed proceeding some days, but most of the time it was fine.

But Martin experience, it was nuts.

But Martin sent me this because I needed a little acoustic to bang around on.

Oh, because it's.

Small and travelable, Okay, I see, Yeah, And I was having to go back and forth between Oklahoma and shows because they the scheduling was a massive event around that.

Oh yeah, it's not your time.

No, not in any way.

That's what's hard for me the few times have done things.

Yeah, it's just I'm so used to being in control of my time.

Yeah, me too.

And yeah it's not You're going to get dressed up and sit there for nine hours make up.

It's an uncomfortable outfit, very uncomfortable.

And you know, we were outdoors in Oklahoma, and so it was like the weather brutal.

Yeah, it was either really really hot or like de Niro hurd himself and had to go get surgery.

So it kind of pushed everything back a few weeks, and then we wound up in storm season.

So I was just in the trailer, oh wow, waiting, you know, dressed up in suspenders and old riding boots and my hair slicked back and sitting there playing this guitar.

But I did write most of an album that way, the new album, the one before Weatherbag.

I wrote almost that whole record.

Yeah, I know.

I just when I said that, realized that the weather was a big reason.

Yeah, but yeah, I wrote most of that record out there in that trailer, dressed up like a horse repair man.

It's amazing but this isn't what you used on the new record.

No, on the new record, I used an old guitar that is currently in New York, that's been in New York since I got it.

I got it at Retro here in Brooklyn.

I just called sheer and I was like, I need a little tiny Martin for the apartment here, and uh, and I wound up writing and recording Foxes a new record all on that good, the whole thing.

I just went into Electric Lady and.

You did it here, yeah, and uh, just you and the guitar.

And a guitar Gina Johnson who engineered and co produced it with me, and a bunch of microphones.

And my best friend Will Welch Uh.

He came in and filmed and hung out.

And you know, there's a few people that I can handle just having in the studio all the time.

And he's definitely great for that.

Yeah.

You know, I've still never let this is weird for me having cameras.

Oh yeah yeah, but do you normally just have like somebody hitting engineering.

And oh I need an engineer for.

Sure, engineer too.

That makes me feel better doing that.

But like the filming thing, now everybody wants to film everything, and I get it.

I just yeah, to get a little stiff.

Yeah, yeah, me too.

Yeah, but that's cool.

Yeah, it was, it was.

It was great.

And he was like, why are you doing this electric lady?

Is it's like an acoustic.

Yeah, you could do it in a barn somewhere.

Yeah, But I was like, well, where are the rest of the studios in the village where you can make a good sounding record and everything works and you're not waiting all day?

I wanted to go into.

A studio in the village with a guitar and a notebook and make a record.

That was the point that was kind of romantic?

Was it like a romantic idea?

I think as I think, I think I put those That's about the only time I'll allow myself to go buy those rules, those sort of romanticized rules.

I think that's good.

I think that's the whole point of having studios because if not, you know, I could just do it at home or in somebody's basement or something.

And to me, if I'm going to go into a studio, I want to feel the pressure of what's happening.

Yeah, yeah, you do feel a little bit more heightened with the Yeah you're paying for.

It, yeah, which helps the budget.

It really, that's the only reason I put pressure on myself so the bank does.

Yeah, you know, but there is something to be said for having a deadline.

I mean a lot of people work better that way.

It's almost like having a deadline going to the studio.

That is kind of have to make your own you know.

Luckily, I have to make my own restrictions, you know, because I don't have a lay like I have my own label.

So I kind of say, Okay, I want to go make a record this month, and that's great, put it out that month and that kind of stuff.

That's great.

Yeah, it's nice.

It's really nice unless something goes wrong and then I can't turn around and yell at anybody responsible.

Yeah yeah, but I like it.

I started it with Southeastern, which was like my first big sort of record, and so that all lined up really really nicely.

That's very lucky, very lucky because the timing of it, you know.

Yeah, yeah, it was very lucky.

Big labels are not where you want to be anymore, no.

And it's uh, yeah, I don't know.

I don't even know what the formula is, what the plan is now.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

I mean, I'm still on a label.

I love my label, but you know, sometimes I'm not sure what the better way would be.

Because I have an experienced going out on my own.

I think for you and your level of how you operate, it's probably perfect.

I think it's great.

Yeah, it's great because I don't even like I'm not always looking to grow things.

You know, I'm feeling pretty good.

I'm fine.

Yeah, like I'm fine.

I like to be able to hear myself and have good gear and travel as comfortably as possible.

And outside of that, it's like, you know, I don't I don't need more and more and more.

I'm not going to retire and no stop.

Do you imagine?

Yeah, what would that be?

What would that even mean?

It would be really hard.

It would be so I'd be worse than Elton, Like he's retired half a dozen times in the last two years, and I would be worse than that.

I would just I'm back.

Yeah, I'm it's all reunion tour.

I'm reuniting myself, my own molecules are reuniting for another tour.

Well, I think that's the great part about this job is you don't have to retire.

Yeah, you don't have to.

Tour anymore, but you can still play and record or do local stuff.

Yeah.

And we were never silly rock stars, so it's not gonna look dumb.

Speak for yourself six yeah, No, I think we're good like.

Yeah, I'm not talking about like like level like yeah, like we like you have a big deal.

No, I was joking, but you didn't have your foot up on the monitor wearing like spandex and definitely not.

Yeah.

And that means at some point you're gonna have.

To have hang upire yeah, yeah, or just yeah, or just just just spain.

Maybe a larger size.

Yeah, it's either a just the size or you're just going to be adjusting the whole time your own steady.

All right, what should we do nowt.

You want to do Foxes in the Snow?

Yeah, let's do that.

Let's do that.

This is the title song on the record.

It is, Yeah, this is the title Track's a strange song from me because it is it's just different, you know, it's really different.

I love it.

It's a little bouncy.

Yeah.

And also I kind of had to let go of.

The idea of just being metaphorical and songwriterly and just say things that I wanted to say and play the guitar and sing with them and think, let's take all the context out, Let's take the ego out, Let's take the preconceived idea of what I'm supposed to do as a songwriter and just make.

A song happen.

Is that not you?

Is that hard for you to let all that go?

I don't think it will be now because I've done it in the past.

But in the past, yeah, yeah, there was this kind of like, well, if I can't provide reachable insight with these lyrics, and I'm not doing my job, and it may have been true at one.

Point, Okay, can you explain reachable insight Like does that mean like relatability or it's more the story you're telling is true.

Oh well, it reveals something okay in the lyric about the process, and by reachable I mean not necessarily obvious, but also able to be found by the average listener.

You're not hitting them over the head with it, but it's pretty much all there.

For the Yeah, yeah, there are the clue.

The mystery can be solved with the information, and you're not.

Being overly cryptic, right, and you're not like trying to hide every every detail, yes.

Or being vague or like running from anything.

That's something I had to learn because in the beginning, I I didn't know how to write songs at all.

And then I started and I tried to take all the eyes out of the song.

I was tried to be very you know, vague, and then I was like, that's not very.

Soulful, right, No, it's not, Yeah, it's not.

Yeah.

The soulful stuff to me is the like the details that are for whatever reason, you're reluctant to include them, either because they're too much or too revealing or makes you cringe, or because you think this is not going to apply to everybody.

That's where I really hit something.

I think it doesn't matter if it applies to everybody.

You have to let that go.

Is that what you're talking about?

Well, over time, I started valuing the strength of the connection more than the width of the connection.

Okay, so it was like this may not hit you know, a thousand people, but the ten people it hits are going to think I know a.

Secret about it, and that's more fun for me.

Yeah, you know, because that's what I latched onto about songs.

It's like, oh, how does this apply so accurately to my life?

And sometimes that would be a detail or a lyric, but sometimes it would just be a moment like I remember listening to songs and you know, because I'm not going to relate to book A White or Robert Johnson, but I was a ten year old kid in Alabama listening to this, But there would be a feeling created and just a little section of that song that I would think, Oh, this is very specific to me.

You know.

That's the beauty of it.

Yeah, Yeah, and that's it.

That's the real thing.

And I've never you know, like big, bombastic like pop ballads that are aimed at every living human being never hit me in that way.

They're too broad.

Yeah, And I admire the craft of it, and I think some of them are fantastic, you know, even some of the big commercial Like when I listen to Faithfully the Journey song faith on the Road, yes, I'm like, well, this is but this is specific, very specific.

Now, there was a window in time where you could write a like I'm Sad on the Road as a rock star song and everybody would be like, yeah, that's my life too, Like nowadays.

You couldn't get away with that.

I don't think that's funny.

I had a bus, my first bus.

I was twenty three, very first bus.

It kept breaking down, but the driver was real sweet.

He asked me at the end of the run to record that song for his wife.

Really, how sweet is it.

Was really sweet?

Oh, I love that he was just talking about it.

I don't think it ever happened.

I bet it never happened.

No, I didn't get a chance, but it was like it did not happened.

I should have done it, but it was like he was asking us.

We were taking our suitcase off the bus literally, and it was just a crazy time.

But I thought it was sweet.

Yeah, it's very sweet.

It's a very sweet idea.

Yeah, that's I think that's maybe like the first song I learned to play on Vienna.

Really it's a jam.

We ready.

I love my love, I love her mouth, I love the.

Way she turns so in her house.

I love my love her he bilder bed.

Where she's heard.

Me sing words it can't be set.

And all the dreams dian Sen, all the dive and hiding me.

To put my soul asleep now it's easy.

I love my love, her golden hair.

I like to picture her alone when I'm got there.

I like her friend.

The ones I know.

They leave drops the flood, like boxes in the storm, and all the beast beneath her ben she defeeds and knees for dad, falls asleep inside.

Night seems so easy.

I love my love.

I love her bike.

I like the way she dissembles me at night.

I love her well, and I love her person.

I like the cart, but I really like the steak.

For all the boys.

I could have.

Been a fine siding wind.

Push me here against her skin, she'd see me.

I love my love.

I love her hands.

I love the way she sees a child child maid.

I love my love, I love I love.

Yeah, that was fun that.

It was really good.

Yeah, it was really good.

I don't know that I've ever played that song with anybody else.

Well, I would assume not, because you just put this album out right.

Yeah, it's pretty recent and it's all so low.

Yeah, and I've been working some of the songs up with my band.

You have Okay, I was wondering about that, but.

That one I haven't.

We haven't done that one yet.

It's a little different.

It is different, saucier.

It's very saucy.

Yeah, you get too many people, it's too sauce.

It's too much sauce.

Yeah, it's that got the kind of groove where you add too many people, it gets a little kitchy.

Yes, but it's not like that.

Right.

If it's by yourself, you can get away with a lot by yourself.

You start adding funky drums and you can get a little This is not hot at all, exactly.

It is a hot song's sexy.

It's kind of a hot song.

It's you know, honesty, I think can be really hot, but it's it's t.

There's a risk.

You've got a risk to be hot in a song or in any you've got to risk something.

You got to not be trying to be hot.

No, you can't be trying to be hot.

You've got to be trying not to fall on your face and embarrass yourself and then it just kind of happens.

But that's the tough par it It's like, there's all these little micro fears when I'm writing these songs, and I just kind of learned to welcome them and say, oh, this is the chance to make something good.

Happen.

That's good because I you know, I've been reading up and listening to interviews, and I feel like people really have this ownership over lyrics these days, and for some people more than others, and for you, I feel like it's a lot.

I feel like people really take what you're singing about and make it the word, you know, get the truth, the gospel of truth.

When it's like songwriting is this whole push and pull of all that stuff.

Yeah, and you can pick from anywhere, yeah, you know, and it's it's it's such a like almost a mixed media kind of thing.

It's like, well, this happened to me, but this happened in a bar.

I heard somebody behind me say it, and it has and the piece.

Of people think it's all you all the time?

Yeah they do.

That must be I mean I would get in my head if it was like that.

I don't feel like that.

Yeah.

I don't think anybody holds me quite to the fire like that.

Yeah, yeah, maybe not.

I mean, it's you know, it's it started with that damn confessional songwriting in the seventies and.

Which the people who made it hated.

That term, and everybody was like, oh, she's a confessional songwriter, and she's like, I'm not confessingating to you.

I'm making stuff rhyme, you know, And.

Yeah, I don't.

I think that also really limits some people's ability to become songwriters because they don't realize, you know, Like I remember hearing when I was little, my mom loved John Prime, and so she would play John Prime records for me, and I got later on, you know, after I started doing this, I got to be friends with John and we played a bunch of shows together, and it's just, oh, it was unbelievable.

I mean, really, nothing better about this job than getting to meet somebody like John and spend time with him.

But I remember when I was a kid hearing Angel from Montgomery, my mom listening to it, and she was listening to his version, and I remember thinking like, oh, he's not an old woman that first line.

You know, I'm an old woman.

He's not an old woman.

And then the light bulb hit and it's like, oh, it can come from anywhere, and you can use any version of yourself or any just pick and choose anything.

And like movies and books are not arranged that way.

They're all like, is this documentary or not is this picture on fiction and for us, for songs and for visual art.

It can be any combination, and I love that.

But people don't accept.

People think that it's all straightforward about.

You, and that would drive me nuts.

But I'm glad you can get out of it and just be able to do it the way it's meant to be done, which is wild card.

Yeah, you know, and it's not going to matter if the if the songs live five minutes longer than I do, it won't matter, Yeah, because nobody's looking back and saying, you know, what was going on in this person's life when they wrote this?

You know what what exactly was happening to Zvin when he wrote Desperadoes under the Eves?

Like you don't want to know the answer to that story, first of all.

I know that's kind of what I think sometimes, Like I don't think anybody wants to know.

Some of this, But most of mine is, you know, very simple and straightforward story wise.

If I just sat and wrote about my life all the time, I would have run out of stuff a long time ago.

Yeah, you know, because most of my life is pretty boring nowadays, and I like it that way.

I like to keep it that way.

Simplicity is good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

Well that's like I was.

I was diving in and we were texting, and I told you I got inspired to write this line.

What I'm saying here is between me and this song.

Yeah, and I thought that was so funny.

Yes, yeah, and it's good because that is the character.

That's who the characters are.

Yeah.

And and and it's also between you and the song.

But it might not be.

It's not a triangle.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Yeah, and how what was the next line?

It was the however you take it can never be wrong.

It's like when you're listening to music, you take it how you want, and you believe what you want, and you personalize it, and everybody internalizes the songs as them.

Yeah, you know.

And the best is when they it's about them.

Yes, yes, and when they really truly feel it.

Yeah.

It's like kids love the Beatles, but they don't know you know what I want.

To hold your hand meant to them when they wrote that.

Yeah, well, kids these days love Pink Pony Club.

Yes, right, my kid doesn't know what that's about.

No, yeah, I don't know if mine's caught on that when yet or not, but she has listened to.

It a lot.

Yeah, I love it too.

What a beautiful bunch of songs.

I love her.

Yeah, amazing, I'm really in.

I'm so good.

And I saw her at bonn U last year and just nailed every note just like the vocals were just beautiful and perfect and the band was so.

Good and it was great.

Yeah, I would take my kids this year if it comes through.

I mean, I think that that no matter how rible to that message is, it's a very very positive one.

I agree.

I agree the line.

In is it Hot to Go where she says you like magic, I've got a rabbit and a wand and my daughter is singing along with that, and I'm like, she thinks this is just about pulling a rabbit out of your hat and having a magic one.

And I was like, I'm glad she doesn't know how good that line is yet, you know, but it still works for if you're just visualizing pulling a rabbit out of hat, or you know, you get a little older, you're like, oh, that's a very good line.

That's hilarious.

Pulling it anywhere I.

Keep it in a hat that would be really weird funny.

Well, it's like The Double Meaning and all those children's movies that are the best ones that that have something for the grown ups too.

Yeah.

No, she's great, she Silverstein.

Course, you know it's the best.

Yeah.

I still I sit and cry reading this book to my kid.

Yeah.

Everybody talks about the Giving Tree, but the Missing Piece just whoops my ass.

Oh yeah, Missing Pieces is a good one.

It's so heavy when it's like the piece fits and then decides it doesn't want to be the piece.

I'm like, Mercy's like, what is wrong with your Dad's like I'm having feelings.

Yeah you'll know someday.

Yeah yeah, no, kid, and you will.

Yeah.

This is the old song huh vampires?

Yeah?

How old is this it was?

I guess it's getting close to ten years maybe, Okay for me, that's pretty old.

And it was like I was going to the studio on Monday and I had, you know, record done in my mind.

So it was like watching Hoarders.

Do you remember that show Hoarders?

Yes, that I went through a little face where I watched that made me feel so much better.

Well, it's my desk disaster and Amanda my at the time she said, you need to be writing a song, and I was like, I've got the I got the record done.

She was like, just get off your ass and work and I was like, okay, so this So I started out from the perspective of like, what is it about love songs that I don't like?

And it's so hard, I think to write a love song until you just find an angle and uh, because there's just so many of them.

But I was like, what is it I don't like?

So I started off with it's not it's not, it's not and it's like, no, it's actually not the way that you look in that dress.

It's not the you know.

By the time I got to the chorus, it's like, oh, it's because I'm going to die.

Wow, that's why I love you.

Because if I was not.

Going to die, I would say, well, we'll get around to this, like there would be no risk.

The time is such a huge risk.

And and then I had I had a song.

You know, that's great.

But it started I got really lucky with it because it just started out like kind of grumpy, like.

I don't want to write a songeah yeah.

And then I was like, well, what is it about songs that I hate, let's see.

And then I got to the chorus and I was like, oh, it's because we're limited.

I like that way of thinking about writing a song.

Yeah, yeah, you can go anywhere.

Yeah, you can start from any point.

And sometimes it's just so literal.

It's like, I really what I wanted to write was I don't want to write a song right now.

But you know anyway, all right?

Not the long, fluent rest that you're in, poor, the lie coming all through your skin, fragile harm you've protected for.

Sure, long.

For the mercy and your sense of riding.

It's not your hands search and slow in the God, or your nails leaving love water mark.

It's not the way you talk me after your questions, like directions to the truth snowing at this tangle rightly one of us.

You'll have to spend some days alone.

Maybe we'll get forty used again.

But one day I'll be gone, one day'll be.

We were made person.

Death was a joke.

We'd go out on sidewalk and smoke.

And laughing, all the lovers and their plan.

I wouldn't feel the need to.

Hold your hand.

But maybe time running out is a gift.

So I work hard till the end of my ship.

To give you every second I could mind.

And hold meies and me who's left behind, knowing that this can go.

It's likely one of us will have to spend some days along.

Maybe we'll get forty.

Just get home one day, U, one day, be alright, no going at this tample.

It's likely one of us will have to.

Spend some days alone.

Maybe you will get forty again.

One day, one dayby.

That's a great song, thank you, that's so great.

That's better than hoarders, I guess that day.

Yeah, it's such a sweet sentiment.

It's it's it's like dark.

It's really sweet at first, and then when you dive into the lyrics more, it's like, oh, it's kind of dark.

It's about death, but it's also really sweet.

It's it's people will go just far enough into that song to get the opposite of the meaning sometimes, you know, and it's funny.

But yeah, it's sort of like like it's not I'm not being sad that we're going to die.

I mean, I am sad that we're going to die, but not in that song, and that song I'm celebrating it because it's like, this is the only reason that we bother to do all this stuff.

You know, if not, we would smoke cigarettes and just that's true, you know, not ever reveal any part of ourself.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, we'd be so lonely to be a vampire.

I guess that Anne Rice read a bunch of books about that, how lonely vampires are.

That's right.

I forgot that.

That's kind of the crux of what this.

That's yeah.

Yeah, I read those when I was a teenager.

Maybe that's why I wound up writing the song in the studio.

Dave Cobb did not want to cut that because it's just like he well, he just had like the titles of everything, and so we didn't.

I didn't do demos.

I hate to do demos because then everybody that hears it falls in love.

With a version of it.

I get demoitis real bad.

Yeah, I don't like it.

I'd rather just use the demo.

Yeah, exactly.

And so I'll go in if I'm recording with the whole band, I'm just going to sit down and play the song for everybody, and then we'll all go to our station and start recording.

So that's the first time they've heard it.

And that's a luxury because we can afford to be in the studio and they can all play well.

And you know, some people have to practice things before they go start spending money on recording them.

But I like to kind of spring it on them because I like to find that spot right before they are performing it, when they're still sort of creating it.

Yeah, well that's the best.

That's the trick.

Yeah.

And that song.

Dave was like, ah, well, we'll do that.

Eventually because he just saw the word vampires and he thought it was like the monster mash or something.

It was like a good heartfelt son, the most heartfelt.

I thought it was gonna be like one, two, three.

Four, it's funny.

Finally, like a couple of days before the end of the session, I was like, let's we're doing that song, Dabe, and you know, he was crying at the console like, oh, never mind.

And that was fun.

That one was really fun.

That's a good one.

You have all these songs from that era from earlier than that.

Do songs change for you the meanings when you perform them.

I get asked this a lot, and I never really know how to answer it, so I'm not sure why I'm asking it, but you know, when you're performing a song that you wrote many many years ago, maybe about something specific, maybe not, do you feel like songs are alive and they changed meaning?

I don't know that they.

Or do this bring it back to you to a place.

You know, I feel like the context of my life since then changes meaning, But the song itself doesn't necessary.

It's that's a good question, because I kind of wonder about that too.

I think maybe it depends on the song.

It depends on the song.

Yeah, yeah, just like everything else, it depends on the song.

Yeah, some of them do some of them.

Some of them go from maybe not meaning but being you know what they exist as in my mind.

You know, they go from existing as.

This sort of like red hot.

Profession of something either love or lust or regret or you know, growth or something.

They go from that to being you know, just sort of a document.

But the good thing about it is like we get to live with them.

And that's really kind of.

What I take away from all of it is how lucky we are to get to pull these things back out of the coffin every night.

Yeah, you know, because a memory book it is but painters don't get to do that.

That's true.

You know, if you're if you're a paint, you paint, you paint.

You know, either you keep it or if you're if you sell paintings, you're probably not gonna see it again.

Yeah, that's also true.

And to spend that much time and that much of yourself on something and then it goes to somebody else's house forever, it's kind of heartbreaking to me.

It's also kind I think one of the reasons why.

That is fine.

Art and songwriting is not you know, it's done, it's done.

It's only decorative.

Yeah, it serves no other true purpose like songs.

You know, sometimes I think we're we're we're singing to motivate somebody to feel somewhere, or to get somebody to make out with us, sort of, you know what.

But but but art at its root is useless.

And you know, I think we're so lucky that we get to take these songs back out every night and bring them to life for a purpose.

Yeah, And looking out at people in the audience crying yeah for singing along.

It just it like revives it all.

It does, It makes it.

Almost makes it beyond you know, without a doubt.

Yeah, without a doubt.

I mean you, I mean you've had big hit songs that feeling is weird, Like I've had one that sort of went on that trip completely separately of me and just.

On its own life.

It does, and it's just a whole different situation for people.

And you think I was in my bedroom, you know, sitting cross like it on the bed, just trying to figure out what word rhyme, and now all of a sudden, it's just this big, huge thing that doesn't even really feel it's still mine, but it's not mine anymore.

Yeah, I agree with that.

It doesn't feel like it's yours anymore, but it.

Is, it's still yours.

Yeah.

Try to change a lyric though, and sees think about that.

We'll get mad about that.

I'll get mad you her change lyrics kind of like I do how you're feeling.

But not like significant ones.

I'll change like a connector you know, I'll go from four to butt from and to butt sometimes present.

Yeah, just fix it, like fix the grammar in my song.

Make it better.

Yeah, but not in any.

Way that's like a big like I won't take a name and change it, or you know, but I'll take like a like an ad and make it a butt if it's supposed to be.

Isn't Didn't Dylan do that a bunch?

Oh yeah, changed stuff.

We would change it.

He'd have so many versions.

That's cool too.

I think that's really I think it's cool.

I saw him play at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville a couple of summers ago, and he was doing this version of When I Paint My Masterpiece.

It was like almost like somba, so really or something.

And I was talking to his tour manager afterward about it, and he said somebody had asked him during a show.

Somebody had yelled up at Dylan, play something we know and he started playing like the girl from MPANMA, which I think that's the funniest thing.

They didn't say, play of Bob Dylan and it's so good.

And the band started following in and he started singing when I Paint My Masterpiece, and it became the version they were touring.

That's cool.

Yeah, still he's still quick.

Yeah, it's great.

Yep.

But those were good shows at the Bowling Alley.

They were he was talking to the audience and like coming out from behind the mic and smiling and stuff.

It was was cool.

That's great.

He still got it.

He still got it all right, let me check my tune in here.

Oh thank you.

I need to get it done again.

It's chipping and I look pretty ratchet.

My fingernails started splitting, h know, a couple of years ago from I guess from playing the guitar so much and.

Just pulling the nail bed away from the nail.

You play with your nails.

I do some, but not.

I think it's more about like when the fat on my finger pulls away from the fingernail, it doesn't so.

On that hand.

Yeah, so this hand splits down the middle.

And so I started getting uh, powder dip or dip powder?

Is it dip powdered powder dip?

I don't know.

It's hard.

I've never heard of it.

It's a nail thing.

It's a nail thing, and it takes them like they have to put it on like four different layers.

It's like it is, but it's really hard.

Okay.

And I started using that and I loved it, but the problem is it was really thick, and so I would accidentally hit strings that I didn't mean to hit, and so I had to stop using that.

So now I'm on jail.

I'm just doing jail.

Yeah, but it comes off so easily, and I get so sad when I look at my fingers and my nails are chip.

Said, So I didn't know this song?

Oh really?

Yeah I might have, but I feel okay, So we're going to do this Neil Young song.

With a lot of artists, it's like this, but with Neil more than anyone.

There's always some pocket that I don't know that when somebody opens the door to it, I get so excited.

Yeah, yeah, me too.

He's got so many records and so many, so many different kinds of songs, and this this record Freedom I think it was was it eighty eighty eight, eighty nine maybe, And it hit me just like a ton of bricks, Like still the one of his that probably affected me the most, really when in nineteen ninety.

Okay, so around the time it came.

Out, Yeah, I was about ten years old.

Cool ten year old.

I was a pretty cool ten year old, not if you ask the other ten year olds, but.

In hindsight, in hindsight, but I remember it.

Having two versions of rocking in the Free World on this record, one with crazy horse and then one just him acoustic.

Yeah.

And so now you can just trace that basically to everything that I have done in my career.

It's like I just made my whole life out of those two songs on that round.

That's amazing.

But this one is so beautiful and.

Linda, Linda Ronstad is one of my favorites.

So great.

Oh, I love I love Linda.

I don't know Linda, but I worship Linda.

I got to meet her onz Yeah, super sweet.

Yeah.

I got a really good story from patterson hood because I used to be in his band, Drive By Truckers, and his dad was the bass player in the Muscle Shol's rhythm section in the sixties, seventies, mostly the seventies and eighties and nineties, and Linda would come into town and record at Muscle Sholes Sound and she would stay at Patterson's house hang out with Patterson's mom.

And this is Patterson's story, but it's a good one.

Apparently one day she wanted Patterson was like five, six, seven years old, and Linda wanted a cheeseburger, and She's like, where can I go get a cheeseburger and a beer?

And his mom said, well, the smokehouse, but women don't go in the smokehouse, and like yes, and of course, so she tied the shirt up and put the short song, Oh man, and the first woman to go get a cheeseburger at the smokehouse Lawrence, Alabama is Linda Ronstead.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good cheeseburger.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

I think Patterson was a little bit in love with Linda Ronstadt one six or seven.

Oh my god, yeah, I think I was in love with her when.

Oh yeah, it's impossible not to be.

I mean, she's just so ballsy and also gorgeous.

And just cool and good.

Those songs were.

So good best singer.

It's just the harmony stuff, Like I still hear things.

I'm like, oh, that's beautiful, and then I look at the liner notes, like of course it is.

Yeah, yeah, she's the best.

I'm gonna play worly Is that cool?

Yeah, that's very cool?

Is it too loud for?

It's good for me?

I think I maintained thinks so ready.

Road the river.

Flow Janney to the sea.

He was on the shore, ruded like a tree.

She was seeing me.

Riding on a way through all She heard his call and baby all she gave.

And was hanging on a limb.

She told him out a day and start again.

And Noel.

Was hanging on alim.

She told him out a day.

She told that day.

And window Moldy who through the window call in a Cordier recordon and was scooted the haws he played.

She knew he had to go.

There was something about Freda.

He thought he.

Didn't go, And Nolla was hanging on alim.

She told him mad day and started again, and Noil.

Was hanging on alimb.

She told him maud day She taught about a day.

Do you ever flow.

Gently to the scene And he was on the shore, roaded.

Like a tree.

She was here and there.

Riding on the way through it all.

She heard his call and gave it all she gave and was hanging on the live.

She told him out of day, She told him out a day.

So that sounds good to me.

Yeah, that was so good, That was so fun.

That's a pretty song.

What a beautiful songs trance?

Oh totally.

Yeah, it's so droning and so but the line there was something about freedom he thought he didn't know.

Just kills me.

That's a line.

It's a line and at first you think it's like space kneels like this, Like there are people who, like I have so much respect for who are songwriters who just don't buy it, who are like Kneel's like a broken clock, he's write twice a day.

But I don't think that's the case all because I think this line could appear to that.

But I've been in that experience where I thought that that I thought there was more, you know, and I may have made a decision because I thought there was more for me, and then later on I think that's a line about regret.

There's something about freedom.

He thought he didn't know.

But he did.

I like that he was right the first time around.

I just love that one.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, And I think Neil does that.

It sounds like he's stumbling, but he's not.

He's not.

I think for me, I feel like Neil just says what it is, yeah a lot.

Yeah, And sometimes that can sound clunky to people.

Yeah, but it's always right here in the heart.

Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.

Yeah, And sometimes it's clunky.

Yeah, like when he's singing about Apple music, you know, he's about it, something like that he sounds a little clunky sometimes in the moment because it's current.

In hindsight, all that current stuff that he wrote about back in the day.

Neil was right exactly, it was right we need Neil was right right.

Yeah, And even like the clunkiness.

One of my favorite things about him is that his music is that I get the sense that he not only does he not care if we like it not, but sometimes he would rather we didn't.

He could not care less.

It's just this is what it is.

Well, he wants to he wants to make you think about it.

I think, yeah, well this has been a delight.

I have really enjoyed it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for having so great really nice to make music with you.

Yeah more please, Yeah, let's do more.

Always I always leave these wanting more.

Yeah, yeah, this is this is really a cool setup though.

It's a cool way to do things.

Yeah, it's fun for people who are down to be loose.

Some people get too nervous.

I mean, nobody who's done it?

But yeah, tell me tell me who is.

No, No, it was great.

I just feel like it's a lot to ask if somebody who's not comfortable in this scenario yeah.

Yeah.

Did you did you start out like, uh, like playing with your friends and in rooms and parties and circles and things like that.

You Yeah, No, I didn't have anything.

I didn't have a lot.

I didn't have a lot.

No.

I I mostly played in school and stuff.

Yeah.

I think sometimes for people who started out like playing in bigger groups of people at house parties and sitting around oak trees and things, that it might be a little bit more comfortable.

Yeah.

I will say the sort of country more country leaning artists have been all completely down.

Yeah, you know, it's a little easier.

I think, so is that sort of just sitting in a room and playing thing.

Yeah, but I think I came from jazz, where we were always just chamming and sort of doing gigs.

And actually listening to each other, which is that's another level exactly music.

We we have learned not to listen to the banjo player very early on.

It's so loud you have no choice.

That's why acoustic guitars got so good.

They were trying to drown out those bandos.

Awesome, Well, thanks.

Thank you, it's been a pleasure.

Oh that was fun.

Thanks for listening.

Great.

I love him, me too.

He's just amazing.

If you want to know what songs we played in this episode, the first song was Eileen from Foxes in the Snow, released in twenty twenty five.

Second song was a title track from that same album, Foxes in the Snow.

The third song was If We Were Vampires by Jason Asbel in the four hundred Unit from the Nashville Sound album in twenty seventeen, and the fourth song was Hanging on a Limb by Neil Young from his album Freedom, which was released in nineteen eighty nine.

I love that song so much.

I'm so glad he suggested it.

A special thanks to Jason Isbel for joining us today, and we'll be back next week with Maria Zardoya.

Nora Jones is playing along as a production of iHeart Podcasts.

Visit Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there.

I'm your host, Nora Jones.

This episode was recorded by Matt Marinelli.

Video by heck More Media.

Additional video by Kay Loggins, mixed by Jamie Landry, Video edit by Marcus Rutledge, Audio post production and mastering by Greg Tobler.

Artwork by Eliza Frye.

Photography by Shervin Linez, Produced by Nora Jones and Sarah Oda.

Executive producers Aaron wang Kaufman and Jordan Runtog.

Marketing lead Queen Anake, Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thanks listening,