[00:00:00] Mahea: If you're like me, listening to Themes and Variation makes you want to work on some music of your own. I've got some good news on that front. The Soundfly team's been hard at work creating a massive collection of resources to satiate your curiosity and help you up your skills in areas like composition, production, and improvisation.
[00:00:19] Using the discount code PODCAST, you can get access to the full range of premium courses available at soundfly.com and an invitation to our online community for less than $10 a month.
[00:00:31] Also, be sure to stop by Soundfly's YouTube channel, where we're constantly adding new videos addressing questions like, "what is a pedal tone?" And, "do dogs understand music?" Plus, some of those videos directly relate to things we've discussed on this show, so if you like what you hear here, you should definitely check out what we have to offer there.
[00:00:50] Soundfly. Creative content for people who make music.
[00:01:00] The quintessential cover of a song that yearns for transformation. The ultimate anthem of self reflection. And a number full of nuance that gets me every single time. You're listening to Themes and Variation. Themes and Variation is a podcast about music and perspectives, brought to you by Soundfly. I'm your host, Mahea Lee.
[00:01:28] Track: [music]
[00:01:29] Mahea: Welcome to another episode of Themes and Variation. Today we're talking about "Cathartic Songs." This time around we've got the insightful and entertaining Jeremy Young in the co host seat, and our guest panelist is singer, producer, songwriter, multi instrumentalist, and beloved member of the Soundfly community, Lana Cenčić.
[00:01:48] I gotta tell you guys, this started out as a weird one for me. If you've listened to the show before, you may have suspected that a bit of lateral thinking typically goes into my song selection process, but I just couldn't figure out how to be clever with this theme.
[00:02:03] I ended up going with a song that I genuinely find cathartic on a personal level. Maybe that means I was bested by this theme, but if that's the case, I guess I'm glad it worked out that way.
[00:02:13] As always, if you like the show and want to throw me and the team a little encouragement, don't forget to subscribe to Themes and Variation on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you go for podcasts.
[00:02:25] And if you've got pennies for our thoughts between episodes, you can follow us on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
[00:02:34] And with that, I hope you enjoyed the episode, "Cathartic Songs."
[00:02:39] Welcome back to Themes and Variation. I'm very excited today to be talking about "Cathartic Songs." This time we're here with Jeremy Young. Hello. Jeremy, how are you doing?
[00:02:51] Jeremy: I'm great. How are you, Mahea?
[00:02:52] Mahea: I'm good. I like having Marty on the show, but I've missed you the past couple episodes.
[00:02:56] Jeremy: I know, I miss being here. But I was also kind of on tour, so that would have been complicated and a distraction.
[00:03:03] Mahea: Yeah, how was that?
[00:03:04] Jeremy: I mean, it was great. It was a really short tour, which is always good because I'm in a band with Ian, Ian famously of Soundfly's CEO, uh...
[00:03:12] Mahea: ... Of being my boss.
[00:03:13] Jeremy: Of, yeah, of being our bosses, also my bandmate, but, uh, he has a giant family and a business to run. And so when we can go out on the road for any number of dates, it's always like a pleasure. But you know, when you're doing just two or three shows, it's like very easy and great. So, yeah.
[00:03:32] Mahea: That sounds wonderful. Give me the highlight and the... well, just give me the highlight. Don't tell me the bad stuff.
[00:03:38] Jeremy: Um, we played at the Fayetteville Public Library, which was awarded Library of the Year a few years back.
[00:03:45] Mahea: Whoa, congrats.
[00:03:47] Jeremy: Yeah, it was amazing. But, um, I kind of forgot that the Walton family, like, you know, the giant sort of billionaire family that started and runs, uh, Walmart, like, they're from Northwestern Arkansas, and so the whole city of Fayetteville has like Walmart family money.
[00:04:05] So it's just beautiful there. Everything's like gorgeous and like perfectly like landscaped and everything. It's kind of amazing.
[00:04:12] Mahea: And low priced.
[00:04:13] Jeremy: Yeah, low prices every day in Fayetteville.
[00:04:16] Mahea: Um, I don't want to keep our guest waiting too long as much as I would love to talk about Fayetteville. That's a different show.
[00:04:21] Jeremy: You can hear her giggle in the background.
[00:04:22] Mahea: We're very excited to be joined today by Lana Cenčić. Did I say that correctly?
[00:04:26] Lana: Yeah, pretty good. Almost.
[00:04:28] Mahea: Can you say it correctly for me, please?
[00:04:30] Lana: Cen-čić. So most people here say "sen-chich" because they see the C E N and they kind of just say "sen," but um, it's actually kind of like a T S together, like tss, like "tssen." Tsen-chich.
[00:04:43] Mahea: Tsen-chich.
[00:04:44] Lana: Yeah. Someone suggested me once to write a song, you know, how to spell my name, like, Tsen chich, Tsen chich, everybody.
[00:04:49] Mahea: Oh, you totally should.
[00:04:51] Jeremy: Oh, that's such a good idea.
[00:04:54] Mahea: I have like a subtle lisp, so it's a tricky one for me, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna work on that for the future.
[00:05:01] Um, but we're excited to have you here to talk about cathartic songs. We always send the guests a few themes to pick from. Why did this one jump out to you?
[00:05:09] Lana: I'm all about like catharsis and like healing and transformation, and you know it's kind of like my life is a journey. Like I mean, all of the titles were really just interesting and I was like "oh yeah I could do this one, I could do that one," and so much inspiration.
[00:05:25] Jeremy: Yeah I felt the same way.
[00:05:26] Lana: Yeah so it was hard to choose but then I was like, "okay I gotta do this quick you know okay let's do cathartic songs."
[00:05:31] Mahea: I'm glad you picked this one. It was not a theme that I could be clever with and that was a little disappointing to me, but um, it did feel good to just go with a song that fit the theme that I liked this time around.
[00:05:42] We'll get to your picks in a second, but were there other songs that either of you considered?
[00:05:45] Lana: Oh yes, yes. I had like a whole long list of music where I was like, "oh, this could be good and this could be good" and everything, but... yeah, I think I picked this one because Michael Jackson, for me, is probably the first and the biggest influence, you know? Like since I was a very small child. And I grew up in a you know family of classical musicians, surrounded by opera and classical music and my mom sang like opera while I was in her bellies I was just like, you know, classical music like all around me. But on the radio, when I heard Michael Jackson, I was just like "Yes, I want this!"
[00:06:21] And then they had to buy me the little cassette. And you know, Thriller was just like playing up and down. I was making my little dance moves, you know? I was just like crazy about it. And this is also an album which, you know, to this day when I hear it, it's just like, I don't know, I can be in any shitty mood and it's gonna just lift me up.
[00:06:41] Mahea: Yeah, it's a good choice.
[00:06:43] Jeremy: I had a list. I mean, in a way, I chose the first song that came to my head with this theme, and I felt like I would have been abandoning it if I hadn't chosen it, because it was the first thing that came to my head. But just in general, like, I feel like I listen to a lot of music that just blasts out and has these, like, sort of moments of elevation.
[00:07:04] A list of other songs immediately came to my head as well, like the Polyphonic Spree, uh, "Reach for the Sun."
[00:07:12] Track: [music]
[00:07:15] Jeremy: It's like a cult, like, 30 piece choir that's just like, yelling and stuff like that. Um, a lot of, uh, a lot of Prince's music obviously came to mind. I just listen to a lot of Prince. Um, there's this band called Shellac. They have this song from one of their first albums back in the 90s called "Prayer to God."
[00:07:35] Track: [music]
[00:07:39] Jeremy: I don't know. It's just about the desire of like murder. It's just like, yeah, just this idea of like, just like completely letting loose, leaning into your desires and stuff. But then again, like, I also thought of Mariah Carey because she does this thing with her voice that like nobody else can do. It's like a super harmonic whistle thing.
[00:08:01] Whenever there's like a climactic moment in one of her songs, like the song "Emotions," she can kind of just get to that higher level. And it's like, there's just something that... it's just like a moment of catharsis, like a moment of just sort of like, uh, yeah.
[00:08:15] Track: [music]
[00:08:22] Lana: I totally agree. And when you go and listen to a lot of live music, I find I had a lot of like experiences with instrumental music, um, like for example, one very, very significant moment was when I went to see Keith Jarrett in concert.
[00:08:39] Jeremy: Oh, wow. Yeah.
[00:08:40] Lana: I think that was in Perugia, like in that little Italian small town, the, the jazz festival that they have there every year.
[00:08:46] And he was playing at a big stage and I was somewhere in the back laying in the grass or I'm not sure, and I can't remember even which tune it was, but I seriously felt like I was transformed like into like a trance state or something. Like I was sitting there kind of like meditating and then all of a sudden, I was feeling my body less and less I ended up just kind of, like, starting to shiver.
[00:09:09] It was really weird, actually. My friends were like, "are you okay?" I had this really visceral, like, I don't know, energetic experience, like, it just transformed me into some other dimension and I will never ever forget that. But before that show started, like, you know, he came on stage and he started just like, "stop taking pictures!" And he started, like, yelling at the people and then, like, I'm not gonna do the show and he left the stage and everybody was like, "what's going on with this guy?" Like he was really rude.
[00:09:39] Jeremy: That's the Keith Jarrett move, the signature.
[00:09:41] Lana: Yeah, and then like half hour later like 45 minutes later I'm just like in nirvana like floating, you know? Like off up in the air like meditating, like shaking.
[00:09:52] Mahea: Should we jump into our first song.
[00:09:54] Jeremy: Let's let's go for it.
[00:09:55] Mahea: Okay, sweet.
[00:09:56] Track: [music]
[00:10:06] Mahea: What are we listening to?
[00:10:19] Jeremy: We're listening to Baby Huey and the Babysitters' version of "A Change Is Gonna Come." Baby Huey, who was born in 1944, James Thomas Ramey. This is the only, like, official album that he ever put out. There were some 45s that he did with the band, but this album isn't even really an album.
[00:10:39] It came out posthumously after he died of a drug overdose at age 26. So he died really young, kind of at the peak of whatever fame he was probably gonna see. I mean, it's a little bit of a tragic story, although his legacy lives on in the form of positivity, which is really great. I mean, this album is kind of a classic.
[00:10:57] The album is called The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend, but it's just a collection of like live, um, songs.
[00:11:05] Mahea: Also Living Legend for a posthumous album is an interesting
[00:11:09] Jeremy: choice. I know I've been thinking about that a lot. I'm not totally sure that there's deep reasoning behind calling, calling the album that, but the record was produced by Curtis Mayfield, who was a huge fan of Baby Huey and the band.
[00:11:21] So Baby Huey born 1944. So he died when he was 26. In 1970. The record, I think, came out in '71, but obviously was recorded either in '69 or '70 or possibly like across a couple years, I have no idea. Although it does kind of sound like it's all culled from the same performance.
[00:11:37] But, uh, Baby Huey, he gave himself that name. It was sort of like owning his weight issues. I mean, he was like a big dude. He kind of had a baby face. He's like a big personality, like a character, absolutely a gigantic stage presence as well, but you know, he struggled with his weight throughout his life. He was like 350, 400 pounds. It was a big dude.
[00:12:00] And he also struggled with drugs. He died of a drug overdose, even though I believe in 1970 or possibly '69, he went to rehab. It didn't really take, I think he just, he had a lot going on. He had heart issues from his weight and from his drinking and eating habits, as well as his drug habits. His star burned brightly, you know, um, when he was alive.
[00:12:22] And I think that's sort of where the album title came from. Like this idea that like, when he was alive, I think he was just this living legend. Like he was just walking amongst us as like this massive personality. Ironically, the band never really reached that kind of acclaim while they were still together and when he was still alive.
[00:12:41] They were pretty big in Chicago. They did a little bit of touring around the Midwest and stuff, but they didn't really like take off because they hadn't really recorded. They were kind of busy. They were on the road a lot, but they were also dealing with baby Huey's like drug problems.
[00:12:54] But then another thing was that Curtis Mayfield had invited them to record, but actually secretly, like, didn't want the rest of the band. He only wanted to sign Baby Huey as a singer, and then he wanted to maybe put a band together or something. But Mayfield wasn't really interested in the Babysitters, like his backing band. Yeah. And so I think that kind of created a little bit of a rift.
[00:13:16] So the band never really did anything. But obviously, as you can hear from this entire record, you know, the rest of the songs, it's massive. Like the whole record is just like amazing.
[00:13:26] So anyway, this is not his song. Most of the songs on the record are actually Curtis Mayfield songs or covers. There's a few originals, but "A Change Is Gonna Come" was written by Sam Cooke in 1964.
[00:13:38] Mahea: A song we covered on an early episode of this very show.
[00:13:42] Jeremy: Yep. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we did. And I don't want to go too deeply into the original version, but um, There's some connections between this song and the theme. But uh, the Baby Huey version of it is what I think of when I think of catharsis. You just have to listen to a couple... I mean, it's nearly ten minutes long, but you just have to listen to like, a couple minutes to get this feeling of like, "He's giving it everything."
[00:14:20] There's like five or six times throughout the song where he actually just like stands back from the mic and unleashes a scream.
[00:14:28] Mahea: I like when you can hear that, like when the like actual tone seems to change a little bit and you're like, "Oh, he stepped back for that one."
[00:14:35] Jeremy: I mean, this dude, he's got a huge voice, but it's like when he screams, it kind of sounds like a baby, like his voice kind of cracks and it's really like this high register or whatever.
[00:14:46] I don't know, it's just an amazing performance of a really beautiful, amazing song. The original was more sultry, sort of more in that like, Motown kind of style, like pretty strings and some horn stabs.
[00:14:59] Track: [music]
[00:15:09] Jeremy: Baby Huey and the Babysitters, they take those horn stabs and they like level you with them. They're like sledgehammers. The whole drum kit is firing off when the horns are going. It's just a big song.
[00:15:22] Track: [music]
[00:15:37] Jeremy: Earlier today, I was re listening to this song and then, you know, the YouTube algorithm was serving me like different versions of it. I already knew about the Otis Redding version. I knew about Solomon Burke's version. The Fugees did it, Seal did it, but the YouTube algorithm served me a version by Patti LaBelle, which I had never heard before.
[00:16:18] Track: [music]
[00:16:21] Jeremy: Oh my god, I was almost brought to tears, and it almost made me change my choice at the last possible second to the Patti LaBelle version.
[00:16:30] Mahea: So is it the song in general that's cathartic for you, do you think?
[00:16:33] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, like I said, like, I think of this version when I think of the idea of catharsis, because like, it's just sort of like letting go.
[00:16:41] It was written by Sam Cooke originally as this like personal documentation of his experience with racism in the South. You know, there's this sort of famous story of when Cooke and his band were on tour in '63 and they got refused at a Holiday Inn just for being black in Louisiana, even though they had made reservations and they were obviously a pretty famous touring band at that point.
[00:17:02] So Cooke was just sort of like stewing in this feeling of like, how come we're not moving the ball forward? What else needs to change for our country to change? And, the other side of the coin is that Bob Dylan wrote "Blowing in the Wind." Sam Cooke heard it, was like, brought to tears by how beautiful this song was and how such a poignant statement on racism in America could come from a white person.
[00:17:25] And so Cooke was like, "I have to write my own version of this," and he did, and it came out in '64.
[00:17:29] Mahea: I had no idea.
[00:17:31] Jeremy: Yeah. Otis Redding picked it up the following year. I love how everybody brings their own personal experience to this song. And then Baby Huey's version is like, he's battling his own demons, right?
[00:17:44] A change has to come. He literally is like about to go into rehab or had just come out of rehab and he's feeling this, this change. Yeah. It's like a nine minute song, the Baby Huey version. But in the middle of it, he kind of breaks down. He starts talking, he's telling a story, he's improvising, kind of playing this like preacher role.
[00:18:02] He's talking a little bit, sharing the story of his life, how it took him like 20 years to break out of this like cycle or whatever, and then he keeps going back into singing. The band is vamping on this like cyclical kind of groove. Which I think also speaks volumes. It's this idea of change, but it's, it's also a very cyclical song, almost to suggest that like, if there's going to be a change, it's got to happen with this moment of catharsis, right?
[00:18:29] Like, it's got to happen if we like, scream and break through the wall, because otherwise nothing's going to happen. I like that dichotomy in the song. And yeah, Baby Huey just gives it, and he just screams like hell, and uh, it just gets me every time.
[00:18:51] Track: [music]
[00:18:59] Mahea: Do you remember the first time you heard this song?
[00:19:25] Jeremy: I do. I don't remember when this was, but there's this incredible compilation, whether it's an official compilation or it was just like a playlist or something that someone had put together.
[00:19:34] I don't know, but it was a collection of all of the sort of really resonant, political, important songs that the Wu Tang Clan and the different members had sampled. And Ghostface Killah sampled another Baby Huey song. The song was called Hard Times, which was also a Curtis Mayfield song. But it was the Baby Huey version of Hard Times that got sampled by Ghostface Killah.
[00:19:59] So on this compilation, I found out about so many incredible artists like Lynn Collins and O.V. Wright, like these incredible sort of soul funk artists from the '60s and '70s. I had heard a lot of these songs, but I didn't know who it was. But these are the originals and Baby Huey, this was a new find for me.
[00:20:17] I checked it out and then I listened to the entire album and I was like, "Whoa, he did 'A Change Is Gonna Come." That's awesome. That's one of my favorite songs. And I listened to his version and it was like, Immediately. I was like, "wow. He made this incredible song his own."
[00:20:31] Mahea: Do you remember if you made it through all nine minutes the first time you listened to it?
[00:20:35] Jeremy: I'm 100 percent sure I did.
[00:20:37] Mahea: That's impressive.
[00:20:38] Jeremy: Like, I think I sat down and I put this album on the first time and I just, like, could not turn it off. And it's kind of like that with the entire compilation. The Wu Tang Clan are pretty, like, substantial artists in and of themselves, but what they have done over the course of that group's career with regards to sampling, It's fascinating.
[00:20:57] Between them and like, Nas, and to some degree Jay-Z and Kanye, I think like, you know, they've sampled some incredible songs, but like, that is just a world of discovery unto itself. And yeah, I recommend people just listening to more of the Wu Tang Clan first of all, and then going back and trying to trace the samples, um, of those songs and just to listen to the originals because they're all just dynamite.
[00:21:21] Mahea: That's an interesting way to discover music, too, that I feel like is... like, it's a little more recent. Like, I guess you could have dug through and found things and read liner notes and the whole deal at one point, but, like, it's pretty new that you can just google what samples are on this track and find music that way.
[00:21:39] Jeremy: Who sampled — that website.
[00:21:39] Lana: I was gonna ask you how, how did you... like, did you Shazam samples?
[00:21:44] Jeremy: No, yeah, that, well. Well, like I said, the compilation collected like all these different samples, uh, the originals of the things that they had sampled. So I was able to just listen to the compilation.
[00:21:53] But whosampled.com is like this incredible resource. Like you could pretty much Google... or Google... now, now we're just using Google as a way to say "search," um, but yeah, you could just search like any song that comes to mind or any... like whether it's the sample or the... or the new song and it'll just come up and highly recommend it. Moving on.
[00:22:17] Mahea: Is there anything else you wanted to talk about with this song?
[00:22:20] Jeremy: No, I think I've got more thoughts about the idea of catharsis and the idea of change because we will hear Lana's song very shortly, but there is a connection with the idea of change, so I will wait.
[00:22:35] Mahea: I feel very, like, on tenderhooks hearing you say that right now. You're not going to give us anything else? You want me to just play the song? Are we ready to move onto song two?
[00:22:57] Track: [music]
[00:23:04] Mahea: I'm tempted to listen to the whole thing, but I'll hold off for now and do that in my own time. Lana Cenčić. Was that better?
[00:23:10] Lana: Yeah, much better.
[00:23:11] Mahea: Okay, I'm working on it in my head the whole time, I don't even know what we just talked about. But Lana Senchich, what are we listening to?
[00:23:18] Lana: We're listening to Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror, I love this song."
[00:23:23] Mahea: Excellent song.
[00:23:25] Jeremy: Such a good one.
[00:23:25] Lana: Ah, yes, so many feelings, so many thoughts about this song.
[00:23:30] Mahea: If you had to pick one thing that you love most about this song, what would it be?
[00:23:36] Jeremy: Are you crying?
[00:23:37] Lana: No, no, I'm not crying. I have to think about this.
[00:23:40] Jeremy: Lana just took the most dramatic pause and looks to the ceiling and it's like, I swear I saw like a tear run down her face.
[00:23:47] Lana: Oh, Michael. Um, no, I'm just thinking because there's just so many things about this song that I love. I have like goosebumps from the start when I hear that melody, the "dun dun dun dun," and then his finger snapping and then just his singing in the beginning. It's already like some other dimension. And then the verse... and then the modulation. You know, this is the first time where it like, it lifts up the song like so strongly.
[00:24:15] But then once the choir starts coming in, it's just ridiculous. These voices together and the way they were recorded and how, like, larger than life, they sound.
[00:24:27] Track: [music]
[00:24:40] Mahea: There's something about humans singing together that immediately... I can't even put it into words.
[00:24:48] Lana: Yes.
[00:24:48] Jeremy: It like brings you to tears every time. First of all, this is such a great pick. I've loved this song for like, I don't know, 25 years or something like that. My friends in college and I, like, we used to put this on, like, at house parties and just sort of like dance and like hug and sing and stuff.
[00:25:04] But I've always thought that that key change is like the whole point of the song. Because he's like... the entire time he's just like keeping it really tight and he's like, "I've gotta make a change." And then when he makes the change, it's like, okay, like. It's happening. You're like, "you're walking the walk. You're talking to... like, you're doing it." You know? Like he's like sort of showing us the path, how we can be like our own personal, you know, growth, uh, inspirers, you know.
[00:25:28] Lana: Yes, totally. I heard somewhere it was like the best key change of all time, like, in pop music and I'm like, yeah, I agree.
[00:25:36] Mahea: It probably is. I feel like there are people who would have some Celine Dion related things to say about that, but I, I absolutely do think this is... it's a prosody moment with that key change, like you guys are saying. It's an actual change that the lyrics are calling for.
[00:25:50] Jeremy: It's like... there's that like pause too. I mean, unless you're expecting it, which at this point it's like the song's been out for 40 years or whatever, like we all expect it, but like "it's time to make a change," you know? Like we're expecting it to go to one note and then it goes like a little bit higher.
[00:26:07] There's a performance of this song from like the '88 Grammys or something like that. It's just like him on stage pretty much alone. And then the gospel choir, like slowly, over the course of like... and it's a seven minute version too. And like, the song is over at four minutes, and then, but it just kind of like, twinkles and it keeps going, and then the choir starts walking out, and then he's just like, doing his little snaps and dances and vocal things or whatever. And then it just like builds all the way back up for three minutes. Like...
[00:26:37] Lana: I know the breakdown when the music comes out and then it's just the choir and him and he's improvising and then he does his little pirouette and ends in the knees, you know, and then in that performance, he just keeps staying on the knees.
[00:26:50] I think one of the singers... I'm actually not sure if that's Andraé Crouch, like he comes over to him and he's like, "are you okay?" And he gives him like a little napkin or something. And then at the end of the song, he turns more and sings and whatever and then "make that change." And then like his hair is like electrified.
[00:27:09] Like he's like, "whoa, what the hell happened to you?" It's, it's almost funny. Like he looks so just elevated and energized.
[00:27:18] Jeremy: The standing ovation by like everybody in the room, which is like Billy Joel and Lionel Richie and like everybody's just like, yep, yeah, you did it, man.
[00:27:25] Mahea: You know, it's funny you say Billy Joel, because this song always makes me think of "The Stranger."
[00:27:30] Track: [music]
[00:27:35] Jeremy: Yeah, of course.
[00:27:36] Mahea: It's just another song where it's somebody talking about a different version of themselves that they're like... in some sort of dialogue with. But yeah, it's an interesting concept for a song. Very into it.
[00:27:46] Jeremy: Well, the question is, like, is there something embedded in this idea of change that corresponds to catharsis?
[00:27:54] Mahea: Whenever we have a one word theme, I end up looking it up in multiple dictionaries, just because I'm like, "I need to make sure there's not a clever way to do this." But yeah, I think that there is something about change or like a levy breaking kind of vibe to catharsis that I had never been overly conscious of.
[00:28:10] Jeremy: I was thinking about this because of the Baby Huey song, like, the experience of change begets, like, a good scream. On the one hand, you've got that, you know, "A Change Is Gonna Come," the connection with the American Civil Rights Movement. This idea that, like, unless we cry for change and we scream for it, it's not gonna happen.
[00:28:28] And so, screaming is a symbol in place for the idea of, like, protest and outrage or whatever.
[00:28:33] But on the other hand, it's like... The idea that we're screaming because changes are happening around us or changes are happening to us and it's hard to process. We scream for joy, like, "Oh, I got that job. Like, yes."
[00:28:43] You know? Like that's like a moment of catharsis where you're like letting out... or this idea of like changes are happening around us and it's making us anxious or something. And we just kind of have to like scream into a pillow or into the void. I've just kind of been balancing this idea of like catharsis and screaming, just like letting loose or something in the face of change.
[00:29:03] And so the fact that like I chose this song because this dude is writhing around on stage, he's screaming for nine minutes, but Lana, you chose this song that's kind of in the pocket and like really kind of like tightly wound, and it's about change, but it's not necessarily like going for it the entire time, it's just sort of that idea of it, and then there's that one moment of elevation where Michael kind of like lets loose and... And we all feel it.
[00:29:27] Lana: It's like, if you feel that constraint or that controlled kind of energy in the beginning, the elevation and whatever comes afterwards with the choir just feels much bigger. For me, catharsis has always been connected to some sort of change or transformation. When you have that moment of catharsis, when you have something that you are able to release, it's inevitable that change will come.
[00:29:55] For me, catharsis is kind of like moving the energy and like screaming or moving your body or putting out sounds, whether like audible or like physically, you are moving something. So for me, catharsis is always kind of connected to change.
[00:30:10] Mahea: Totally. So I'm going to give you guys a definition, not of "catharsis," but of "cathartic."
[00:30:16] Lana: Yes, please.
[00:30:18] Mahea: The definition of "cathartic" is: "providing psychological relief through the open expression of strong emotions, causing catharsis."
[00:30:25] And I think that lines up with everything you're both saying and all of the songs that we're talking about today.
[00:30:31] Lana: So the song actually, you know, was not even written by Michael. On all the records before, like most of the songs he'd written himself. And after the huge success of Thriller, I think it sold like 70 million copies, I don't know. So then after that huge, uh, you know, success, he took like several years of time to just write music for the next album.
[00:30:54] He was working with Quincy Jones, the famous producer, arranger, orchestrator, and apparently they weren't sure in which direction it was really going to go in and all of that.
[00:31:03] And they were still looking for songs for material and they were looking for something, for some kind of an anthem like song, something that would spread some sunshine in the world. Quincy had a lot of... he worked with a lot of songwriters, you know? He had his own label and he kind of like put out the commission, you know, to write a song for Michael. All these people were sending in material and Michael liked none of the songs and he just declined everything.
[00:31:27] There was a singer called Siedah Garrett, and she was signed to Quincy's label as a singer and also as a writer, although she'd never written music before. She had to bring in 12 songs a year, like each month a song, and she was just like, "but I don't write songs."
[00:31:46] And she had writing partners and she was writing some stuff. But when that commission came in, she felt like Quincy was really adamant about finding something. It seemed important.
[00:31:57] She met up with her writing partner, Glen Ballard. He already worked as a producer for Quincy's label. He wrote a song for Thriller that eventually didn't get picked for Thriller, it was called "Nightline." But he was in his area, in his atmosphere. He worked with Michael. He, I think, helped with production and arrangement and stuff like that.
[00:32:16] And yeah, Siedah and Glen met up to write the song and apparently it all happened really fast. He just started playing these chords. Siedah was writing the lyrics. Um, she had these notes in her book and there was just this quote, it just was like "man in the mirror" and all of a sudden she like already knew what the meaning was gonna be behind the song and apparently she just couldn't write it fast enough.
[00:32:39] It was just kind of like coming out of her.
[00:32:41] Mahea: That's amazing.
[00:32:42] Lana: They recorded it, you know, in the next few days. And um, she called Quincy and she was like, "you gotta hear the song." And he was busy and da da da... didn't want to meet right away, but he was like, "okay, come to my house, bring the cassette, it's fine."
[00:32:57] And then she was like, "please just call me when you hear it." And he's like, "okay, okay."
[00:33:01] He called her apparently after a few hours and he was just like, "wow, I think this is the best song I've heard in the last 10 years." And then he was like, "okay, I got to show this to Michael. I'm not sure if he's going to want to record it because you know, he has a mind of his own," but Michael loved it too.
[00:33:17] And the week after, they were already in the studio and Michael loved the way Siedah sang the song and he actually wanted to sound like her. So he invited her in the studio and he was like, "please teach me how to sing this." So she helped him, you know, to show how she sang it and everything.
[00:33:35] And then she ended up being asked to do backing vocals also on the track, along with the Andraé Crouch choir and also the Winans, the gospel quartet.
[00:33:42] So they had this big, big choir of singers. And then she got asked to do the duet on the same album. It was the first single that came off of the Bad album, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You."
[00:34:04] Track: [music]
[00:34:06] Jeremy: That's such a great story.
[00:34:07] Lana: It's kind of amazing because he ended up saying that that was probably his all time favorite song, along with "Imagine" by John Lennon.
[00:34:16] Mahea: Not bad if one of your all time favorite songs... you made famous. That's so interesting that you say that about her, though, because I was thinking about it... I can't picture anyone besides him singing this song.
[00:34:27] Lana: Yeah. I know. She said that he was like a sponge, and he had a way of just observing. He loved to just study and learn from people. He would absorb that, whatever that you taught him, and then he would kind of, like, make his own thing, and he would just make it even better.
[00:34:44] Mahea: Yeah, because it doesn't sound like an impression or anything. If anything, I was like... "Is this a more intimate Michael Jackson?" But no, it's Michael Jackson plus Siedah.
[00:34:52] Lana: Yes. Yeah, she wrote songs for Madonna and then she wrote also "Keep the Faith" for the Dangerous album for Michael Jackson. So she was a very prolific writer and recording artist.
[00:35:04] Jeremy: This just turned into the Siedah Garrett podcast.
[00:35:08] Mahea: I know what I'm going to Google after this... what I'm going to "ask Jeeves" after we finish this taping.
[00:35:15] Jeremy: So Mahea, what do you have in store for us?
[00:35:17] Mahea: I kind of feel like we could keep talking about Michael Jackson and...
[00:35:21] Jeremy: Let's do it.
[00:35:21] Mahea: ... Siedah all day.
[00:35:40] Track: [music]
[00:35:42] Mahea: so we are listening to a song called "Every Single Time" by the short lived band Simon Dawes. Is this a band either of you have ever heard of?
[00:35:51] Lana: No, I've never heard of them.
[00:35:53] Jeremy: Well, didn't this band turn into Dawes?
[00:35:58] Mahea: Most of this band turned into Dawes. Not all of it.
[00:36:01] Jeremy: I'd never known the story about the previous iteration of this band, but like I've heard of Dawes and I've listened to them and stuff. So what's the deal there?
[00:36:09] Mahea: Simon Dawes is, um, I guess the original version of Dawes plus Blake Mills. I think they started in high school. It's a Southern California band led by Taylor Goldsmith and Blake Mills. They did one album, two EPs before that, and then they broke up and most of the band went on to form Dawes, which isn't quite as gritty to me.
[00:36:32] Way back when, my dad had a Transworld Surf subscription and they used to have this column about music that I think must have appeared in surf movies or something. And that's how I found out about a lot of music in high school. So these were one of those bands.
[00:36:46] Jeremy: This was like 2006, right? Or something?
[00:36:48] Mahea: I think so.
[00:36:49] Jeremy: Yeah. Okay. This was an era where like this kind of thing... and I didn't know this band at the time, but this was the kind of thing that I listened to in that time. Like Pedro the Lion Built to Spill, like the Rosebuds... you know, kind of like, not always quiet, but like really good lyrical, well sung indie rock or folk or something like...
[00:37:09] and just listening to this song, which I'd never heard before... I listened to it today for the first time, it like really transported me back to that exact time. And I had to like take a double take and I was like, when was this from? And then of course it's from 2005, 2006. It's like, yeah. That's the sound of that year for me.
[00:37:25] Mahea: Yeah. I mean, that's the year I graduated high school. So I feel like there's like some like puberty related emotion, like turmoil. You know what I mean?
[00:37:34] Jeremy: Themes and Variation, After Dark.
[00:37:35] Mahea: But I feel like when you're like 17 or 18, your emotions are like at a peak level of, um, just being mismanaged and misunderstood.
[00:37:46] Um, so this is actually a more cathartic song to me because the rest of the album is a lot more, for lack of a better word, like rambunctious. There's just a lot of like angst throughout, and distorted guitars everywhere, and then all of a sudden, you have this very acoustic sounding vocal harmony, um...
[00:38:04] Jeremy: Melancholic almost, yeah.
[00:38:05] Mahea: Yeah, but like in a complicated way. It's not purely a sad song, which is interesting.
[00:38:12] Jeremy: There's a great line, he says something like, um, I might kill this, but it's like, "try and find some comfort here to walk amongst your fears" or something like that.
[00:38:22] And I was like, "I love that line." It's like going out into the dark to find your comfort. It's sort of flipping the script a little bit on, like... yeah. I just thought that could be the core of the catharsis for me, like, lyrically in the song, but yeah.
[00:38:45] Track: [music]
[00:38:48] Mahea: I suspect there's a specific story to this, that he had in mind from his life as he wrote it. But even the lines that I don't really relate to, I'm able to relate to because the whole song is kind of vague.
[00:39:04] Track: [music]
[00:39:08] Mahea: It starts with "darkness in my automobile," which should be a funny line because the word "automobile" is hilarious to me.
[00:39:14] But what I think the song does a really good job of capturing is that mood where you're like so overwhelmed, like either by anger or by like sorrow, that you kind of go a little bit numb and you almost know what sort of feelings you should be feeling but you can't get there yet.
[00:39:31] And then it ends with this big, instrumentally thing that is the cathartic moment. Like we finally get some distorted guitars, so it like... it lines up with the rest of the album a little bit more.
[00:39:43] And the thing I think is most chilling about this: It starts out sounding so dreary and it ends on this happy major sound as though to tell you everything's okay.
[00:40:02] Track: [music]
[00:40:05] Mahea: It's weird because the harmony is pretty simple. It's all in the key of C major and it's all like very basic simple chords that play nicely together, which is something that I'm usually not that into, but the way that the chords are treated makes it so that you don't feel like "oh I'm just in C."
[00:40:22] Like the main chord progression... this is the boring kind of stuff that I usually cut from the podcast, but I'm going to do it anyway... the main chord progression in the verse is just four measures, but it's one measure of C, two measures of E minor, and then one measure of A minor.
[00:40:45] It's kind of weird in a four measure chunk to have the second chord be the one that you sit on. Um, it would usually be the first one or the last one.
[00:40:54] So just like it does all these weird little things like that... or like it has the C, but inverted... this is again the kind of boring stuff I'm going to cut... but in second inversion, which is like the weakest inversion, right? So you just don't quite feel solidly in this basic harmonic world. You feel a little shifty and you don't quite know why because the chords themselves are all straightforward.
[00:41:15] And then at the very end, you get this very solid, just like... "here's the most basic chord that everybody knows." And you didn't know how to feel, but in the end, the song is telling you, you can feel okay, you know?
[00:41:27] Lana: Wow. Or it's okay to feel uncomfortable, you know, maybe that's life.
[00:41:32] Mahea: Totally. This song gives me chills every time. Like it sneaks up on me sometimes when my phone's on shuffle, and I always have to stop what I'm doing. I kind of hate that about it.
[00:41:41] Because it's all tiny things, right, that are kind of the genius of Taylor Goldsmith's writing. Like you have contrary motion all over the place. So like there's a lot of places where the like bass line goes down when the melody goes up.
[00:41:56] Track: [music]
[00:41:56] Mahea: And then the melody does all these things like it goes from being super, super stagnant to like, these giant passages that you want to sing along to desperately, but you kind of can't because they're really hard to sing.
[00:42:26] Track: [music]
[00:42:34] Mahea: It's such a perfect balance of being overly comfortable and like status quo, and then leaping into the stratosphere, that feels like this sort of emotional roller coaster that I associate with catharsis.
[00:42:47] Jeremy: The way that you just described it, I totally agree. Yeah. But it's like a subtle, sort of like caged version of it in a weird way.
[00:42:54] Mahea: Yeah. Well, it's sneaky, right? It's doing all these things, but it's never just like, "here's a giant high note." Like, it sneaks up on you that it did that. And it has interesting chords, but it's not like, "here's a chord from a different key" or anything. It just plays with things in tiny little ways throughout.
[00:43:11] There's also this moment that, like... it always makes me uncomfortable because, you know, you like kind of like nod your head to a song or whatever. And I realized today for the first time in whatever, like, over a decade of listening to the song that, um, there's an extra beat, but it doesn't sound like an extra beat.
[00:43:29] Just like your body can't continue moving the way that it was before, basically. Here, I'm gonna play this for you. So we're in three, right? 1, 2, 3...
[00:43:41] Track: [music]
[00:43:43] Mahea: ...2, 3, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, right? Like, it's just sneaky.
[00:43:49] Jeremy: Yeah, he just sits on it.
[00:43:51] Mahea: Mm hmm. But it's actually a full beat. I don't know how you do that without drawing attention to it. It just feels off.
[00:43:59] Jeremy: It's a feel thing. Yeah, I know, but if everybody's feeling it and that just feels like the right thing at the moment, then everybody can lock in. It's like situational writing, you know? Like it doesn't really have to make sense on the page. If it feels like we need to sit on this beat for a moment, then it's going to feel organic every time that part comes around.
[00:44:19] Mahea: Totally. But like, as a listener...
[00:44:22] Jeremy: It's magic.
[00:44:24] Mahea: Right, because it just... you feel thrown off, right when lyrically, you're supposed to feel thrown off. Like the line is, "I'm harmed but unalarmed." Like, "you did just kind of mess me up, but I'm okay." Yeah, I don't know, it just, it's manipulative. This might be like the Derren Brown of music for me, I don't know.
[00:44:43] But yeah, every... every single time I hear this song, I feel my feelings.
[00:44:53] Track: [music]
[00:44:54] Mahea: This was a good theme. I'm glad you chose this because I feel better about so many things.
[00:45:05] Jeremy: Let's all have a good cry.
[00:45:06] Lana: I think we had a catharsis just by doing this show, no?
[00:45:10] Mahea: Exactly. I think so too, which was unexpected on a Saturday taping. But here we are.
[00:45:16] We are just so honored that you joined us today.
[00:45:19] Lana: I'm honored.
[00:45:20] Mahea: You brought so many great thoughts and an excellent song choice and theme in. I want to hear what you're up to. How's music going for you these days?
[00:45:27] Lana: Really good. So I, um, I just had like a little private streaming show the other day where I, I showed just 10 minutes of music. Um, I have much more music, but I was able to just make the 10 minutes, you know, into a live show that I kind of been working on for the last maybe three years, maybe longer. If I think back, I had this idea very, very long time ago, but I didn't have all the skills to do that.
[00:45:56] And, you know, actually, Soundfly was a big part in just helping me get these skills, you know, with learning about Ableton, learning about mixing, production, and everything.
[00:46:06] And I was finally able to create like a setup that I can start building on, you know, that I can build into an actual solo show. So now it's just 10 minutes of music that I can actually play, but there's much more songs that I want to build into that, so I've been working on that.
[00:46:24] Mahea: That's exciting.
[00:46:25] Lana: Yeah, it's really exciting because this is kind of like... it's been a long time coming, you know?
[00:46:33] And then I have my production stuff, like my songs that I want to, I'm going to be bringing out that are produced by me and everything else is done by me, recorded.
[00:46:45] And then I'm also working in the spatial audio mixing world, which has also been amazing because I think the next time I release a song, I want to try to release the Dolby Atmos version of it myself as well.
[00:47:00] Mahea: Very cool.
[00:47:01] Lana: Yeah, that's gonna be exciting.
[00:47:02] Mahea: Well, I'm excited to hear more of that from you soon, as well as more of your music, which I always look forward to hearing when I see it pop up.
[00:47:10] Lana: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:47:16] Mahea: That's gonna do it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed the episode and that it helped you find the catharsis you've been looking for.
[00:47:23] If you'd like to check out Lana's work, and I definitely think you should, we've linked to it in the show notes for this episode.
[00:47:29] We'll be back again in two weeks with another episode and another theme. Until then and even after, I'm your host Maha Lee... and I can't help but wonder what time signature penguins walk in.
[00:47:41] If you have thoughts on that or want to share your own song pick for this episode's theme, find us on X (Twitter) @ThemesVariation. Thanks for listening.
[00:48:11] Jeremy: This is starting to lean up against, uh, Themes and Variation After Dark. I know. I feel like every time I get on the pod, it's like... it can get a little, uh, iffy.