Original subtitles

Okay, so it is 8:30 in the morning.

And, "Why am I awake?" you ask.

Well, it's kind of a long story.

Um, I sort of unexpectedly started writing the new album,

and, at that point, I was just like,

"I'm just writing songs in quarantine," and then they're...

It just became an album really quickly

and really, really kind of beautifully, surprisingly.

And, so...

You can't go into studios now because they're all closed,

and I've never recorded anywhere else.

Um, and I know that other people do this all the time,

so it's actually not that special, but I'm freaking out over it.

We've built a home studio in my house.

And so, it's, like... I'm gonna do vocals today in my house.

It's... I'm very excited about it.

Okay, so over there is where my recording booth is,

and then on the other side of the wall... Laura!

- Hey. - Yeah.

Jack?

Holy shit.

It's like you're right there, but instead, you're in New York.

I'm freaking out. We've never done this.

This is crazy.

-First day we've been in the same room. -Cheers. Yeah.

First moment.

That's so weird.

I think when lockdown happened,

I just found myself completely listless and purposeless and...

That... Then that was in the first three days of it.

And then... And then I remembered

- when we met a year before. - Yeah.

And I'd come to The National show,

and afterward you would come up and talk to me, and you were so nice.

And I was like, "How do you guys write songs?"

You were like, "We all live in different places, so sometimes I'll just make tracks

and send them around and send them to Matt."

And I just kind of thought to myself,

"If there was ever an opportunity to work with someone I was such a fan of

who could work like that, that would be so cool."

Then lockdown happened, and I texted you, and I was like,

"Hey. Would you even wanna work? Do you... Are you in that place right now?"

And I was like, "I don't know if this is a real text.

I'm not sure."

Seemed like a bit? Like a friend...

Well, I was like, "Is someone pretending? No."

I feel like it's also...

One of the reasons why it resonates with me so much is because

in the dismantling of all our systems of life that we've known in the pandemic,

you're left with two options.

You either cling to it and try to make it work

or to just say, "Well, I guess I'm just gonna chart a new path,"

and kinda get a frontier mentality.

And I think it was such a thrilling use of quarantine to say like,

"Well, everything's a blur, so I'm just gonna rewrite it."

Yeah.

I... I didn't even tell my label until a week before we put it out

-that it existed. -What was that call like?

It was amazing.

I thought it was gonna be stressful,

and I thought I was gonna have to kind of stand up,

with shaking hands being like, "I promise I know what I'm doing.

I know that there's not, like, a big single,

and I'm not doing, like, a big pop thing, and I'm not... "

But they... My label was like, "Whatever you wanna make, we're down."

You ready to play this whole thing?

Yeah, no. I... I... I think it's really important that we play it.

I think it will take that for me to realize that it's a real album.

- Seems like a big mirage. - It does.

Never worked on an album like this.

Me neither.

Yeah.

I don't know if I ever will again.

Like, I don't know if it's how albums are meant to be made.

It just worked right now.

There's something about the complete and total uncertainty about life

that causes endless anxiety,

but there's another part that causes sort of a release

of the pressures that you used to feel.

Because if we're going to have to recalibrate everything,

we should start with what we love the most first.

And I think that was what we were sort of unconsciously doing with this.

- Totally. That is it exactly. - Yeah.

If everything's gonna fall apart, then make a record.

And I was so glad that we did because it turned out that,

like, everybody needed a good cry as well as us.

It was funny because I... I feel like you captured the spirit

of the whole record with that song.

With "the 1" in the sense of just the way it opens, um,

"I'm doing good. I'm on some new shit. Been saying 'yes' instead of 'no',"

and I was like, "Is she talking about writing songs with me

and everything else at the same time or something... "

I think it has a new... I think it has a double meaning. The...

Opening the album with the words,

"I'm doing good. I'm on some new shit. Been saying 'yes' instead of 'no'."

Um, it... it applies to the situation that the song is written about where,

you know, you're updating a former lover on what your life is like now

and trying to be positive about it.

But it was also where I am creatively, where it's like, "I'm just saying yes.

I'm just putting out an album in the worst time you could put one out.

I'm just making stuff with someone who I've always wanted to make stuff with

as long as I've been a fan of The National. And...

I'm just gonna say 'yes' to stuff."

-Yeah. -And it worked out.

Beautiful.

- That was so fun. - Yeah.

God. This is such a blast.

This is a real, real damn blast. You know that?

- You know what this is? A real blast. - Yeah, that was beautiful. Yeah.

When you sent me the track for "last great american dynasty,"

I had been wanting to write a song about Rebekah Harkness

since 2013, probably.

And I'd never figured out the right way to do it

because there was never a track that felt like it could,

kinda hold an entire story of somebody's life and whatever

-and move between generations. -Yeah.

Then when I heard that, I was like, "My God. I think this is my opening.

I think this is my moment. I think I can write the Rebekah Harkness story."

That song is such a folklore moment to me

because it's not about you, but it is all about you.

-And it's like... -Well, it's that country music,

kind of, narrative device where in country music it's like...

Totally. Yeah, yeah. "And I was that man that I've been talking about."

Yeah, "I was that kid." Like... Which is the best.

You listen to country songs,

and you're just like, shivers, everywhere. My whole body.

Even though it's not till the very end when you spin it around,

even though the story's about someone else,

I think it's the most revealing thing.

-I think it's... it's so deeply personal. -Aw.

It really hits you in the gut when you hear that at the end.

Thanks.

-It's real good. -Man.

I only wish our other two co-writers were here.

- Who? - Justin Vernon and William Bowery.

Justin is, is, one of the greatest ever.

William, I never got to meet.

There's been a lot of discussion about William Bowery and his identity

'cause... it's not a real person.

It's not?

Jack.

I'm doin' a bit.

A bit. That would've gone on forever.

What?

- Who? - When?

So, William Bowery is Joe, as we know.

And Joe... Joe plays piano beautifully, and he's always just playing

and making things up and kind of creating things.

And "exile" was crazy

'cause Joe had written that entire piano part, that...

And it was singing the Bon Iver part. The...

Jesus.

-And I... -Lyrics too?

-Yeah, he was just singing it... -Jesus.

...the way that the whole first verse is.

- Wow. - And so, I was entranced

and asked if, um, we could keep writing that one.

It was pretty obvious that it should be a duet

'cause he's got such a low voice and it sounded really good

-sung down there and in that register. -Yeah.

And then, um, we're really, really, really big Bon Iver fans. And, you know.

-So cool. -We know that Aaron knows him.

But we're... I... I was too afraid to suggest it.

But, I just... When I sent it to Aaron, I was like,

"This is, hopefully a duet. We... I don't know who with.

Who would it be with? Who do you think would be good with this?"

And Aaron was like, "I think Justin would love this."

You're like, "Okay, that could be interesting."

-I couldn't say it. I couldn't say it. -Really? Is that really what happened?

No, I couldn't say it with words.

Because if I would have said it and he would have gone to Justin,

and Justin would've said no, it would've hurt too much.

Interesting.

When we talked about it, I was like,

"I think he's gonna be really inspired by this."

And then we sent it to him, and he was.

And then the process of working on it and what he sent back.

And he wrote... Like, we didn't ask him to write anything,

-but he wrote this, like... -Yeah. He wrote this amazing bridge.

He wrote...

...and like, that whole bit.

I kept thinking, "This isn't really going to happen.

Like, Justin is going to change his mind about this

because this isn't a part of my reality.

There's no way that this is going to happen.

He's gonna record the vocals

and then decide he doesn't want to be on the record."

And then, it just never... That just never happened.

Like, he just is on the album, and he's just the coolest,

and that's what's happening.

Where do we start? I mean, to me the whole thing starts

with "my tears ricochet."

Yeah. Chronologically, that's the first thing.

I wrote that one alone.

And it's definitely, I think, one of the saddest songs on the album.

Yeah. I think it's one of the best songs you've written.

Aw, thanks.

Which is I think why you crowned it as a track five.

Yeah, picking a track five is sort of a pressurized decision,

but I knew from day one this was probably gonna be it.

-Um, it's kind of a song about karma. -Yeah.

It's a song about greed.

It's a song about how somebody could be your best friend

and your companion and your most trusted person in your life

and then they could go and become your worst enemy

who knows how to hurt you because they were once your most trusted person.

-It's the worst betrayal. -Yeah.

It does remind me of people going through a divorce

and having that person that they swore to be with forever

then become the person that they spend most of their time talking shit about.

Yeah, and it is that ultimate betrayal when someone,

you know, messed you up from the inside.

Writing this song, it kind of occurred to me

that in all of the superhero stories,

the hero's greatest nemesis is the villain that used to be his best friend.

-Yeah. -Um, that sort of thing.

When you think about that, you think about

how there's this beautiful moment in the beginning of a friendship

where these people have no idea that one day they'll hate each other

and try to really take each other out.

-Yeah. -I mean, that's really sad and terrible.

But that's the bird's eye view quality of the song that I think is so unique

because they're both great, but sometimes you write, like, very in the moment.

And you're like, "This happened, and this is how I feel."

I love that, but this song,

which is interesting that it's the first one that happened

because I think it became a huge theme on the album, is it's very pulled back.

It's very pulled back and commenting on the whole experience of it.

Um...

It's very powerful to me.

In folklore, there are a lot of songs that reference each other or lyrical parallels,

and one of the ones that I like is the entire song "this is me trying"

then being referenced again in "mirrorball,"

which is, "I've never been a natural. All I do is try."

Yeah, I remember that being an interesting one for you to actually put down.

'Cause I remember you said it, and you did it, and you were like,

-"Should I say that? Should I... " -I was like, "Is that too true? Is that... "

And I think with "mirrorball," sometimes when I'm writing to an instrumental track,

I'll push play, and I'll immediately see a scene set.

And this was one of those cases where I just saw, you know,

lonely disco ball, twinkly lights, neon signs,

people drinking beer by the bar,

um, a couple of stragglers on the dance floor.

Just sort of a sad, moonlit, lonely experience

in the middle of a town that you've never been.

And I just was thinking,

"Okay, so we have mirrorballs in the middle of a dance floor

because they reflect light.

They are broken a million times, and that's what makes them so shiny.

We have people like that in society too.

They hang there, and every time they break, it entertains us."

-Yeah. -And...

"And when you shine a light on them, it's this glittering, fantastic thing,

but then a lot of the time when the spotlight isn't on them

they're still there, up on a pedestal, but nobody's watching them."

It's a myth we love, and then we create it for people.

Yeah. It's the whole...

-Like, "Do the broken thing." -Do the broken thing.

"Make it fun. Now make it sad. Now make it cool. Now make it sad."

-Yeah, but when the light's off, be okay. -Yeah.

It was a metaphor for celebrity, but it's also a metaphor

for so many people who have to feel, like...

Everybody else feels like they have to be on for certain people.

For... You have to be different versions of yourself for different people.

Different versions at work, different versions around friends,

different versions of yourself around different friends.

Different version of yourself around family.

-Yeah. -Everybody has to be duplicitous, um...

or feels that they have to, in some ways, be duplicitous.

And that's part of the human experience, but it's also exhausting.

And you kind of learn

that every one of us has the ability to become a shape-shifter.

-Totally. -But what does that do to us?

And it also is the first time, and one of the only times,

that the time that we're living through is actually lyrically addressed.

Um, I think that, you know, the pandemic and lockdown and all that

runs through this album like a thread because it's an album

that allows you to feel your feelings, and it's a product of isolation.

It's a product of all this, you know, rumination on

what we are as humans, blah, blah, blah.

But this is the first time in the bridge saying,

"They called off the circus, burned the disco down

when they sent home the horses and the rodeo clowns."

I wrote this song right after I found out all my shows were canceled.

And it's like I'm still on that tightrope.

I'm still trying everything to keep you... to get you laughing at me.

So, it's like, I realize, here I am writing all this music, still trying,

and I know I have an excuse to sit back and not do something,

but I'm not, and I can't,

-and I don't know why that is. -You don't get it.

But that's what makes it, to me, a great piece of pandemic-time work,

is that it's not about the pandemic.

It's about the experience of what happens to an artist

when you're living through a pandemic.

-Yeah. You start there... You start... -You start to dream.

Yep.

With "seven," the song, I was looking back on it.

I've always wondered...

When I see a kid throwing a massive tantrum in a grocery store,

part of me is like, "Man, I feel you."

Like, "When did I stop doing that when I was upset?"

Like, "When did I stop being so outraged that I would throw myself on the floor

and throw the cereal at my mom?"

Well, it also doesn't stop, but where does it go?

-Yeah. -That feeling.

Like, we're still having that feeling, but what is it now?

Yeah, so the idea is, you know, please picture me before I learn civility.

Like, I used to scream anytime I wanted.

Obviously, you know, we can't be throwing tantrums all the time,

and we learn that that's not the right thing to do,

but there's something lost there too.

It's a weird experience, to work with you.

And now Aaron can understand it.

No, I'm serious because it's like,

"Here's the song. Wait, here's the bridge.

Wait, here's a better bridge. Okay, now I have the perfect bridge.

Then here's a thing after the bridge, and this thing's gonna come in... "

I wrote that in the vocal booth.

Yes! So there's series of...

And so... But hearing the patchwork of that whole thing coming together,

I was just like, um...

I just love what you did on that song.

-It takes me away. -Thanks. I love what you did on that song.

And I've been kinda in my head, like, calling the girl from "august"

- either Augusta or Augustine. - Nice.

-I've been naming her that in my head. -Well, that changes things for me.

Cause she's really nameless to me, but now it's forever changed.

What happened in my head was,

okay, so "cardigan" is Betty's perspective from,

like, 20 to 30 years later, looking back on this love

that was this tumultuous thing.

In my head, I think Betty and James ended up together.

-Right? -Interesting.

So, in my head, she ends up with him, but he really put her through it.

But, like, "august" was obviously about

the girl that James had this summer with, right?

So she seems like she's a bad girl, but really, she's not a bad girl.

She's, like, really a sensitive person who really fell for him.

And she was trying to seem cool and seem like she didn't care

because that's what girls have to do.

And she was trying to let him think that she didn't care,

but she really did, and she thought they had something very real.

And then he goes back to Betty.

So the idea that there's some, like, some bad, villain girl

in any type of situation who, like, takes your man

is actually a total myth because that's not usually the case at all.

Like, everybody has feelings and wants to be seen and loved,

and just, like, Augustine, that's all she wanted was love.

That's what I love about "august" is, like, it's not a dream.

Even though it sort of sounds like it. Like, it feels...

The situation feels very close to me.

-Like, getting swept up like that. -Yeah.

That whole song started with the fact that I had written down in my phone,

"Meet me behind the mall" years ago, wanting to write it into a song.

I loved that.

I'd been thinking about addiction, and I'd been thinking about people who,

if they're either suffering through mental illness

or they're suffering through addiction or they have an everyday struggle.

No one pats them on the back every day,

but every day they are actively fighting something.

But there are so many days that nobody gives them credit for that.

-Yeah. -And so,

how often must somebody who's in that sort of internal struggle

must wanna say to everyone in the room,

"You have no idea how close I am to going back to a dark place,"

-or, "You have no idea." -Yeah.

"You have no idea how hard it is to get to the point

-where you guys think is still shitty." -Yes.

Like, I think about that a lot. Like...

The idea of... the idea of doing your best, or trying,

is one that only a person knows, and you know when you're doing it.

And it's so hard, which is what I get from that song,

when you're doing your damn best, and it's not good enough.

-Yep. -And it rarely is.

-Yeah. -Um...

But it's, you know, it's a very isolating feeling

which, I think, is funny

'cause it actually is the thing that binds all of us.

Cause we're all doing our best and feeling like it's not even close to good enough.

Yeah, I had this idea that the first verse would be

about someone who is in sort of a life crisis

and has just been trying and failing

and trying and failing in their relationship,

has been messing things up with the people they love,

has been letting everyone down,

and kind of has driven to this overlook, this cliff,

and is just in the car going, "I could, like...

I could do whatever I want in this moment, and it could affect everything forever."

But this person backs up and drives home, and...

Yeah, I love that. The idea that not driving off the cliff is an act of trying.

Yeah.

Which is almost the ultimate act of trying.

Yeah. And then the second verse is about...

um, you know, someone who felt like they had a lot of potential in their life.

I think there are a lot of mechanisms for us in our school days,

in high school or college, to excel and to be patted on the back for something.

And then I think a lot of people get out of school

and there are less abilities for them to get gold stars.

And then you have to make all these decisions and pave your own way,

and there's no set class course you can take, and there's...

And, I think a lot of people feel really swept up in that.

And so I was thinking about this person who is really lost in life

and then starts drinking and every second is trying not to.

Yeah.

This was the first album that I've ever let go of that need

to be 100% autobiographical

because I think I felt like I needed to do that,

and I felt like fans needed to hear,

like, a stripped-from-the-headlines account of my life.

And actually, it ended up being a bit confining

because there's so much more to writing songs

than just what you're feeling in your singular story line.

And this was the first time that I ever was like...

I think it was spurred on by the fact that I was watching movies every day.

I was reading books every day.

I was thinking about other people every day.

I was kind of outside of my own personal stuff.

And so I ended up just, like...

I think that's been my favorite thing about this album,

is that it's allowed to exist on its own merit without it just being,

"People are listening to this

because it tells them something that they could read in a tabloid."

Interesting.

It... It to me fees like... it feels like a completely different experience.

So, "invisible string."

When I first heard the track that you sent me,

I thought, "I have to write something that matches it,"

and pretty quickly I came upon the idea of fate.

'Cause sometimes I just, you know, go into a rabbit hole

of thinking of how things happen, and I kind of love the romantic idea

that every step you're taking,

you're taking one step closer to where you're supposed to be.

You know, guided by this little, like, invisible string.

I remember when I bought this little guitar that has a rubber ridge,

which you have one now too, but it has this like...

Yeah. You got me one and sent it to me, and it was, like...

I couldn't believe opening up this, like, beautiful...

Is it a '50s guitar?

-It is from the late '50s... -Wow.

...and it's been, like, renovated

so that the bridge deadens the strings, and it sounds really old.

And it just really kind of writes songs for you, in a way,

'cause it's so fun to play.

And that was the first one that I wrote with it,

and then you wrote this incredible song that is all about fate,

and that was another moment where I just felt there was this serendipity...

happening between us and crazy chemistry.

As far as, like... You took exactly what I had written,

and it was as though we wrote it together in a room, or something.

I remembered I wrote it right after I sent an ex a baby gift.

And I was just like, "Man, life is great."

And I just remember thinking this is a full signifier that life is great.

"mad woman."

The first time I heard that piano thing you had written,

I just felt like... It's got these sort of ominous strings underneath it.

And I was like, "This is female rage."

Like, "This is a song about female rage. It has to be."

Like, "I have to figure out how to make this about female rage."

And then I was thinking...

the most rage-provoking element of being a female

is the gaslighting that happens when,

you know, for centuries we've been expected to absorb male behavior silently.

Right? Silent absorption of whatever any guy decides to do.

And, oftentimes when we, in our enlightened state

and our emboldened state, now, respond to bad male behavior

or somebody just doing something that was absolutely out of line,

and we respond,

that response is treated like the offense itself.

Yeah.

You know, there's been situations with...

recently, with somebody who's very guilty of this in my life,

and it's a person who makes me feel,

or tries to make me feel, like I'm the offender

by having any kind of defense to his offenses.

It's like, "I have absolutely no right to respond or I'm crazy.

I have no right to respond or I'm angry.

I have no right to respond or I'm out of line."

So you were providing the musical bed for me to make that point

that I've been trying so hard to figure out.

How do I say that... How do I say why this feels so bad?

I think I really felt like there should be a string moment on the album

because we were towards the end of it, and it was all very piano and acoustic.

And you're so good with string arrangements,

and, you know, Bryce is... I mean, a genius.

And I kinda felt like there should be a moment where

there's a song that was unlike anything I'd done before

and could really exercise that muscle that I know that you have.

And I couldn't... When I heard it, I remember thinking,

"Maybe I wanna tell a sports story."

'Cause I had just watched The Last Dance, and I was...

and I was thinking all in terms of sports

and winners and underdogs and things like that, but actually,

what I had been doing really frequently

up until that point was I had been doing a lot of research on my grandfather

who fought in World War II at Guadalcanal.

Which was an extremely bloody battle,

and, you know, he never talked about it.

Not with his sons, not with his wife.

Nobody got to hear about what happened there.

And so, my dad had to do a lot of research,

and he and his brothers did a lot of digging

and found out that my granddad was exposed

-to some of the worst situations... -Fighting, yeah.

...you could ever imagine as a human being.

And so, I kind of tried to imagine what would happen

in order to make you just never be able to speak about something.

When I was thinking about that, I realized that...

that there are people, right now, you know,

taking a twenty-minute break in between shifts at a hospital,

who are having this kind of trauma happen to them right now,

that they will probably never want to speak about.

You know?

And so, I just kind of thought, like,

this is an opportunity to maybe tell that story.

The way you weave that together,

where there's remembrance

and bearing witness to your family's history,

but then recognition of who the heroes are today.

It's so moving. And I tried...

The sense of harmony in that song is really different than other songs.

And again, it was as though we did it in the same room

-and worked out the chords and everything. -Yeah.

And how you sing to it feels different than any other song.

It was another moment where it just felt like I was just thankful to be a musician.

Or like, "This is why I play music." You know, something like...

Yeah, I felt that way with this song too,

where it was just like, "How did this slot into place and come together?"

I often feel with this album,

there have been times in my life where things have fallen apart so methodically,

um, and I couldn't control how things were going wrong,

and nothing I did stopped it.

And I felt like I'd just just been pushed out of a plane

and was, like, scratching at the air on the way down,

and I felt like the universe is just doing its thing.

It's just dismantling my life, and there's nothing I can do.

And this is a weird situation where ever since I started making music with you,

I felt like that was the universe forcing things to fall into place perfectly,

-and there was nothing I could do. -Yeah.

It's one of those weird things that makes you think about life a lot,

where this lockdown could've been a time where I absolutely lost my mind,

and instead I think this album was a real floatation device for both of us.

One of my favorite things about this record is the fact that

there's this trilogy of three.

The trinity of "betty," "august" and "cardigan" are all, like...

We made "august" together. We made "cardigan" together.

- We all three made "betty" together. - It's perfect.

And "betty" was... I just heard Joe singing

the entire fully formed chorus of "betty" from another room.

Yeah.

And I just was like, "Hello."

You're like, "I do this professionally."

-Hello. -"I'd love to have a conversation."

It was a step that we would never have taken

because why would we have ever written a song together?

I thought you were doing a bit when you were like, "Joe and I wrote a song."

Then I was like, "What?" I thought it was gonna be, like,

you know, people write cute songs about their animals, in relationships.

And then you're like, "No, no, we wrote a real song"

and I was like, "What?" Then you sent it to me, I was like...

So this was the first time we had a conversation,

where I came in and I was like, "Hey,

this could be really weird, and we could hate this,

so because we're in quarantine and there's nothing else going on,

could we just try to see what it's like if we write this song together?"

So, he was singing the chorus of it, and I thought it sounded really good

from a man's voice, from a masculine perspective.

And I really liked that it seems to be an apology.

And I've written so many songs from a female's perspective

of wanting a male apology

that we decided to make it from a teenage boy's perspective

apologizing after he loses the love of his life

because he's been foolish.

Allegedly.

No, he's been foolish.

No, according to the Internet, we don't know what it's about.

-He's been foolish. -No, I mean...

We wrote it. I'm confirming. He's been foolish. He was a fool.

I don't know who William Bowery is, so yeah, okay.

With the song "peace," when you sent me this instrumental,

the first word that I thought of

was this is what peace sounds like.

It's got this, you know, this amazing bass line

that just made me feel like, "This is serenity. This is peace."

And then I was thinking, maybe you just start with the obvious

and think about how that could be told in an interesting way

that kind of goes against the title.

Like, "I could never give you peace,"

over the most peaceful sounding instrumental track.

Yeah. That's why I sent it to you 'cause you kinda said,

"Send me everything, including the most off-the-wall idea you have,"

um, and then you were able to write a song,

which, not only does it, like, have such a beautiful...

It's just such a beautiful love song in recognition of the kind of, like...

insecurity in any relationship that, like, "Will this actually...

Will I be able to give you peace? Will you be at rest with me,

even though, you know, whatever comes?"

-Yeah. -Um, but you also trace the bridge.

When I heard the bridge,

and that you traced all the weird timing and weird chord changes,

it just felt like, "Okay, we can do anything.

We might be able to do anything," or something. You know, this is a...

Like, it pushed the collaboration forward at that moment.

Where I was like, "Okay, so this is a weird race. Let's just... "

Yeah. I think this is a song that's extremely personal to me

because there are times when I feel like,

with everything that's in my control,

I can make myself seem like someone who doesn't have an abnormal life.

And I try that every day.

Every day it's like, "How do I make myself,

among my friends and family and my loved ones,

not see this big elephant that's in the room for a normal life?"

Because I don't want the elephant in the room.

-Yeah. -You know?

If you're gonna be in my life, I feel like there's a certain amount

that comes with it that I can't stop from happening.

I can't stop from you getting a call in the morning that says, you know,

the tabloids are writing this today.

I can't help it if there's a guy with a long lens camera

two miles away with a telescope lens taking pictures of you.

I can't stop those things from happening.

And so, this song was basically, like, is it enough?

Is the stuff that I can control enough

to sort of block out the things that I can't?

-Yeah. -Um...

So, it makes me really, like, really emotional to hear this song

and to know that a lot of people related to it

who aren't talking about the same things that I'm talking about.

They're talking about human complexity.

Yeah. I love that about the record in general and this song specifically.

'Cause to me, it's about...

I have, in my life, suffered from depression,

and I'm a hard person to be in a relationship with

or be married to because I go up and down.

And I can't help it. It's a chemical thing that happens sometimes.

And music is a way of dealing with that for me.

Um, and just somehow the song captures the fragility of what that's like

to be in a relationship with someone who may or may not have peace

or may... But that's, again, my interpretation.

And someone who you would wanna provide with peace.

-Yeah. -You know, someone that you love,

so you want them to have as much peace in their life as possible

and reconciling the fact that you might not be their best option for that,

-but is it still a deal they wanna take? -Yeah.

Okay, the word hoax is another word that I love

'cause I love that it has an "x," and I love the way that it looks,

and I love the way it sounds.

I think with this song being the last song on the album,

it kind of embodied all the things that this album was thematically.

Like confessions, um, incorporating nature,

emotional volatility and ambiguity at the same time,

sort of love that isn't just easy.

And it's the most symbolic, poetic thing

listing all these things that this person is to you.

And I remember I asked you for advice on this one.

You did. I think you didn't... I think...

Like, to you it meant different things,

and that was a moment of, like, doubt or something.

And I said... I think I said,

"What if not all of these feelings are about the same person?

What if I'm writing about several different, very fractured situations?"

Like, one is about love,

and one is about a business thing that really hurt,

and one is about a sort of relationship that I consider to be family,

but that really hurt.

Yeah, and I remember...

-This is one of the moments... -You referenced Matt.

Yeah. When Matt, you know, The National and Matt Berninger...

Often songs are about more than one thing or many sides of a coin.

And I just love that, and I kind of thought,

"This is... This feels different, and it also feels... "

Um, I kinda like the fact that you weren't totally sure.

I definitely had the moment of doubt.

I had the moment of like, "I don't usually do this.

I usually know exactly what I'm writing about."

Um, and I was really happy when you kinda pushed me forward like,

"Nope, do the thing that makes you uncomfortable."

Because I think that's what makes it a song that really, to me, stands out.

That line about, "you know it still hurts underneath my scars

from when they pulled me apart." Anyone in my life knows

-what I'm singing about there, but it... -"But what you did was just as dark."

Everybody has that situation in their life

where it's, like, you let someone in and they get to know you,

and they know exactly what buttons to push to hurt you the most.

Yeah.

That thing where the scar healed over, but it's still painful.

They still have phantom pain.

Yeah.

I think the part that sounds like love to me is,

"Don't want no other shade of blue but you.

No other sadness in the world would do."

It sounds like... To me, that sounds like what love really is.

Like, "Who would you be sad with?

And who would you deal with when they were sad?"

And like, "Gray skies every day for months, would you still stay?"

Yeah.

One, two. One...

I think "the lakes" sort of sounds like a testament

of what I've wanted to escape from

and where I saw myself escaping.

Um, we'd gone to the Lake District in England, a couple years ago.

What is the Lake District?

It's in England, and, you know, in the 19th century,

you had a lot of poets like William Wordsworth,

and John Keats would spend a lot of time there.

There was a poet district, these artists that moved there,

and they were kind of heckled for it and made fun of for it

as being these eccentrics and these kind of odd, um, odd artists

who decided that they just wanted to live there.

And I remembered when we went, I thought,

"Man, I could see this.

You know, you live in a cottage,

and you've got wisteria growing up the outside of it,

and you just...

Of course they escaped like that. Of course they would do that."

And they had their own community of other artists who had done the same thing.

And then, I've always, in my career, since I was probably about 20,

written about this sort of cottage backup plan that I have.

-You've been writing about that forever. -I've been writing about it forever.

You've been writing about getting out forever.

Yeah. So "the lakes" is really talking a lot about

relating to people who, hundreds of years ago,

had the same exit plan and did it. And they went and did it.

I went to William Wordsworth's grave

and just sat there, and I was like, "Wow, you went and did it."

-Yeah. -"You just did it.

You just went away, and you kept writing,

but you didn't subscribe to the things that were killing you."

You left those things behind in a real way.

And that's really the overarching thing that I felt

when I was writing folklore is,

I may not be able to go to the Lakes right now,

or to go anywhere, but I'm going there in my head,

-and this escape plan is working. -Well, you have your version of it.

That, to me, is the hope in this body of work is that

it's not, "I can't do this. I'm out."

It's, "I've found something worth escaping with."

-And a person to escape with. -And a person.

And, to me, that's a huge, sincere statement of hope

that everything I'm naming is completely small compared to this love.

Yeah, it's the perfect...

I thought it would be the perfect way to slot the last puzzle piece in,

right when people least expected it.

Yeah.

Um, because "hoax" as the ending song for the record,

I thought was interesting for a couple weeks,

but then I wanted to actually come in with the real last song of the record,

which is this song that... "the lakes," which shows you exactly what...

It kinda is the overarching theme of the whole album,

of trying to escape, having something you wanna protect,

trying to protect your own sanity,

and saying, "Look, they did this hundreds of years ago.

I'm not the first person who's felt this way. They did this."

It's a really potent statement right now.

I think the idea of getting away and figuring out

how to remove the things that are not working in one's life

is the story of this time.

-Yeah. -If you're not thinking about that,

I don't know what you're thinking about.

That oughta do it.

Beautiful.

Whiskey?

This way to the whiskey.

So the record was recorded here, my studio, and your house.

Yes.

Did you give it a name?

Yes. Think it's called Kitty Committee Studios on the album?

It works.

It does, 'cause I've got cats fighting in the background, on the bed.

There was a big cat vibe, yeah.

And then the cats were the only people...

- Laura kept getting cats. - The cats were going in and out

because if I were to close the door on them,

- they'd meow. - Yeah.

So they need to be able to be free-range cats.

- Yes. - Yeah, cage-free.

Guys. Stop it. Stop. Stop!

Benjamin always starts it, and Olivia always finishes it.

He's twice her size, but she's an amazing fighter. Look at her.

It's usually Benjamin and Olivia that have lots of...

I call them the marshmallow wars.

No one's gonna get hurt, but there's a lot of...

There's a lot of this.

It was bizarre.

It really was bizarre,

but it was, at the same time, my favorite recording experience.

Yeah. I mean, it's just a very cool way to have made an album.

Yeah, it really is.