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Hey, I'm Nora Jones and today I'm playing along with Maria Zardoya.

I'm just playing long weezy, am just playing a lone weazy Hi.

I'm Nora Jones.

Welcome to playing along and with me as always as Sarah Oda.

Hello, Hi, I'm very excited about our guests.

Today.

We have Maria's Ardoya.

She's the voice behind the Grammy nominated band The Maria's Yes.

She has this super.

Dreamy, sort of ethereal voice that is unforgettable.

It's very unique.

The Maria's put out an album Submarine in twenty twenty four, which had themes of heartbreak and growth and rebirth, which you touch on in the episode.

Also, she has a new solo project which we didn't get a chance to play any music from because we recorded this right before she was going up to record it, but you should check it out.

Yeah, Her solo project is called Not for Radio, and she's coming out with her debut solo album called Meltz, which is something she recorded Upstate New York in a snowy, isolated moment and it's about winter heartbreak.

Yeah.

She speaks about how you were one of her inspirations.

Early on.

She talks about being in a band and how that's like being in a family, and she also sings in Spanish and English, which is super cool.

Yeah.

The music in this episode's beautiful and I'm really excited we get to do this.

We had so much fun hanging out.

She's just great.

Yeah, she's my friend.

Now.

I hope you love this episode as much as we do.

Here it is Maria Zardoya.

Well, thanks so much for coming, Thank you for having me.

Yes, this is so nice.

I was trying to come to your Austin City Limit set, but I missed it because it was so hard to get around.

Oh yeah, it was crazy.

Yeah, there's so many people standing in the sun.

I know.

Have you played that festival as well?

I have, yeah, but not for a long time.

Maybe it's been like fifteen years.

Okay, so it was a big deal for me too.

And I'm from Texas, so oh yeah, yeah, but you're from Georgia.

I'm from Georgia.

I'm from a small town in Snowville, Georgia.

Oh wow.

Yeah, it was.

I tried to explain it, like it's just a very very small town vibe, almost like stranger things.

That's crazy.

We would just like ride our bikes everywhere.

There was a creek in our neighborhood and that sounds nice.

Yeah, it was a really amazing place to grow up.

And like in nature, we would like catch little lizards, go to the creek and catch little crawfish and on this with bacon.

That's what I used to do.

Oh, you just thick about Okay.

We used to go fishing for craffit well, crawdads in the in Oklahoma my grandpa parents' house.

We'd put this string around our finger and tie baconto the bottom.

Oh my god, so fun.

Wow.

So where did you grow up?

I grew up in Dallas, but my grandparents lived in Oklahoma.

Nice.

Well that sounds nice.

Do you visit or do you have family there?

Yeah?

I still have family there in like the same childhood home.

I'm going tomorrow just fen the weekend with them.

That's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, sometimes we just like to dive in and try a song.

I know it might feel sudden, but let's great.

You want to try it, you want to dive.

Let's do it all right.

I was thinking we should start with no one noticed, perfect, Yeah, do it all right?

Cool?

Okay, it breaks the seal, and then let's do it.

You want to play guitar?

Great, and you just tell me if I'm doing anything wrong.

I doubt it.

Let's just yeah, let's see what happens.

Do you come in at the top on guitar?

Yeah?

Okay, cool?

Yeah, yeah maybe lost man made.

No one no is.

No no.

Scared kind of like it if you call me.

Sampso will be and only may have lost.

Day virtue connection.

I have lost, maried, obsession, no shape.

To feed me a.

No one, but you.

W she want you.

Make the.

Kind of like it if you call me it's race.

I'm so being lonely.

Make cure me heavy virtue conviction, take good.

Session.

M Come on, don't leave me.

It can be that easy, babe.

If few believe me, I guess I get on a plane and fly to your city, excited to see your face.

So me console me and then I leave without a trace.

Come on, don't leave me.

It can't be that easy, babe.

If you believe me, I.

Guess I'll get on a plane.

And fly to it.

Sity exciting to see your face, so.

Me, console me, and then I leave without a trace.

Come on, don't leave me.

It can't be that easy, babe.

A few believe me.

I guess I'll get on a plane, fly to it, say exciting to see your face on me, console me, and then I leave my loud trace.

Don't leave me.

It can't be that way.

If you believe me, I guess I've me U lighty you, sity, exciting city your face, say sweety, and then I leave with thout the trace.

Me.

I'm so be.

A native virtue connection.

Please be my fee session.

M hm.

M m mm hmmm.

Start dundantro the seegupenside the cus bed.

Yes, so the same, the sea.

Make gun soucho.

Hey, oh man, that's so fun.

Thank you amazing.

Thanks for playing that with beautiful on piano.

Your voice sounds so beautiful.

Thank you.

Say it's so soft and like I meant soft, texture wise, not volume wise.

It came through very clearly.

I'm a quiet singer, so I feel like we have sort of that in common.

Yeah, I feel like you taught me how to sing.

That's hilarious.

I when I was first taking voice lessons, our first recital, I say, come away with Me.

Really, Yeah, that's so funny.

It's such a weird song to have become well known because it's such a slow, quiet song.

So I'm always like tickled, you know when people know it.

No, it's beautiful.

It's like, it's one of my favorite songs.

It's my go to karaoke songs.

That's so funny.

That's the only song I see.

Oh that's cool.

My go to karaoke song is whip It by Devo.

Oh nice, that's yeah, that's funny.

So when you were growing up, how did you get into music?

Did you have musical family.

Or I mean my dad like loved music and plays guitar and would always like have Mariacci bands and like, yeah, so I grew up in like a house that loved music.

But you know, my mom's a teacher and my dad's a mechanic.

So I think I just grew up like not knowing that I could even pursue music.

I think it was just something that you know, if you want to pursue music, you're seeing at church on Sundays.

Yeah, and that's how I learned it.

Yeah.

Yeah, And I feel like that's such a great way to learn.

But yeah, and then it wasn't until a friend of mine from Atlanta that moved to LA to pursue music.

She was like, you have to come here if you want to pursue music.

I was like, well, I guess I'll give it a shot.

That's cool.

Were you older at that point, yeah?

Yeah, yeah.

And then I won a Halloween costume contest at this job that I was working at, and I bought a car and drove to La knowing just her, and then I.

Have to know what the costume was.

So I was working I'm a Halloween really into it.

I was working at like a creative agency, and so I dressed it.

I was like, okay, I have to like cater to the judges.

Okay.

So I was like, I'm just going to be a target market.

So we like built a whole like wooden structure that was a market with like fruit, and we had like the client logos on the route and I gave them like money that had a logo on it.

It was like very pandering.

Yeah yeah, that's amazing though, but they loved it and I won five thousand dollars.

That's crazy.

I know.

Wow, And then I bought a car.

Do you still dress up?

I do?

Okay, kid, do you I do?

But I've been really lazy after I had kids.

It sort of went all to them and they don't want to do it.

Oh it broke my heart.

This year, I got ready at like two o'clock in the afternoon so that when my daughter got home from school she would get excited.

Huh.

And then I was ready since two o'clock in the afternoon, and nobody was excited, so I had like makeup on for six hours before.

Oh my god, it's pretty funny.

Well you keep the spirit alive.

Yeah wow.

Did you grow up sugar treating?

Yeah?

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

I just always loved it.

Yeah me too.

It's such a fun holiday.

Yeah, and I like it because it's the beginning of the fall lot of holidays.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So this song no one noticed.

It's on your new album and that came out last year.

Yes, okay, yeah, h it's it feels kind of like a slow like I'm surprised that it was the one that everybody gravitated towards.

Kind of like how what you were saying about come away with me?

Because it's such like a slow yeah, just like a slow kind of emotional song.

I had always wanted that one to, you know, to be the one that that people noticed, and thankfully, yeah, thankfully it was.

But it's it's got a striking opening line, you know, it's one of those that just grabs you, thank you, and you can kind of relate, relate to.

Yeah.

I think people don't get enough credit for being open to slow music.

Yeah, I agree, you know.

I mean, people are emotional and we're all emotional creatures.

So it's funny when the music industry, you know, or labels want to push something more single sounding, but it all ends up sounding the same sometimes.

Yeah, and that's exactly what happened with this album.

I think, you know, understandably, like they just want to push whatever they think is going to do the best, and so they picked like a like a more upbeat song from our album.

It's called run Your Mouth and it's got like a pop groove, and you know, then no one noticed.

You know, people started noticing that song, and it just made me so happy, like for the collective consciousness of humanity because I was like, okay, like people do like sad songs like people do want to connect to something like a little deeper.

Obviously, people also want to dance, but I connect more with like the slow songs and songs that like really make me feel something and yeah, make me feel like nostalgic and cry.

And I think if we ever stopped making sad songs just yeah, I mean I grew up with a mixtape that was slow and sad songs.

In the other side was songs to cry too, So yeah, I would love to hear that mixtape.

Oh yeah, it's all just sad, slow songs.

Yeah, that's like that's from my playlist too.

Yeah.

I mean.

Anything that makes you feel something, yeah, right, it makes you feel less alone, exactly, Yeah, exactly.

I was.

I took my son to see Billie Eilish and I was just like, my god, this music is so melancholy.

It's crazy.

And then there's some stuff with that you can really dance to him.

It's it's awesome.

But I'm like, I love that it's made it through to people.

Yeah, something that emotional, Yeah, and just made me happy.

Yeah, and then I got really melancholy.

Yeah it was nice.

Yeah.

Yeah, she's she's amazing.

We we had the opportunity to open up a few shows for for her.

So cool, And the first time seeing her live was the first like the first show that we opened for her.

Oh yah, And I felt the same, Like I like was moved to like tears at her slower.

Songs because oh yeah, they're so beautiful, beautiful.

I'm just so happy that she's successful.

Yeah, she's so good.

Same and her alone on the stage, Yeah, it made me really kind of sad actually, but I know that was part of the whole thing.

But I loved how she just carried the whole thing, yeah, and didn't need much.

The music was so good.

Yeah, How did you like that experience being on a stage that big?

Have you been on a lot of stages like that at this point?

No?

As a band?

No.

So we had a song on Bud Bunny's album, I Don't have seen thee also insane.

I know, it's amazing, And it was like a slower song on his album too, And and so I love that, like he like leaned into that sort of sound.

But so I had played a few shows with him just on his tour playing that song, and those were stadium shows.

You coming out on his yes, oking on his so not as a whole set, correct, Yeah, oh man.

And that was my nervous system was like just it was wrecking havoc on my nervous system because I was like, oh my god, can I do this?

Can I not?

Two seconds before I'd go on stage, I'd be like, Okay, I'm not gonna do this.

I'm gonna walkway.

I'm gonna walk away right now.

And then he'd be like and no, you know Mdia from the Marias, And I'm like, oh no, I have to go on.

Stage right now.

But the second I was like up there and singing with him, like all the nerves passed.

But you know, so I had the experience of playing on a big stage like that, So everything since then has felt small.

You know.

When you you kind of you started big and yeah, you're good, eighty thousand people in a stadium, I'm like, oh, an arena, I'm good.

I'm like good, I'm so good.

But it was the first time that like we as a band and the guys had played on such a big stage, and so we were, you know a little bit nervous and just didn't really know what to expect.

If we would, you know, if our sound would like, you know, be big enough for an arena, or if our you know, if our presence would be big enough for an arena.

But thankfully, like we felt really comfortable, and I think it helped that.

So her shows were like in the round.

Yeah yeah, And so I think that helped because you didn't just see a sea of people in front of you.

You felt like you were a part of them.

Yeah, Okay, yeah, it felt more of like okay, yeah, yeah, like we were all kind of in it together.

And yeah, I think that made it a lot easier for us.

But I think we like realized as a band, like, okay, we can do arena as.

We got this.

We got this.

It's funny when people try to be some when they're not when they're playing a huge stage.

So as long as you keep a hold of who you are totally yeah, And I thought about that watching Billy Billy or on a first name basis, watching Billie Eilish, I was sort of struck by how she still could do all the intimate stuff and still carried and I mean everybody was also really excited to be there.

But I also had never been to a pop concert before.

Oh wow, I've been to a million shows, but never like a real pop arena show like that.

I mean, what's wrong with me?

I grew up in jazz, Yeah, so I went to a lot of jazz club shows.

But I thought it was amazing.

But the whole culture of the audience singing along, yeah, it's kind of intense.

Yeah, and I really just wanted I wanted them to be quiet because I wanted to hear her saying she's so good.

And it was funny.

Yeah, it was, but I got it too.

I get the collective energy of it is really beautiful totally, but it was kind of funny.

I was also like shocked by it.

Yeah, were you?

Yeah, it was so loud.

Everyone was singing so loud, and I thought it was so beautiful.

But yeah, and crying and they were moved to tears.

And I remember there were a couple of girls behind me, and you know, they were audibly just you know, crying, and I just like put my hand out behind me and I just like held their hand for a second, and I just thought it was like so beautiful because you do feel this collective energy when everybody's singing along and like experiencing the same thing at the same time.

It can.

It can get intense because you feel everybody's kind of emotions.

Yeah, and everybody's egging each other on yeah yeah yeah yeah.

If you cry, all cry yeah yeah, so I did start crying, you know.

I kind of felt that too.

Yeah, but that was that was a first for me in terms of like how loud.

Yeah, how loud audience was outside?

You had that?

Yeah, same, that's cool.

Yeah, yeah, let's do it all right?

Which one should we do?

I love when you sing in Spanish, Okay, but I don't speak Spanish, so you're gonna have to pronounce the song.

Okay, which one are we doing?

Leo?

Yes, yes, so leJOS.

It means far from you, far from you.

That's beautiful.

And every time I sing it, it just reminds me.

I'm the only one that's in La.

The rest of my family's in Puerto Rico and Georgia, and so every time I sing it, I'm like, it reminds me of my family.

Oh yeah, yeah yeah.

Do you have siblings?

Yeah?

I have two older brothers.

Oh, the young and the girl.

Oh that's the whole thing.

That is the whole thing.

What about you?

I grew up an only child, but I have a half sister who I connected with as an adult, and I've become pretty close, but it's not the same as growing up together.

Yeah, so being an only child, that's the whole thing.

Yeah, I feel like I had a little piece of what that felt like.

This Christmas, I spent it with my parents and it was just me and my mom and my dad, and I was like, Okay, this is different, this is different.

I have a little taste of it, you know.

Yeah.

My creative partner, Josh, who's in the band, he's the drummer and producer, is an only child, and so I told him.

I was like, I feel like I can like empathize with you a little bit, a tiny bit, just from what I experienced on Christmas.

But yeah, it's interesting.

It's a lot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it can be a lot.

Yeah.

This one's hard to sing.

So I'm gonna just hope for the best on it.

Me too.

The only thing is my Spanish is no, no brain.

I don't want to mess it up.

Yeah, whatever you feel comfortable with you if you don't want to, that's okay.

I should have learned it better in Spanish.

I'm so sorry.

You're fine.

I'll make it intense.

Yeah, okay, cool sounds good.

M hm hm h m.

M hell free line not some primaqueroy.

Me lety concerning some premiaqueroity.

Porktoil hated.

Not to feel me.

Porktoi hated day.

Not to feel.

Two saus tantristis se premier queroity momentus felises se premi aquaroity.

Porketti hated.

Not me.

Porketti hated.

Not to the.

Pork see areao china puerom centric myusmastoy urien borgeti c contact nomic the macentrmes love sat ganto torn me to petro simpremaqueroity borghetti let.

Not f me.

Not me.

In no mer fay.

Beautiful.

But oh yeah it was pretty.

Yeah.

I loved that.

That was so pretty.

Oh good, Yeah, that's beautiful.

I don't know what you're saying, but it's really beautiful.

I'm just talking about things that remind me of them, like the cold and the night and their sad eyes and how I slept on their chest, and just different things that reminded me of them, and then hoping and saying that just please don't forget about me.

Oh my god, I know, you know, because at the end of you know.

A relationship, I think it's easy for, you know, for people to just want to go super eternal sunshine with it and just forget everything and want to forget about you and you know, and that's that's a way to cope, right.

But I feel like, no matter what, I'll always hold on to, you know, the memories, because as difficult as a heartbreak might be, I think it makes you who you are and you carry that with you on your next.

Relationship, like what you've learned and and and it makes you, I think, a better person and a stronger person to remember, you know, all the memories and moments.

That's really beautiful.

It's also it's just part of your life.

Yeah, that's sweet.

You've had your fair share of heartbreak.

Yeah, you know, people always want to know, oh, what's that song about?

And I'm always a little kg about it.

But I don't know how you are.

But yeah, I think it's like pretty obvious.

Usually, Yeah, I'm usually if you can't really feel the n I don't know what to do.

I'm going to explain it to you.

Yeah, there was one song.

Like drawing a blank right now, But the lyrics are so honest, and you're talking about you know, going over the bridge into Brooklyn and.

Oh back to Manhattan.

Yes, back to me.

Oh yeah that one.

I listened to that song and it's just like the lyrics.

I was like, how did she how like she's inside my brain?

Like how or how are we living the same experience?

You know?

And and that's beautiful because it's like, no matter like how personal or what the song is to you, other people are gonna you know, relate to it as if you know, I mean, we're human, like we we go through the same and similar experiences and.

Over and over over and over.

Right, So that song most recently spoke to me.

Wow, I haven't done that on a long time.

It's pretty so beautiful.

Yeah, it's it's interesting because I, yeah, I always I don't want to overexplain songs because I like that the people can take them and make them their own when listening, and I don't want to be like this detail And then they're like what, yeah, you know, yeah, so your band?

How long have you guys been together?

How did it start?

I think it started is seven years ago I end of twenty sixteen.

That's a long time.

I had just moved to LA and I didn't know anyone.

I knew just that one friend that really thinking about nobody really just that I didn't know anything about La.

The only you know, preconceived thing that I knew about LA was, oh, it's like Hollywood.

You know the stars, and you know, when you're from a small town, that's kind of like what you I don't know what you think of Hollywood or Los Angeles.

But so I knew nothing.

And so when I got here, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to play wherever they'll have me, like me and a guitar open mics.

Like, were you writing songs already?

Yeah?

I was writing songs and performing in Georgia.

How when did you start writing?

You know, when I was.

Little, but I think songwriting like full songs, I'd say, like just out of high school.

So you know, it wasn't it was a fairly new new thing of like learning structurally song and the chords on the guitar and you know, and all of that was I was seeing a guy at the time who was a songwriter and he kind of like just watching him craft songs kind of helped me develop that.

But so yeah.

I came to la without knowing anything, and then I was like, well, I'm just going to reach out to anybody who'll have me play everywhere, and so I'd play so many open mics, random restaurants, like just so many random things.

And one of the random gigs it was called the Laurel Canyon Music Revival at the kid It's Room next to Kanter's Deli, and I played a show that night and solo solo, and the sound engineer came up to me after same strash.

He came up to me after and was like, I love your songs and I love your and I'd love to record with you.

I'm a producer.

And I was like, well, okay, cool.

We got together and then next thing you know, we fell in love of course, and we started the band together.

Wow.

And then when we were ready to sort of play the songs live, we were like, okay, well let's just kind of start a band.

And so two of his best friends and childhood friends were just always around and we were like, do you guys want to be in this band.

And play shows together?

And they were like yeah sure, and then it just that's pretty magical kind of started from there that's great.

Yeah, does he play drums.

He plays drums and producer and we write the songs together.

That's so cool.

I love the drums on the record.

I meant I meant to tell you that.

Yeah, shout out Josh.

Yeah that sounds amazing.

I like his his groove, you know.

Yeah.

Then I like the little things he adds that are different, and it's totally.

He's such an amazing drummer and has like such amazing taste and knows like when to play hard, knows when to play soft.

And yeah, he's very, very talented.

That's great.

But this last album was the first album that we wrote not in a romantic relationship.

Together, the Blast second.

Yeah.

So, but we're so good.

We're it's great best friends still and it's nice when you can make it work.

It's really sad otherwise if you have a musical connection totally, it's hard to lose that with the the everything, And it's.

Honestly made us like stronger as a band because it's no longer Josh and Marie the couple and then the best friends.

Now it's like a collective unit where I'm best friends with all of them now and feel comfortable with all of them and they feel comfortable with me, and.

It just feels like more of a collective.

Now.

Well, the album's beautiful, so you yeah, and you still wrote all the songs together.

Yeah, we still wrote all these songs together.

They're not all about our breakup or our relationship, but yeah, we read them all together.

That's good.

It's weird.

You must be almost like closer in a way, writing in a writing way.

I mean we are, Yeah, we are, just because we went through so much and you know, after we broke up, we you know, we still wanted the band to stay together.

We just didn't know how because it had started with us in a relationship.

So we were like, well, if we're not in a relationship, can this band work?

But we did a lot of like self work.

We went to therapy and together and as a band and individually, and that's amazing, and just went through all the awkward moments and just came out on the other end like just understanding each other in like a whole new way and appreciating each other in a whole new way.

And as friends, which is just so beautiful.

That's so evolved, you know what I mean.

It's like in the seventies.

Do you think, you know, if they could have all done that?

I know, I know, you know, yeah, but it meant I mean, you know, music was number one for all of us, and you have such a good thing.

Yeah, you don't want to lose that totally.

That's great.

I'm happy for you guys.

Yeah, yeah, thank you.

I think the most fun I ever had was in my twenties on tour with my band unit and crew, like people I just loved, yeah and had We just had so much fun goofing around and hitting milestones and like I was with all these people that I really loved, and that's a really special time.

Yeah, you know.

Yeah, it's like a traveling circus.

It really is.

It's so nice and traveling with your family, Yeah, it really is.

It's fun.

I definitely still have that.

I try to only tour and travel with people I want to hang out.

Yeah, scondwise a drag.

Yeah, we're all so close.

Yeah you have to you have to be yeah, and you have to love everybody that you're around, because yeah, yeah.

Do you have.

You brought a lot a lot of lovely women here today.

I can say, are there any women in your touring.

Crew as well, we have so many like amazing women, and that was something that was really important for me because early on in the touring days, it was just me and the guys and their friends, and so I was, you know, the only woman and.

It can be weird and it can be you know, I can hang with the guys and I love it.

You get really good at yeah you do you learn you start being the dirtiest joke telling Yeah, yeah, totally.

Yeah, but you know, they're just you know, it did get to be a little bit lonely because it felt like, Okay, I'm I'm here with you know, a bunch of a group of best friends and it you know, and so I was hanging out a lot by myself and having a lot of these like solo experiences, and now with so many women on our team, I just I don't know, it's just it's like a different dynamic and I love it, and it was really important for me.

How are your early touring days like, Well, in my early touring days, my bass player was my boyfriend, Oh ok, and we go.

He wrote a lot of songs exactly.

He wrote a lot of songs on my first record, and I had just gotten into songwriting, and then on the second record, we wrote a lot of songs together and it was amazing.

It was it was really nice having it all together.

And at the time, my best friend was in my band, a woman, and she ended up dating the drummer, and so for a long time it was like this crazy Fleetwood Mac.

We didn't know swet Journey, but it was just really fun.

Yeah yeah, I mean there was some stress in the beginning, but once we kind of settled in, it was it was amazing.

We were all best friends and it all kind of imploded.

But if we had gone to therapy probably it would have done a lot better after that.

Sometimes things end at the right time, though.

Yeah, yeah, we had a good time.

I would love to do another song.

Yeah, yeah, I wanted to do Sienna.

Okay, let's do Sienna.

This is a special one.

This is a special one, especially for me.

Yeah, so Sienna, this one is a special one to play today because I shout you out.

Yea and.

Yeah, the song that I'm shouting out is come Away with Me, which we'll play soon.

But your music has just been a part of every single romantic relationship that I've had throughout my life.

So swim.

So I just felt the courage and the need to to call out that song in particular because.

Its pretty cool.

Yeah, getting a call out is the highest flattery.

That's awesome, all right, So I'm gonna yeah, let's just see the intro.

Please tell me not to go.

We've been here long before.

I live and do Hi leaves hello.

Always be.

A lay on your rooftop in the freezing cold, and I'll watch the sunset.

Wearing all your clothes.

I can feel you with me.

Like I did before, Like Quenna sang you a love song by no.

A chance.

See it.

No whould have been cute?

See it.

Would look just like you.

Hi came clean, did feel so good?

Feel see only through you?

Oh wait you tomorrow outside your door like a ded December when you held me close, coming up on your corner, pulling out my hair.

Here the creek and the floorboards, going up the stairs.

See now, who would have been cute?

See we look just like you, with a temper, like you, running around like you, jumping.

In the pool, like you.

Sing to all her pets.

In the way I did be sense it's.

Like you.

And a smile, And I think of all the times we had on the beach in the winter when the waves were mad down by the water.

Crystal clean see her face in the force.

Then it disappears.

I started crying at the beginning.

Sod yeah, that's amazing.

That one's fun to play together.

I know, so pretty, so pretty.

I loved that.

I've never heard it just on piano.

Oh yeah, special usually do guitars, right, Yeah, yeah, it has that good thanks.

I like I like doing that.

It's interesting.

I was I was practicing for this, so I was like, the drum grooves are so key and so good.

It's like, how am I going to get the groove going?

Oh?

No, you got it.

It was great.

Yeah.

I have a great group, super super fun.

I love the lyrics on this song.

It's kind of heartbreaking.

Yeah, they are really heartbreaking and also kind of cutting, like kind of like like that.

I love that.

It's my favorite combo middle finger ye break yeah totally yeah.

Yeah.

I mean it's about a child that will never come to be extra heartbreaking, extra heartbreak, but the little didn't has that little yeah can I totally sly total tongue in cheek.

I love that.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's really beautiful.

Thank you.

Well now we have to do come away with me.

We have to yeah, yes, Oh, oh my god, My, I'm just going to say my all time favorite song.

Oh my god.

It's just such a beautiful, crazy yeah, thank you.

It's kind of the first song I ever wrote that I liked.

I wrote a couple of songs in high school that I you wrote it this in high school?

No, No, I wrote a couple of songs I wish were performing ourts high school, and I encouraged us to write songs, which was so cool.

But I wrote these two songs and I just we ended up recording them because they had recording equipment, which I think was my downfall because I didn't like how it turned out, and I was like, I'm not a good songwriter, oh, you know, like, because I didn't like the way it was.

And when I moved to New York, I started going to see a bunch of singer songwriters the living room.

And I didn't have a piano, of course, because I lived in a tiny apartment.

But I had a crappy little guitar and I knew a few chords, and so I came back after being inspired all night seeing all these songwriters, and I just sat in my room at like three in the morning and I wrote come Away with Me.

Oh.

I wrote it in a notebook with the chord changes over it, and I wrote like one, two, three, one five, Like I tried to notate the notes so I wouldn't forget it because I didn't know how to remember it.

Yeah, that's that's wild.

And I'm pretty sure the original version of it was way better.

But what I remembered is what we have.

Oh my god, No, But isn't that friend?

Because yeah, I'm sure the song is a little bit different than when you first wrote it.

Probably a little different, yea.

But how amazing that you could remember it, I know, because there are moments that you don't remember anything that.

Yeah, that that it's a fleeting song.

It comes in and out of you in like an instant.

And you know, there have been so many songs that that I'll write and they'll be like, oh, how did that go?

And it's just gone forever now, But you know, it was the greatest song in the world.

Some songs are just meant to be ours, Like, yeah, to be experienced just on our own, I think, yes.

But it sure is nice when you can you can share take that inspiration totally, totally.

Yeah, I love imagining you in like your New York apartment, just a guitar, like in the dark, like writing this after just listening to an amazing, amazing shows all night.

It was, you know, one of those quick ones.

Yeah, like, did you feel like you wrote it or do you feel like it kind of like can't like almost like you as a vessel, Like I think the.

Best ones are like that.

Yeah, yeah, those are my favorite ones.

Same.

It's such a weird I definitely wrote it, but yeah, but I mean it came out of nowhere.

It came out of nowhere.

But it's also just so simple.

I like simple songs yeah for that reason.

Yeah, they're easy.

But it's such a beautiful song.

Well, thanks for thanks for liking it.

Yeah, it makes me happy.

Do you want to do you want to trade versus?

Or do you want to sing the whole thing?

No?

No, no, no no no?

What do you want to?

Whatever?

You?

Whatever you want?

Yeah, however you want to sing your song?

Why don't you just sing it and I'll harmonize on the bridges.

You want to do that?

Okay, okay, okay, sure, what do you think?

Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, Cool, I play it pretty different usually, so okay, tell me if this feels okay, Okay, I don't know, see if you can.

You have like an little intro to it.

Yeah, okay, cool, I usually just go like wow, so pretty.

Let's sing it together.

Okay, I'll do the first verse.

Okay, then you want to do the second.

Yeah.

Maybe I should play guitard on it like I wrote it.

Let's try.

I don't know.

Maybe that way it'll be different.

Yeah, like I mean, I mean, the piano is so beautiful.

I played a lot of you know, let's try it.

The guitar sounds so good.

It could be mood, but yes, I love it.

So you want me to take the first Yeah, okay, mm hmmm.

Come away with me and the night, Come away with me and I will.

You?

So come away with me on a post, come away with me with a kid, uh with this and die and walk with you.

I'm a cloudy day and fee swelly yellow grass grows me.

Hi, swun't you try to co come away with me and kiss on a mountain?

So come away with me and never stop.

Levin you.

Die on awake up with a rain.

Fall on its in roof.

While say there in your.

So kids, beautical, come on with me in the night, come away.

With me.

That felt good.

It was pretty.

Yeah, you's so pretty, so pretty.

Oh my god, back to my bedroom.

I know, in the nineteen ninety nine writing this song Wow four in the morning, Wow, sad hopeful girl, it was like I was really writing it to no one in particular, you know, like mister your Future Yeah, like Prince Charmy.

It was basically a song from Prince for your future future love exactly.

That's beautiful.

But I like how open you seem.

Yeah.

I don't find that all people are like that musicians, And I think it's great because you're going to find all kinds of crazy things that way.

Yeah, you're going to catch it all.

You just never know.

Yeah, you never know you're going to catch when you're just open.

Yeah, yeah exactly.

I think that's cool.

My favorite experiences making records have been when I go in with almost just a few ideas but no real songs.

Yeah, and expectations.

Yeah.

I didn't learn how to do that though, until I made that Danger Mouse record and Carly.

It was a good It was a good like maybe eight nine years into my career.

So that was one of my favorite records.

Oh thanks, I remember one of mine too.

Yeah.

Like when it came out Putting Headphones on, I was working at the creative agency I was telling you about I was supposed to be working.

I was like, no, no, no, like, I'm listening to music right now, sad girl music.

I like, put on my dude, not disturb or whatever.

And I was like, I'm listening to this and I it was so beautiful.

Yeah, that was an interesting record.

Did you make that?

We made it in La and I had already known him.

We had done a project together where I sang on his record called Rome, and I asked him to make a record I made called The Fall.

I had all these songs.

Was after a breakup, but the songs were all done and I really wanted them to shine, you know, And I asked him to make it with me, and he said, you know, that's not really how I work.

I'd rather you come in and we just write stuff together.

That's sort of more what I'm good at and what I like to do.

And I was confused by it at first.

I didn't understand it.

I was like, all right, So I made The Fall.

I did all that and then I was like, all right, you want to try something, So we did.

So all of these songs you guys made in the room together.

Yeah, there was a couple of snippets of ideas, but yeah.

That's yeah, that's my favorite way of making music too, just kind of going in without and just seeing seeing what happens.

Yeah, I mean the collaboration between two people, you have trust and openness.

This is the best.

Yeah, I mean I loved that record.

I want to know more.

Oh, you know the dish, the real off my Dish now, Yes, because I relate to a lot of those songs, like I'm like, did we live through a similar experience?

But this is awful record.

You know.

It's funny because and a lot of the recent songs that I'm writing, you know, I think you break up and then the real aftermath of a breakup is when they start.

Seeing someone new.

Yeah, oh you have to deal with it.

So you have to deal with them seeing someone new.

And so a lot of the songs that I'm writing now are from the perspective of like, you know, you're of to the guy, like you're seeing this new person.

But I'm like, I I kind of want to write a song to the girl.

Oh yeah, and be like, hey, maybe look out for a couple of these things mornings.

You know, that's a cool idea.

Did you find into that, like.

You know, playing the songs or touring the songs like after they were so fresh and raw?

Like how is that for you?

Because you know, we wrote the record and then immediately toured it and I couldn't play Sienna for the first really, if you show, I would just like break down.

I was like, I can't do this.

Yeah, it was still so raw.

I could see that it was okay.

I feel like it was a big record cycle push and people kept asking me about it and I just kept putting it to the side and shutting down part of it.

I think at that point it had dissipated a little and I was already seeing someone and I didn't feel as raw about it.

Yeah, but I liked the drama of it, so I leaned into the drama because the drama was dramatic when it was happening.

But yeah, by the time the record came out, none of that felt thick.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's hard though, and also you're together doing yeah yeah yeah, And and like I said, not all of the songs are about you know, I was in a relationship after him and I had broken up.

But you know, that's another dynamic of he knows, Okay, this song's not about me, I have to sing it, oh, per form it knowing who it's about, you know, and so that that's also another part of our dynamic.

That's all that we're getting through, and that's pretty interesting.

That is interesting.

Well, this was the juicy bit.

It was.

Yeah, yeah, well you got it going on though, Are you guys on tour a lot still?

Yeah?

We were doing Latin America for the first time, I know, everywhere kind of We're doing Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Perul I'm not sure, Brazil at Hinthina, Brazil.

Yes, have you been before?

I have.

It's so fun.

Yeah, I heard the fans are like it's just so animated and like, yeah, you're gonna have fun.

Yeah, you're gonna have the best shows probably ever.

Yeah, the worst travel days and some of the best food.

Okay yeah cool yeah, so no good, So no, yeah, I'm excited.

This was really fun.

It was so fun.

Thanks so much for doing Thank you so much for such a pleasure.

I'm so excited for what you guys are going to do next.

Yeah, I'm super super excited.

Awesomeunds, good yay, Oh, thank you so much for listening to Maria's Ardoya.

That was beautiful.

She's great friends for life.

Here are the songs we played in this episode in order.

The first one was called No One Noticed, from the Maria's album Submarine in twenty twenty four.

The second song is called leJOS de Ti, also from that album.

The third song is called Sienna, also from Submarine, and the fourth song was good Old Come Away with Me, my song for my first album that was released in two thousand and two.

Special thanks to Maria Zardoya for joining us today and we'll be back next week with Alessia kra Visit Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there.

Nora Jones Is Playing Along is a production of iHeart Podcasts and I'm your host, Nora Jones.

This episode was recorded by Kyle Pass, mixed by Jamie Landry, video editing by Marcus Rutledge, additional recording by Matt Marinelli.

Audio post production by Greg Tobler.

Artwork by Eliza Frye.

Photography by Shervin Lenaz, Produced by Nora Jones That's Me and Sarah Oda That's Me.

Executive producers Aaron Wang Kaufman and Jordan Runtog.

Marketing lead Queen Ananke