Category: 3-MusicSometimeTalk

In 1968, singer and songwriter Graham Nash joined David Crosby and Stephen Stills to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. All of them had already been in successful bands: Graham Nash had been in The Hollies; David Crosby was in The Byrds; and Stephen Stills was in Buffalo Springfield. The next year, Neil Young joined them, to make Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The four of them released Deja Vu in 1970, and that album was a huge success. It sold over 8 million copies. It includes the song “Our House,” and for this episode, I spoke to Graham Nash about the making of that song, and the relationship that led to the song.

For more, visit songexploder.net/crosby-stills-nash-and-young.

For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the fourth and final part of a multi-episode look at the song “Sympathy for the Devil” and the career of the Rolling Stones. This episode covers January through December 1969, and may distress some listeners as it deals with murder, drowning, attempted suicide, and miscarriage. It’s not a happy episode.

Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.

Patreon backers also have a twenty-two-minute bonus episode, on “La Conferencia Secreta del Toto’s Bar” by Los Shakers.

Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/

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Pharrell Williams is—well, let me just say, he’s a big reason why Song Exploder exists. He’s a singer, songwriter and producer, and in the 90s, when I first heard the work that he was doing with the Neptunes, which was his production duo with Chad Hugo, it blew my mind. It made me want to know where those sounds came from and where those ideas came from. Pharrell has won 13 Grammys. He’s been nominated for two Oscars. He’s produced iconic songs for Kendrick Lamar, Britney Spears, Clipse, Gwen Stefani, and so many others. And on his own, he’s made songs like “Happy,” the giant hit for Despicable Me that was the best-selling song of 2014. And now, there’s a movie about his life called Piece by Piece. But it’s an animated Lego film. For this episode, I talked to Pharrell about the title song from Piece By Piece. So, coming up, you'll hear how Pharrell built that song, including a first draft that never saw the light of day. You’ll hear how he built “Piece by Piece” by programming it, on his own, with MIDI instruments, and then adding and replacing those parts with other musicians, including the high school marching band that he used to play in. 

For more, visit songexploder.net/pharrell.

Jon Batiste is a pianist, songwriter, and composer from New Orleans. He’s been nominated for multiple Grammys, and just won the Golden Globe and got an Oscar nomination for the soundtrack to the Pixar film Soul, which he composed along with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Jon is also a recipient of the American Jazz Museum’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and on weeknights, you can see him as the bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In March 2021, he put out his new album, We Are. But the title track from it actually came out much earlier, in June 2020. In this episode, Jon talks about how he drew from his roots, both at a personal level and at a cultural level, and wove all of it into the song.

For more, visit songexploder.net/jon-batiste.

For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the third part of a multi-episode look at the song “Sympathy for the Devil” and the career of the Rolling Stones. This episode covers so much though , even though it only takes us from February 1967 through December 1968, that by itself it is one of the longer episodes of the podcast (hence the longer-than-usual delay between parts two and three).

Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.

Patreon backers also have a fifty-minute bonus episode, on “I Think it’s Going to Rain Today” by Randy Newman.

Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/

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Troye Sivan is a singer and songwriter from Australia. He’s been nominated for a Golden Globe, two Grammys, and he’s won four of Australia’s ARIA awards. His song “My My My!” was a #1 hit on the Billboard Dance Chart, and his third album, Something to Give Each Other, was one of Billboard’s picks for the best albums of 2023. Troye’s also an actor; he was in the HBO series The Idol, which figures into the story that he tells about this song. Troye came to the studio and we talked about how he made one of his big hits, the song “One of Your Girls.” For that song, he worked with two of his longtime collaborators: his frequent songwriting partner, Leland, and producer Oscar Görres. 

For more, visit songexploder.net/troye-sivan.

Beabadoobee is an award-winning singer and songwriter from England who’s been releasing music since 2017. Her third album is called This Is How Tomorrow Moves. It came out in August 2024 and went to #1 on the UK charts. She made the album with her bandmate Jacob Bugden and with producer Rick Rubin at his studio, Shangri-La, in Malibu. And for this episode, I talked to Bea about a song from that album called “Coming Home.”

For more, visit songexploder.net/beabadoobee. 

Remi Wolf is a singer and songwriter originally from Palo Alto, California. She’s been releasing music since 2019. She performed at Coachella in 2023, and has toured with Olivia Rodrigo, Lorde, and Paramore. Her second album, Big Ideas, came out in July 2024. I talked to Remi about how she and her collaborators wrote and produced the song “Soup.” How they used 80s gear to make 80s sounds, and how a fun anthem quickly turned into something pretty vulnerable.

For more, visit songexploder.net/remi-wolf. 

For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a multi-episode look at the song “Sympathy for the Devil” and the career of the Rolling Stones. This episode takes us from April 1966 through to the release of “Let’s Spend the Night Together”/”Ruby Tuesday”

Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.

Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode, on “Laurel Canyon Home” by John Mayall.

Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/

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For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a multi-episode look at the song “Sympathy for the Devil” and the career of the Rolling Stones. This episode takes us from the release of “Satisfaction” through to the release of “Paint it Black”.

Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.

Patreon backers also have a nineteen-minute bonus episode, on “Amen Brother” by the Winstons.

Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/

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