Aoife O'Donovan

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, I'm Nora Jones and today I'm playing along with Eva O'Donovan. I'm just playing along with you. I'm just playing along with you. Hey, welcome to the show. I'm Nora Jones and with me as always is Sarah Oda. Hello, I love how you always point to me when you say that. Nobody can see you. I know. But I can. There you are. Our guest today is the wonderful, poignant storyteller, singer, songwriter and guitar player, Eva O'Donovan. She's had a solo career for quite some time, but you may know her from her bands, Cricket Still, Sometimes Why and I'm with her. She's collaborated with several artists, including Ola Bell, Chris Thiele and the Punch Brothers, the Milk Carton Kids, Yo-Yo Ma, Jerry Douglas, several orchestras. And she's joined Garrison Keeler on his a Prairie Home companion tours. And she is, I don't really know how to say it. You want to say bad A to the S asterix, don't you? But I'm not going to say it because we are not explicit. We don't want to get explicit today. But she is really cool. She's a bad Mamma Jamma. She's a bad Mamma Jamma. There you go. Yeah, she is very cool, but that doesn't sound cool. So she's a bad Mamma Jamma. She's cooler than us, basically. She's amazing musician. And I had so much fun getting it. Her music is hard. A F. No, but her music was definitely hard. And so it was really fun to get inside of it and challenging and just so fun to play with her. I was nervous because the music was a little bit more on the complicated side. But then, you know, it always just the chemistry happens. And then it always comes together and she's just so great. And I'm glad she's now our friend. Yeah, yeah. Her solo album, All My Friends came out in 2024. You'll hear some songs from that in the episode. And her latest album, I'm With Her, titled Wild and Clear and Blue came out in May of 2025. In this episode, you're also going to hear a new take on a familiar song. So stay tuned for that. Oh, yeah, we bust out of cover. Hope you have fun with us. Please enjoy Ifa O'Donovan. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. Oh, part of it. Yeah, I used to date a guy from Air. Air Mass. Air Mass. How close is that to Newton? Air is kind of like in the schticks. OK. It's like out route, too. Not that far. Maybe like 45 minutes. Yeah, 40 minutes. Newton is right. Just outside of Boston, like on the tee. You don't have a mass accent. I don't because my dad was from Ireland. I was going to say, how Irish are you actually? Well, actually only 50 percent Irish, but. But my dad was from Ireland. My mom is from Boston and has a really thick Boston accent. That's awesome. I kind of have that in between, like not Boston. My mom is this. My dad was this and the kids are all kind of neutral. How many kids? Four kids. OK. Yeah, oldest of four. Oh, you're the oldest? Yes. Nice. And my sister is the youngest and two brothers in between. The boy sandwich. It is. And there's a big gap. My three of us are kind of all born at almost at once. My brother, Kieran, is like 20 months younger than me. And then my brother, Aiden, is two and a half years younger than that. So the three of us were like, you know, six, five and three. And then my sister was born when I was 10 and a half. Oh, wow. So she's like your little baby. She was. But we're and it's really funny because now we're we're so close. Like we're best, best, best friends. And we talk on the phone like a hundred times a day and we're just like and it's great. Like we have such a great relationship and it's funny. Now people like being worried about the gaps of their kids and yeah, you know, and I was told people like, I mean, people always ask because my kids are close together. But yeah, I don't think it matters. They're going to figure it out or they're not. Or they're not exactly. And you can't really like you can't like. Like you can't guarantee if people are going to be close or not. But I'm really close with all of my siblings. Great. And it's I mean, it's like a loud, crazy, intense family of people who like to shout at each other, but it's like with a lot of. OK, it's like that kind of vibe. That kind of vibe, like a movie should be made. Yes, like not as crazy as the bear scene. It's like that was that was too much. Like, but it's like it's like a more tempered, like positive version of that. OK. Yeah, that's cool. You want to play a guitar? Yeah, I didn't know. Get out. What do you want to play first? Galahad. Oh, yeah. I really haven't played this on in like a long time. Good, because I've never played it. Right. OK, yeah. The piano part on this, like I'm playing piano on the record. Oh, it's so funny. I was really trying to like please sound like Bruce Warnesby. Oh, that's so funny. It's like, yeah, it kind of has that vibe. I'm like trying to channel. Like my one of my goals in life is to try to be more like Bruce Warnesby. He's awesome in general. Yeah. And Bruce Warnesby live. Is like the most risk taking guy. Like I feel like his musicality is so off the cuff, but it's so good. Yeah. And he's always going for it and like always doing these like weird things and lands them almost all the time. And then when he doesn't, he's just like moves on from it. It's just I just love seeing shows like that where you feel like the performers like, yeah. I don't know, taking some risks. Well, it's alive. It's exactly. It's alive. It's alive. Music that is not alive is not interesting to me. Same. Same. And it's like, yeah, I want to get a W.W.B.H.D. bracelet. People are like, but is that me? What does that mean? What would Bruce Warnesby do? Thanks for explaining. Yeah. You're getting one. Yeah. I'm going to get one today. I'm going to leave here and go to a bead store. Noted. Somebody's going to send you one after this. You got a gold heart. I got a black one. Baby, I sting like a scorpion. So here I'm hustling the old oak trees. An ancient voice, him humming. It's me. Boomer has it stronger than a hundred men. But it's my word against innocent. I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive. You use unjoyable nonsense Your space is cold and living dreams I'll return a piece, lilies of eternal peace, lilies lilies I'll get over it when the morning comes Biding your base, latching towards Babylon Not all the prizes need it Sitting right behind you, singing in your ear Still you look it out into the city You see, we're up above that goes like grails of free I'm a lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover I'm a lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover You're a white knight on a dark horse Oh, get the head I wanna be yours Did you write it in Old Tongue or did all that album come together just right before that time? Right before that time? That was a pandemic album. So pandemic started what 2020 was living in Brooklyn inside, as we all were for many months and feeling like, alright, maybe this is the end of my music career because I just felt, I don't know, I just felt so, as everybody did. Does it even matter? Does it even matter in like, what am I gonna, like, what do I have to write about? Or like, I just had no, no, I feel like I really had no voice during those first six months of the pandemic. And you had a two year old. Two year old. And it's funny because looking back on it, it seems like she was already seven then, but she wasn't when I watched videos. I'm like, oh, I had a literal baby. Yeah. We were home. I just finished up two years touring with, I'm with her, this band that I have with Sarah Watkins and Sarah Jarros. And I knew I wanted to make another solo album, but I was just like, there's no way it's gonna happen. And then in September of that year, we went down to Florida where my husband has a job with the orchestra in Orlando. We had a house there and we said, let's go down for a couple of months because he was able to do concerts outdoors and made a little bit more space. And we got there and I set up a little office music room and I had more time, more space, more sunlight, and the songs just kind of started coming. Isn't that the best? It really was. It was a real just like positive moment in my life. Also, I feel in many ways like that's actually the time period that I really became a songwriter weirdly. Oh, really? It started to, I just started to feel like, okay, I can, I like doing this and I want to do this. You felt like you have something to say? I felt like I was meant to say and I felt very authentic where in the past, like, I don't know, it always felt like a little bit of a, I don't want to say a slog because it's something that I love to do, but I'm not one of those songwriters who talks about like my process and. Well, I can relate to that actually. I think, I think for me, like in the beginning writing songs was something that I really wanted to prove I could do and I could do it, but they didn't have the same feeling all the time. And then when they did, when they were the quick ones that just came and that were pure feeling, those were the good ones. Exactly. And then the ones that I was trying to write were not good. Is that similar? Totally similar. And I think, I think also coming from like the music school background where I knew I could, you know, I was, I was a singer. I was like, okay, I'm a singer and this is what I can do and I'm confident that this is my skill, but I never. You can technically do it. Right. But I never felt like, oh, I don't know. And I still feel like a little bit of a fraud to say I'm a songwriter. I'm a singer. No, I mean, kind of. You do? Like less so now after. After that. I was in a batch of songs and it was, it was really a fun record to make remotely. Like it was the first time I'd really done a project like that where I took my time. It was totally remote. It worked with Joe Henry, this great producer. I love Joe Henry. He's the greatest. And it was, he was just. You worked with him remotely though? Remotely. He was afar. He was in Portland, Maine. Okay. All the tracks. I would make these tracks in Florida at Full Sail University, which is this great recording school down the street for me and worked with this awesome producer named Darren Schneider. And I would just go in there like every day. Literally, I would sit in the live room with a mask on and he would be in the control room with a mask on. I never saw this guy's face until six months after I knew him. And then it looked weird. Well, no, it always looks weird when they say totally. And we made this record and Joe sent the tracks to, you know, J. Bellarose and David Pills and all these cool people in LA. Anyway, I love, I love that process. Yeah. That's a totally different way to do it. Totally different way to do it. And it was so fun then to get to play the songs live and do the whole, I don't know, just, it felt like a emerging from COVID. These songs will always like feel special to me because they were the first things that I played live on stage after, you know, with a full band after like a year of not doing anything. I love it. Yeah. I also think there's something weirdly freeing about doing your part and knowing that you just did it and it's great. And now it's done. And there's something really annoyingly weird. Sometimes it's magical and sometimes it's weird when you go into a studio with a song that you know and you just are giving it over to people to make into something and you have to really let go of a lot. Totally. It completely that. And I think that this process for this record because every because it was just me and I would send them out and I wasn't, I had no idea what they were going to play on it. Or you know, like you send a track, especially to a drummer or a bass player. Yeah. And they do something and you're like, that's totally not how I should have sounded. I really want to hear a backbeat now. But, but like because everything was so slow. There were a couple of songs I remember when Jay would send something back and I'm like, I was completely confused. But then now it makes so much sense and that is how the song was always supposed to be. But all that said, playing songs, I love doing different versions of songs like this thing I love to do in general, just playing them solo or playing them slower, faster with a duo or. Keeping them alive. Yeah, exactly. Keeping them alive, changing them up. It's fun to do things differently though and to just mix it up, I think. Yeah. And not be attached to the recorded version of something that's really important to me. Me too. I like that. And then you live in Florida still. I still live in Florida. And you still live there. I still live there. And I'm like, I feel like I should be president of the tourism board or something. Not that the Orlando tourism board needs literally any help. Do you have a season pass to Disney World? I don't. I've only been to Disney World one time when it was in 2021 and went with. Okay. So she was like. She had just turned four. Four. Okay. That's a good age to go. Well, we went to Animal Kingdom with my good friend, Chris Steely, who I know is a friend of yours as well. Yeah. And his family. And it was a bit of a hilarious day. It was still during COVID. It was still, you know, masked at Disney. And my husband the day before had stepped on a piece of glass and had five stitches in the bottom of his foot. Great day for walking. So he was literally in a rascal at Disney World. And it was fun. We've not gone back. We went to Universal for my daughter's birthday last week. In LA? In Orlando. There's also, is there one in LA, Harry Potter World? Yeah. Okay. We went to the one in Orlando. I know because we've gone the last few years with our kids because we were too lazy to go to Disneyland because it's a little bit of a trap. It's too far. Yeah. So we, we just did that, but we're not, I'm not really a theme park person, but I will say that. I have to call you and go with you. If you go to Orlando, you have to just come to my house and we can go kayaking, we can go biking. We can do the things that people like don't think you can do in Florida, but that you actually can. Like the outdoors. It's great. It's a great place to live. I do miss New York though being here today. I'm like, oh. It's also a beautiful fall day. I know. I was in Pestic Park this morning. I was like, oh, I do miss this Chris. Yeah. If you'd come a month and a half ago when you can still smell the garbage juice on the sidewalk, you know. No, no, thank you. No. We have garbage in Florida too, but. It's crazy how, how you can miss a place and, but nothing is perfect anywhere. Nothing is perfect. And I think that that's the thing and just also embracing. I never, ever thought I would live in the South in general and especially not Florida. I'm from Massachusetts as I said. Yeah. And that's like the most opposite place in many ways. I think it's to where I live now, but there are things that are similar and it's a great community. Yeah. And you make friends where you go and then. Exactly. And it's home is where you are. Exactly. Home is where you are. And I think that home is like, it's being from a social scene in New York and in Boston and even in Nashville and Gwinnie Music School and having so many musician friends. It's, it is nice actually to have a social scene that's not comprised primarily of musicians, just like a variety of perspectives. Yeah. That I think has been interesting in the last couple of years. Yeah. People will be like, wait, what? What's your life like? What do you do? That's interesting. Yeah. And you know. Yeah. It's like you have a double life. Exactly. And you still travel a lot. And Orlando is a great airport. So that's the other thing. That's great. Yeah. You were telling me that there's a flight to Europe and everything. There's multiple flights. There's flights because of Disney World. There's flights to quite literally every single random airport you've never heard of. That's so huge when you're thinking about being a traveling musician and moving out of a big city. Yes. It's honestly Orlando. Like you can go direct to Amsterdam, direct to London, direct to Paris. They're just starting a Paris flight. There's all these flights to South America. But then there's also little flights to like Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas regional airport or Burlington, Vermont. Or like, you know, you have a one-off gig. Yeah. And like recently I had a one-off in Burlington and I was like, great. I can go direct on this random breeze airways flight. That's a little secret lucky thing. It kind of is. Yeah. I mean, like it's still crazy. It's still a lot of travel, but it is convenient. That's great. Yeah. And then are you here to do a show? Did I miss a show? No shows. Just Thanksgiving. Oh, that's right. I'm done with shows for the year. Okay. I just had my last show. Does it feel good to you to have like a break or do you get antsy like me? I get antsy when I'm not like doing stuff, but this time of year is going to be nice to like, I, it's really nice. It's really nice. So busy at that. It's like there's new shit coming. And I just finished up a cycle and I'm like ready to move on from it and get on to the next thing. Because I'm really excited about the next thing. But you have stuff in the future planned just not right at this moment. Exactly. Which is a nice place to be because you can relax and know that you're not done forever and you have something to do. Exactly. And it's very short. It's like in five weeks, it'll be starting up again. So, but to have the holidays off and also my husband travels as well a ton for work. So we're kind of always juggling. Ships. Yeah. Exactly. So like I'm home, he's gone, he gets home, I go. Yeah. And it's, it's a lot. So, but the next thing that happens is that the doctor is, is going to be insane. Like he's going to be gone. Okay. A ton. Nice. And then we're going to, we're going to meet back up in Massachusetts. Nice. Holiday time. Exactly. Holiday time. Do you bring your daughter with you ever? Not often. She toured with us a ton when she was a baby with us, meaning my band with Sarah and Sarah. Sarah Watkins and I had babies at the same time. So do you have both babies? Both babies on the tour bus. That's great. For like a year and a half. And it was. I've done that. It was amazing. And yeah, like it, people are always like, that was been so hard, but honestly it was, it was really like easier in many ways. I think. Yeah. Cause. Well, it depends. It depends. Yeah. It depends if you're getting up in the middle of the night every night and at five in the morning, or if you have a little help with that. It's like, I feel like we had a great nanny, but we were getting up in the middle of the night and early in the morning. You're still doing that. But also it was because it was always two of us. Yeah. And you're like, you're like two moms and you don't ever feel that like lonely. Like I'm by myself doing this. Like, I don't know that that made a huge difference. Just like. Yeah. Community. Community. Exactly. Like walking out into the front lounge at five 30 in the morning and like Sarah's there with Sam and like them. We're just like practically dead and the kids are in their little clip on high chairs, you know, Google Gaga, yeah, eating oatmeal from the microwave. Like, you know, it's so sweet. It was really sweet. And Sarah gets up, rolls out about it 10 in the morning. And she's like, oh, ladies. She got married this past year. So we're like, yeah, you know, she's, she's behind us for sure. But it was, I mean, now though with my daughter who's in first grade, she has too much stuff going on already like in her own life. Yeah. And she does like to come and she came with us last weekend to my last show, which was in Virginia with my husband's orchestra. And it was a really fun show. My daughter came and she was at the show. She didn't want to watch because she was like, I've already seen the show so many times. So she stayed backstage with her friend, stayed up till 11, passed out on the couch, like the guy at the venue gave her an entire like king size her. She's bar at like 10, 50, passed out, get up at six in the morning, fly home. She's been, she was a wreck for like a week after that. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. I feel like now my favorite thing to do is to take, cause my kids are eight and 10. So they're a little bit older. So they're a little bit more self-sufficient. Yeah. They don't need a full-time nanny on the road. No, I, and I've taken a, I've taken them individually on like little one-on-one trips and left the other with my husband. And those have been for me the most special because also I don't get a lot of one-on-one time with them. So it's nice. But yeah, the person left behind is always pretty bummed. Do they like the best? Your kids like the best? They love the best. I mean, the bunk beds are just like the best. Yeah, it's the best. But I take them for a little bit in the summers now, but not the whole time. And it's easier to split it up and have some time where it's just me doing it. And then some time where they're there. It's hard to split. But not all. Right. Cause you have to do that too much. Cause one of the nice things I think about, and people always like love to talk about juggling, like being a mom on the road and all this like, which to me like is not, I don't know, that's not something I really talk about that much. Cause it's not that interesting to me, but I feel when I'm on tour, like I love, in general, I love hanging out. Like I love, like that's, that's one of the reasons that it's so fun to be a musician. It's like a little, it's like a working vacation. Exactly. You want to stay up late and have a drink. You want to stay up late and have a drink with your friends and like, and just hang with the band and like, and everybody's in their pajamas and you like have a beer and some smart food from the vending machine. Like that's the, those are the most fun parts of tour for me sometimes. Me too. And if I don't have that, like I wouldn't want to have my family out with me all the time. Cause then it takes away that autonomy of like, you know, maybe it's just going back to my youth or something, but I still, I still love that aspect of the road. Well, I mean, it's half of being there. Of course. Yeah. And it's all, it's the fun half. It's the fun half, right. It's like all the connection. If you can do it without overdoing it, it's the best. Exactly. It's definitely part of the appeal. For sure. And for going on the road and for being away, you have to have that, all that fun stuff to make it worth doing. Otherwise it's too sad. Right. Cause you're missing other stuff. Yeah. Agreed. And I've heard that it's harder as your kids get older to leave cause you're missing more stuff, but. I think it's mostly harder cause they tell you they're mad. Instead of just not really understanding what's happening. I don't know. I don't know. And it's probably the same for you, but when it's been constant, like I feel like for my child, it's, her whole life is this. So it's not like weird to her necessarily that we're gone or that my husband's gone or that we're going to switch off. No, it's great. And everybody gets their own time. Yeah. And we do end up getting a lot of that sort of special like mom, daughter time or dad, daughter time. That's nice. That's good. The thing that was fun this last summer, for the first time they wanted to watch the show. I mean, growing up, they've always come to soundcheck and they kind of know some songs. Do they play? Do they play? They play, but you know, ish, they're taking piano. They hate it. They complain, but then they love it. You know, they complain about everything and then they love it. And I'm like, you have no idea how lucky you are to have any opportunities. Right. But, um, yeah, they started watching the shows and then they stayed and watched like a good string of maybe a week and a half of shows. Every night? Every night. That's so sweet. You don't have to, they're like, no, I want to. And then at one point my son said, yeah, I'm not going to watch tonight. I've already seen it. You're like, oh. He's over it now. But it was nice. That was really fun. That's so sweet. Feeling like they really got it. Do they ever want to be on stage with you? Like, is that a thing that they want to do? Um, not really. I think when they were little, we used to have them come up for soundcheck and like try to play or sing. And then we realized that was breeding obnoxiousness. Yes. Completely. So we stopped that. Yep. Like you don't get to think that you could come on stage and like play without practicing. Yep. Yep. So that's over. I'm in that exact zone right now. I'm like, I'm off the stage. She's cute when they were one. No longer cute. Right. And once they're like, they're like doing their sassy thing, you're like, no. No, no more. Okay, go practice. Right. Yeah. Get good. Get good. You want to do another song? Let's do it. Um, I was wondering if you wanted to do crisis next. Let's do it. Yeah. This is like this whole- This is from your new album. From my new album, All My Friends. Um, where's my pick? Let's try this song and then I want you to tell me about it. I might need a couple runs on this one. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was great. That was cool. Yeah. That was great. That was cool. This song is great. It's so intense. It's, um, your whole album is sort of inspired by the suffrage movement. Yes. That's my like, um, concept album that I never thought I would ever do something like this, but I did and toured it for a year, um, which was obviously a kind of crazy time to be doing an album about suffrage and- But is the time, the reason that you thought of it? Like, what sparked it? Not really. So, so it's this, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about a minute ago when I moved to Orlando in 2020. My husband's orchestra had commissioned me to write a 20 minute piece for orchestra and me and orchestra inspired by the 19th amendment. A lot of orchestras were doing that. Oh, they had already asked you to do this. They had already asked me to do that. So, it was going to be in the 2020-21 season in Orlando when they were opening their new hall and it was going to be this big thing before COVID. They asked me to do it and I was like, great, I'll do it. It's a 20 minute, you know, between 20 and 30 minute piece of music. And it seemed like a heavy lift, but I was excited to have the challenge and to write some sort of conceptual piece. It had no parameter other than it had to be inspired by suffrage. Anyway, fast forward, COVID happened, told my husband, I was like, there's no way I'm going to do this. Like, I don't have time. It seems like a huge undertaking. It was a huge undertaking, but I somehow, like, again, got to Orlando, got inspired, had all the space and was like, fine, I can do this. Also, my husband was like, you said you were doing it. You're doing it. Don't back out. You can't back out. And I had gotten this book called The Woman's Hour by this writer named Elaine Weiss and I'm really not a big nonfiction person, but this book is really sort of reads like a novel. Cool. And kind of latched onto this one character in particular, Carrie Chapman Cat, and a lot of these pieces are kind of inspired by some speeches and letters that she gave. I've been very careful to say like, this is not a historical album. I mean, this is not like I'm not presenting this as like a thesis academic. It's like a folk singer version of, you know, this moment in history. And it's a while because some people have been like, well, why did you choose her and not this and not this? Okay, back off. Like this is just my take on this one thing. And it's also my own experience as a woman and mother and voter. And, you know, it's like a pretty loose concept. But this song, Crisis That We Just Played was taken from a speech that she gave in 1916 where she's talking about the crisis, like the crisis of women not having the right to vote and the movement of people who were against it. And I just found so much of what she said. And of course I obviously changed it and made it into this kind of ballad folk singing type of thing where I kind of imagined her gathering the suffragists around fireplace with a guitar and saying like, you know, let's get to the bottom of this. But when she, the end of the song, she's talking about interviewing a man in West Virginia and saying, you know, what do you think about suffrage and should women, should women be enfranchised? And given the right to vote and he says, well, no, we've been, we've been keeping women down so long, like we're not going to, that would just be weird if we stopped that. What a weird take on it. Right? And then his wife is asked to stand right next to him and she basically says, we've been down so long, we got to stay this way. And it's in that. So crazy. And she hits me just as a person living in the modern age and funnily enough, writing this in 2021, it's like, it's almost gotten, gotten worse and the three years that have passed since then that there are still so many women who, who do feel like, okay, we've been down. We have to stay down. And I think that that's been, you know, it was wild doing the song night after night. And there was a shift over the summer when the, you know, the candidates changed and we all of a sudden had a woman to, you know, on what Kamala Harris to vote for and to be excited about. And when I got to the end of that song over the summer, right after she announced her candidacy and it was like, the woman's hour is struck. The woman's hour is out. It really felt like it gave, it gave it new life. Yeah. And it was really exciting. I like that about songs as well. They sort of cycle in and out of, of new life because of the circumstance. They do. And they really have, we've done it twice since the election and that, that also was, I was nervous about that. I was really nervous about doing it after the election at all. Just to do a piece like this, which is very, I mean, it is obviously like it's nonpartisan, the piece itself and the concept of suffrage is not affiliated necessarily with a political party, but it, it, it almost felt more important to sing it after, after the fact. But when you get to that part, even now it's probably still. It still feels important. Exactly. Yeah. Like those words still mean a lot. They have a lot of weight. Yeah. They're not going to go away. Exactly. Exactly. That's amazing. Yeah. I love this one. Thanks. So when you did the, the piece for the orchestra that started all this, was it, which song was it? It was the five songs from the records of the first one, all my friends. Okay. Crisis, daughters, and then war measure and America come. Okay. And then you filled it out with the rest. And I filled it out with a bunch of more songs. Okay. So you did a lot of it for that. Is that why there's so many orchestrations on the record then? Exactly. So is that the orchestra? Who wrote those? No, the Knights played my husband's orchestra in a New York chamber group called the Knights play on the record. And then an amazing brass quartet called the Westerlies. So I don't know if you know those guys, but you should use, they're incredible. They're New York based. They rewrote the brass parts for themselves. And then some woodwind players down in Orlando. And I worked with an orchestrator, a young woman named Tanner Porter. And it was a really cool process to like create these songs and I would make demos of them with like piano and guitars and electric guitars. And then she would take those like melody lines and she orchestrated it beautifully. And really, it's really playable. The charts are great. I've done it with tons of orchestras now. And I feel... That's so cool. Yeah. She's incredible. And I'm so glad that I got to work with her on this. What's it like to play with an orchestra? Is this something you've done a lot now? I've done it a lot now. And every experience is different. It often... Like playing with people in general. Playing with people every once in a while. Everyone's different. That's true. But we've done it in a variety of different contexts. Like big orchestra, small orchestra, lots of rehearsal, no rehearsal. We were at the Kennedy Center a couple of weeks ago, doing a double bill with Bonnie Light Horseman. And my rehearsal, the show was at eight. And my rehearsal, I had a 50-minute set and I had a 60-minute rehearsal at five o'clock. And the show was at eight. So it was like five to six. Oh my gosh. Show at eight. It's crazy. You basically just run through everything and hope that you can hear and hope that... Well, it's funny because I'm so used to being like, well, they'll just follow me if I... But with an orchestra, is that possible? I think it's been really crucial for me to be super confident on the parts and know that I can lead it. Okay. But see, this is also a funny dynamic between my husband and me because of course he's a conductor. Oh, gotcha. And I'm a singer. The whole other thing. And so we both think we're the leader of the group. And we've done it together three times, this piece, four times, I think. And there's like a funny... He's like, I have to lead. And I'm like, no, I have to lead. Wow. I want to go to dinner with you guys so bad now. That's kind of like our relationship in a nutshell. That sounds great. I have to lead. I have to lead. It's the best. That's fine. It is what it is. Yeah. But no, but it's really fun. And actually, my husband, Eric, was a huge part of the making of the record and helped him produce it and I definitely could not have done any of it without him. Yeah. It's a nice collaboration. Yeah. And we don't work together that often. Okay. So it's nice. Yeah. It was really nice. Fraught and nice. I'm kind of teasing. It was, it's, it really was mostly awesome. And I love doing this piece with him because he knows it really well as a conductor, which is always... It's hard. I mean, I was trying to learn a few of the songs and I was like, that's not easy music to learn. I want to try Daughters, but I have to warn you, I'm the least confident on it. We can try it and then we can try it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I learned it. I just, I don't even know what some of the chords are, but I kind of... I also don't really know what any of the chords are in this song. Well, it's kind of abstract, which is also why it might be totally fine. The only parts of this that I feel like is weird is that the first time into the chorus, it's seven, the second time it's six. I'm just going to follow you. Just follow me. It's pretty easy. I'm not going to count. Yeah, don't count. All right. I asked Brian Blade, my drummer, who's one of the best drummers. Do you know Brian? Of course. Yeah. He's amazing. I've only played with him once, actually at an orchestra show. Oh, cool. And at the Kennedy Center. Oh, that's awesome. But he's like, I mean, he's, he's got... He's like the best in the world to me and to many. And I asked him once, I was like, what are you counting this as? He's like, oh, I don't count. I was like, okay, cool. I'm good. Yeah. We'll find it. I also don't count in this one because if I try to count, it's like, it stops to make sense to me. I don't even know what chord this is. I really don't even know what key this song is in. That's me either. I'm just going to play the one note I know. Okay. I'm going to play it. Okay. I'm going to play it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎 Such a great piano player. You love jamming. I mean I have no Bruce Hornsby, but It's WWNJ. This is more fun if I was Bruce Hornsby. No, no, this is this is more fun to do with you. Thank you That was fun. It was so fun and also just like the whole This whole approach to like doing a podcast and and or making music like is It's my dream like you're I love this. I'm not I really am not a big podcast person Oh, yeah, totally and the podcast that I like are like music podcasts that are weird and cool and interesting and you're Thank you Well, I think that it's interesting because I found that it's a little bit hard to get people to agree to do this Because not everybody is comfortable Doing it like this But those who are and I'm talking to you Are down for it. You know, yeah, Chris Thiele This is his bread and butter, of course, but like like certain people are just so Into doing it this way and not precious about things and that's when like the really magic stuff of course I mean, yes, this is like I I Also, I feel like I've been in another life. I should have been in a jam band. Yeah, just same have like I Love live recordings like I'm happy to have every night be recorded and put out because it's like it's just a moment Yeah, it's got it's just a moment It's like everything is just an experience of what's happening in the room with people and Whether it's just you and somebody else or an audience or like I don't know I just like there's there's something so cool about that and I love the studio and I love making records But I'm definitely much more of a live like I much I don't know I'm more into the live experience Yeah, the studio can be tricky. Yeah, because I feel like you then can get so like This is not in tune or this has to be perfect or I want to do this again We're trying to get the ultimate version of this right that's what's kind of fun about this podcast is that we're you've already got your ultimate versions Right multiple versions of whatever so we're just doing like a whole side thing exactly and it can exist in this cool little yeah Here, how did you get the idea to do this podcast? I know this is you supposed to be interviewing me. Yeah, I know go ahead. I'm deaf or I feel like it was before it was only before the pandemic started and I think me and Sarah Oda my my butt in there My butt in there my buddy in there in this I feel like we were talking about it She might have a totally different story. It might be completely her idea. I can't remember I thought it was an idea. I had to sit with people and do it because for a while. I was doing songs with people I'm releasing singles instead of doing Albums right and like I did a session with Jeff Tweedy for a few days and we did like three or four songs and I Did some stuff with tank in the manga tank from tank in the bangers. She was on live from here once when I was yeah She's amazing. She's so Terriana and actually it had heard a thing that you did with her yeah from Thomas Thomas's studio. That's like our mutual our main mutual. Oh, yeah, that's right And I did something with Thomas and I was like releasing these and it was really fun But then I thought well, what if I did it something like this I was also thinking of a way of course with small kids to That's kind of why I started releasing singles so I could yeah Have a like I could still tour a little bit but not do these big album cycle tour right and still have like some new material to play Yeah, so that's what the sort of thinking was and then this is just another way to Meet people and collaborate. Yeah and be at home. Yeah be home And yeah, so get to make music and be in a community. Yeah, people can come to you It's great It's pretty great because I've connected with a lot of people who I already knew but have made deeper connections with or Met people that I've never played with. Yeah, so fun. It's awesome. Yeah, we're all just one big happy family So there's many little connections. It's very cool. Yeah, but it's funny. There's certain people I'm like, I would love to do this with them, but some people just don't get it. They're like, well, we can do it remotely I was like, no, that's not gonna be possible. How would you do this remotely? You can't that's why I was like You don't get it or you're not down for it. That's fine. It's a jam. It's just a jam. It's just a jam. Yeah Playing along a rapid a jam Dorkiest theme song ever I also wanted to try Phoenix. Let's try it. Do you feel like it? I would love to This one I will do this all fast We can do a little slower. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't slow down for me There's this um, did you ever watch New Girl? Yeah, love it Um, I also love it and it's one of my husband Eric's favorite shows. He's watched the entire Doreville he's watched the entire series three times. I mean Winston. I would watch it all for Winston He would watch it all for Schmidt because There's this there's this thing the one one episode where Schmidt does this thing was like I could do this all day and like Eric we just say that all the time now. That's great. I love New Girl. That's good. No, I can't watch that with the kids I watch way too much inappropriate stuff with my kids But I just I was just telling we just watched them Harold and the Purple Crayon with and Zoe Oh, the movie. Yeah. Yeah, and I was telling Ivy Joe I was like she's in a show that daddy likes and I was like maybe when you're 13 They talk about sex a lot in New Girl I've watched a couple episodes of Friends with the kids and even that is like alright We're still on like bluey. So yeah, we're we watch like habits. We watch Abbot elementary. That's a good middle ground I Times not the villain Coming up behind you is a miracle I It's coming from the players dancing on my wings on the way killing time Fevers get me shaking it rises up like a road to me me Fevers got the Quake elect San Andreas salt Put a cloth to my brow I saw like a Phoenix from the ashes put a pretty blanket down I'm ready now I Looking for forgiveness Looking every cover that every room out there and witness to the passing time Oh, but the clock is ticking Like a no man singing at the top of his lungs and the light is flickering we're running out We're running out. He's got me shaking it rises up like a road to me Fevers got the Quake elect San Andreas salt Put a cloth to my brow I saw like a Phoenix from the ashes put a pretty blanket down I'm ready now I Everybody's looking for somebody to blame the stages of sadness. I'm making you need my stop today I never felt the same They say you will feed my scars my tears are dry of lions in the stars again Not a one dream where you are We He's got the shaking it rises up like a road to me they fee misgap a quick elect San Andreas salt I Saw like Phoenix from the ashes put a pretty blanket down. I'm ready now Wait back to Irish for one second. Yes. Did you play Irish music? Not so much. I mean like my dad I grew up around a lot of Irish music And I like sing, you know a bunch of Irish folk songs, but I never like played like real track music But I do I do like I'm from that world Yeah from that I put a lot of bluegrass like my first band was that like old timey and bluegrass band Okay, it's still did a ton of traditional music in that world and some old Irish songs were not in the like real It didn't don't like play track guitar, okay, but you went to fiddle camp. I Taught at fiddle camp. Okay. Wait, wait hold the phone. I didn't like go to fiddle camp as a youth No It's a thing it's a whole world is it like a ren fair world except it's different It's more like a lot of people eating tempeh and like playing Fiddle tunes like old-time fiddle tunes not really ren fairy. It's it's hard to explain exact There are many different types of little camp. Okay, but um in like the folk world There's always like then at the singing teacher. Okay, don't a bunch of it's not just fiddle players. No, okay That's so fun singing and guitar and all that. It's really fun. It's really fun for kids I want to go to fiddle camp you should go to fiddle camp. What if I just went with all the kids I'm not I'm not afraid to be I mean you should you should do that. I Have a fiddle I do I do just not tempeh, but um I have a fiddle do it. Do you come in? Do you play any I tried I when I was pregnant the first time I took up the fiddle somebody gave me this violin And I I wanted to play it I took from Charlie Burnham for a minute He's a fiddle player in New York in New York. I mean he plays violin He's in the sort of jazz scene. Okay, but um where where do we meet at 11? It was like a thing like I'm the Sam was there Thomas like Sam and Madonna like that like that adjacent well there Ah, okay, it was like somebody's was like a fiddle birthday It was like a Sunday night at 11th Street and you were there. Okay, Cassie Jenkins was there It was a jam though. I think it was like the Irish jam Irish. I remember that That was a long long long long time ago really many many years ago at least 15 Yeah, like before anybody had kids and it was like probably two in the morning or something Maybe three. Yeah, maybe Kenny Yeah, yes exactly. I love Kenny. That's the bartender right? Yeah, he has like a sister named IFA or something Oh, he does a bartender. That would make sense. Okay. Yeah, it's the Irish bar. It's an Irish bar. Yes, exactly I love that place. I love it too. I wish to see this is what I that's what I really miss when I think about like what I missed about New York It's not Just it's also the fact that I'm not like 22 anymore. Yeah, I associate all of the things you like even if I still lived here I would not be doing the things that I miss. Can I attest to that? Yes, I will be your living testimony to being You know in your 40s with two kids you do not do all those things Even if you're right in the city, right? Yes. Okay, so fair enough I should just be happy that I don't have to have it tempt me. Yeah, it's interesting Every once in a while you'll get out and and do something you maybe wouldn't have done But usually it's something you would have come to town to do right and you would have done it, right exactly Like yeah, like I'm gonna do next year. Yeah See Miranda July do a speaking engagement again. Well, if you if you go see Miranda July texting I will come with you. I'll even fly and then we'll have a date that will be fine I might go direct anywhere even if she's in Arkansas. I think that's right. You can fly direct anywhere. So it's a date It's a date no matter where This was so fun. This is the best. You're thank you. Thank you so much Do you want to try that last tune or sure? I mean it's up to you. I'm we're kind of good either way But why not let's do it. I love it. What did I send you the recording is it in D or E? No, I can't remember. It's indeed. Please don't do it in E. I won't I won't E is so high. Oh, I know but I love this song. Do you do you like I love this song? I've always loved this song This is but I don't know if I can do the Schubert part. Let's forget about that. Cool. We don't do that So who did you do this with this is the Bob Dylan song not dark yet? I Recorded this so during COVID My husband and brother-in-law who are cello and violin we just made a ton of music together in our house That's amazing and we got this mobile recording rig from our friend Jodi Elf up in New Paltz We drove up to his house in April of 2020. He gave us all these mics We set up this rig and then he had it like wired where you did live mix us Wow from his place in New Paltz And that's so great. We did live streams with like live audio from his it was very Weird, but this recording is from our living room. I love it It's a beautiful recording and you throw in Schubert in the end. Yes, and it was the Eric's idea to do a little Schubert undue music cello player and yes very Very classical of him But we'll we'll we'll just do normal Bob Dylan so you tuned down. What kind of guitar do you have for the nerds out there? I have this is a callings a single o callings that I got in 2015 I borrowed it from callings actually was doing a tour with Glenn Hansard and they mailed it to me to borrow it And then I bought it. It's beautiful. It's small. It's a small body guitar. I really I'm so used to like a little buddy Yeah, I play the guitars and I have a Martin also That's the same size, but I don't travel with that as much I might let me can I grab a lyric sheet for this one just in case just on the floor I know it, but there's I might just know your vision is it's pretty small. I Think that's my exact pretty much know it. I might just need like a okay Thanks, buddy first line We do you want to sing a verse sure which one I'll do the second one sounds great You Shadows are falling and I've been here all day It's too hot to sleep time is slipping away I Feel like my soul is Just you Still got the scars that the sun didn't hear There's not even It's not It's getting there Where my sense of humanity is gone down the drain I And every beautiful thing there's some kind She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so She put down and writing what was on I Just don't see why I should even care It's not dark yet, but it's getting there I ain't looking for nothing in anyone's eyes But sometimes my booting's more than I can bear It's not time to get, let's get in there I was born here and I'll die here against my will I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still Every move in my body is so aching, so numb I can't even remember what it was I came to get away from I don't even hear a murmur of a prayer It's not dark yet, but it's getting there I love it, that was so fun I forgot how much I love this song and how much I love how he sings But it's getting there It's not dark yet, but it's getting there I'm out of mind, it's just such a good record And this song, it fucking kills me, the lyrics of this song It's a deep song I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from That line, I'm just like, God I know, it's so existential It really is, I was born here and I'll die here again The whole thing is just like, tears Yeah, it's so good Good call, thanks for suggesting It's so fun to play with you Thanks so much Thank you for having me Yay, friends forever Oh, that was great So the takeaways are what would Bruce Horns be do And Read All Forrest by Miranda Jolay Oh yeah, I've already told all my friends to read it It's so popular that there's a backlash, which is stupid I think she really sold me on Orlando Yeah And Fiddle Camp Fiddle Camp Yes, definitely Fiddle Camp She's cool, let's hang out with her again Yes Tonight, should we call her? Yeah, I'll call her Alright, but do the credits first Oh, okay The songs we played in this episode were Gala Had From her album, Age of Apathy, which came out in 2022 The second song was Crisis From All My Friends, which came out in 2024 The third song was Daughters, also from All My Friends The fourth song we played was Phoenix From Age of Apathy, 2022 And the last song we played was the classic Bob Dylan song From Time Outta Mind, which came out in 1997 Called Not Dark Yet Special thanks to Ifa O'Donovan for joining us today We'll be back next week with Nathaniel Radliff Nora Jones' Playing Along is a production of I Heart Podcasts I'm your host, Nora Jones Today's show was recorded by Matt Marinelli Mixed by Jamie Landry, edited by Sarah Oda Audio post-production and mastering by Greg Tobler Additional recording by Jamie Landry Artwork by Eliza Frye, photography by Shervin Lenez And produced by Nora Jones and Sarah Oda Executive producers Aaron Wong-Coffman and Jordan Runtog Marketing lead, Queen Aniki Thanks for listening