Pushkin Loves Love Songs: Babyface, Broken Hearts, and the Best Genre for Love

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2:17Hey everyone, welcome to all you lovers out there. This is Justin Richmond. And I'm Leah Rose. We're the host of Broken Record, where we interview your favorite musicians and bring to life the stories behind their music, behind some of your favorite recordings. If you're listening to this in the Broken Record feed, welcome back. But if you're hearing us as a listener of another Pushkin show, that's because today we're doing something special. That's right. This is our Valentine's Day special. And today, to celebrate the music we love, Justin and I are going to do what we love, which is argue about music.

2:49We're also going to be talking to some of our friends here at Pushkin, people who have equally strong opinions about the songs they love. I'll be talking to Malcolm Gladwell, who has a very Gladwellian take about why he believes country is the best genre for love songs. And I can guarantee it's not for the reason you may think. It's depressive music. That's what it is. We'll also hear from Ben Nadiff-Hoffrey, the sometimes host of The Last Archive, about a love song he wrote that's so good, it helped him score his forever valentine. I think that folk music does love songs the best. But first, Justin, I'm going to ask you what I think is the central question of today's episode.

3:30I think I know what you're going to say, but out of every genre and subgenre that exists today, which one do you think does love songs the best? R &B. I knew it. Look, when you think about it, it's really the shorthand in music and in audio for love. Like if you were scoring a love scene in a movie for like Netflix, for like the most amount of people possible to watch, like you would probably throw in an R &B song, you know, maybe. Yeah. You know, Al Green, Let's Stay Together.

4:12Come on, that's that's really those are the sounds of love right there. You know, it's very much like what song are you choosing for the first dance at your wedding? The first day. Right. The first the first slow dance. It's your junior high. Welcome dance. You know what I'm saying? Or your senior prom. Like it's going to be R &B. It's kind of the cliche genre that we go to. And I don't I think I should give a deeper reason here because I think R &B kind of gets short shrift in in the music world. Like, you know, rock and roll and hip hop have taken up all the air in the room for 60 years now.

4:47Yes. You know, since the British invasion. A couple years were spent on EDM, but yeah. A couple years. Yeah, right. Skrillex was big there for a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not a sexy topic for some reason. I think because it's so ubiquitous, because in some ways it's so ever-present and we just find it very easy to ignore. But when you think about the fact that R &B comes out of really, like it comes out of gospel, you know, Gospel is about love and devotion to a higher being, to God. And at some point, all these gospel musicians that go out, they want to write popular songs or sing popular music instead of just singing in the church.

5:21And they take everything they've learned in gospel music about how to sort of create a stir and a fervor around God, and they just sort of center romantic love. So they just take God out and put in a man, a woman, a lover. You know, a classic example is Sam Cooke, who's originally with the gospel group, The Soul Stirrers. And he releases a song, He's So Wonderful, which is, you know, it's a gospel track.

5:58Then when Sam Cooke wants to cross over, like about a year later, and wants to just make an R &B cut, he reworks that same song, and instead of wonderful, becomes lovable.

6:15She's lovable. So then how could you not say that R &B isn't like the preeminent genre for love songs? It has to do with the ethereal and the theological down to the romantic and the platonic. Like it's everything. And then it just gets dirtier and dirtier as the years go on. And then we land at the thong song. Yeah, Cisco's thong song. Although, shout out to Cisco. I love Cisco. And that's a great album. I love Cisco too. It's a great song, you know? R &B does do love very, very well. But there's other genres, too. I mean, look at Dolly Parton on Jolene. She's begging and she's pleading and she's out of her mind.

6:51Please don't take my man. But then who takes, and we love Dolly, but then who takes a Dolly song like I'll Always Love You and takes it to the next level? Whitney. Whitney. And I will always love you. I will always love you. Speaking of Whitney, someone who could sing anyone's song and make it sound phenomenal, this makes me think of the interview you did with Babyface for Broken Record back in 2023. And he wrote some of Whitney's biggest hits. I mean, he wrote some of my favorite Whitney songs. Forget about his. This is some of my favorites. And, you know, a million other unforgettable songs that, you know, yeah, they also happen to be hits.

7:42Boys to Men's End of the Road, Moriah Carey's We Belong Together, Breathe Again by Toni Braxton. Yes. That was such a great interview. Yeah, man. I mean, I'm sitting there with Babyface and I'm watching him play guitar in front of me. It was just crazy, you know, and he's left-handed. He plays upside down like Hendrix. I mean, he's not as good as a guitar player, Hendrix. But I mean, it was just incredible to be that personal up close with him and seeing how he wrote these songs. And he played for me a song he's never recorded with anyone. It was the very first song he ever wrote about an early love of his, his first love actually, in high school.

8:19Let's hear some of that. Here I go falling in love again. That was my first song. And I wrote it for a girl because I was like in love and stuff. And so the guitar really was just an instrument for me to get these songs out of me. I always like to say, even when I play and learn things on the piano I play, I'm not really a piano player. I learn things to support my songwriting. And that's what I did then. I turned that into my first song. So I was just learning chords to support all my little songs. Wow. And for you, songwriting was about writing songs for the girls you were in love with. Yeah, the girls.

9:02Crushes on. Yeah, crushes on. And it was purely kind of an escape, so to say. Wow. It wasn't anything but that. I didn't think they were going to go anywhere. But that was the drive. And you would have been like 10, 11, 12? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Can I play a Deal song? Sure. Sweet November? Yeah. Yeah. Baby sweet November will tell us a story That will bring us back the love that we've known Wow, man. That's a great song. I wrote that right out of high school. Out of high school? Yeah, it was because I was a man-child, So it was second year or something, 78 or so, 78, 79, right in that time. So it was a girl.

10:00It was like this one girl, she was like the most, while we were in high school, we were really good friends. And there's no way I would have ever thought I would have been with her. But when I got out of high school, we started talking and then we actually started dating. I remember Daryl was like, how is this even happening? How do you have her? And then I remember we went to go see Brooke Shields' Endless Love. We saw Endless Love together. And then something happened, I think, right before we were going away in Manchild. All of a sudden, she stopped calling me, and I couldn't reach her. And I don't know what happened, but we were just broken up.

10:46Wow. and then there was no cell phones. There was no good, you couldn't reach out on the phone. No social media. It was just done. And I was really messed up about it. And, and that's when I wrote this, you know, cause you know, that was the time period. It was in the fall. And so then I was thinking maybe, maybe when I come back, maybe, maybe this November, we'll get back together and find it. So that was actually a love song that was written way back then. And would you have written the words or would, would you write the words first? I sat with the piano and wrote it. You sat with the piano?

11:19Yeah. Wow. So. Because it's kind of beautiful even just divorced from the music. If you just look at the words, it's like, it's high level, you know? Yeah, it was, when Autumn first arrived, you were my lady. We were dating. It was the second rain of Autumn we shared a feeling. Yeah. Come on, that's. It was like, we started dating and then all of a sudden we like, I remember it was raining and like, looks like something's going to happen here. So that song was really personal Personal exhale was more from watching the movie. Watching the movie. You don't necessarily have to write from personal experience.

11:55You can, but you can watch others. No, yes, it's really about watching others and how they feel and how they're imagining having to go through that. I'm always asked, how are you able to write for women? Yeah. And I said, if you just kind of think of it and think of whatever they go through and think of how you'd feel, you know, it's not that hard to figure out damn that's fucked up I feel like I'll write about that and as a kid that was always falling in love and thinking I was in love feeling like you were in love you know that's what it was my very first song was about a girl named Rhonda Newbold I always say her name and that was in Here I Go Falling in Love Again and the second song that I wrote that I clearly remember was about the same girl, which was two years later, from sixth grade to eighth grade, because she broke my heart, was called The Bitter Taste of Life.

12:53Oh. Those were feelings that I had, and everything was exaggerated. I had written a song called So Shy. So there would be pieces of things, of songs that I would write. I wrote a song called Tanita, wrote a song called Shelly. One of the best songs I ever wrote was a song called Last Song Forever, which was I wrote that when I was in my senior year never recorded it I think some I think I let a group record as if they turned into a gospel do you remember any of it yeah could you play a little of it I don't know what my voice is like right now

13:31when I think of special thoughts I remember special feelings we share

13:43Then I think of special moments Those were special times you told me you cared

13:55You know when all it comes The leaves will float away I hope you know by now My love will always stay I know I will love you forever You should know my love can't get no better

14:18Last song forever I couldn't love you no better Um, how's it go? Than I do right now And now he's forever That's a little piece of it. You can hear all of my conversation with Babyface in the Broken Record episode that we're going to link to in the show notes. There's so much more to it, including how some of his biggest influences were singer-songwriters like James Taylor and the Beatles. Coming up after the break, Pushkin producer Ben Adephaffri tells Leah about writing his own love song.

15:02Thank you.

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16:11Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S. where you can see the sky. Best network based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. The greatest music stories aren't always in the songs themselves. during the late night studio sessions, the chance encounters, and the cultural moments that shaped entire movements. For music lovers who find themselves going down rabbit holes about their favorite artists, Claude, an AI thinking partner, helps you explore those deeper questions. Whether you're wondering about the connections between different scenes, trying to understand what drove a particular creative period, or exploring how social movements influenced sound, Claude works through these complex cultural puzzles with you.

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17:35Lexus is a company that believes in the importance of setting a standard, which I can appreciate as someone who holds themselves to lofty, if not ridiculous standards, especially with the car I drive. The standard Lexus has set for themselves is to experience amazing. Lexus measures success by the feeling and emotions evoked in a driver, like exhilaration and joy. Amazing can only be achieved by knowing people on a deeper level. The standard of amazing results in a feeling in drivers that their car was built in anticipation of them. Machines that make you feel more human. Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing.

18:12Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer.

18:17I think that folk music does love songs the best. That star, Pushkin producer, and sometimes host of The Last Archive, Ben Nadeff-Haffrey. Folk or country, either one, would be my leading contender for the genre that is best at love songs. And I think it's because on some level, like, I think a breakup song or a lost love song is superior to a straight-up love song. Me too. Because I think like you don't if you're in love, you don't really need a song like you feel this kind of symphonic happiness. Like there's something specific that you're experiencing with another person. Like if you are experiencing lost love or unrequited love, there's something about a particular breakup story or sad romance song that like creates a community with you when you maybe feel otherwise alone or bereft.

19:14But I think that there's like wistful folk music, wistful country music kind of toes the line between these two things. To be honest, I also think that sad songs might make the best love songs. But the real reason I wanted to talk to Ben is because I learned at our holiday party that he also has a second life as a musician and as a songwriter with the band Rukin. Yes, and this is part of my long con to get interviewed on Broken Record for my music. Well, you're close. Yeah, exactly. So this is our Valentine's Day special, and I was tipped off by our producer, Izzy, about a love song that you wrote a couple years ago, and it actually ended up having sort of like a big impact on your life.

20:02So I wanted to ask you about this song, If I Didn't Know You By Now. So set the stage for us. How did this song come to be? Well, I wrote this song about like a year after I first moved to Brooklyn. So I was like just out of college and I had moved to Brooklyn and I was living with a bunch of friends in what was, you know, actually quite a nice apartment. I had not made my corner of the apartment particularly nice. I was not having the best time that year. And I had, I think as an expression of vague despair, just like not really done anything to set it up. I don't remember why this is, but I remember I had like a tarp in the corner of the room.

20:44I had a tarp in the corner of the room, like a mattress and then a saw on the wall. Oh my gosh. I thought it would be like fun to put on my wall, but it looked terrifying. And that was like pretty much it. And I remember distinctly walking into the apartment one time with a good friend of mine from high school. and I had like change in my pocket and I like took the change out of my pocket and I threw it in the corner and she was like why did you just throw the your change in the corner I was like that is that is the corner of the apartment where I keep my change and it was like it was indeed like next to the tarp like a pile of change so there were no shades on the window this was like a crucial thing um I just was like not super taking care of myself like everything was totally fine but um my life was not in order yeah and then i started dating a friend of mine from college her name was julia and she was living in nashville at the time and we sort of like picked back up talking to each other at a distance and then when she came to new york we would hang out and i noticed that like as julia and i had been talking more and started seeing each other in Nashville and also in New York, that slowly I had begun to set up my room.

22:06I got shades for the window. I put like, they didn't actually fit, but I got like handkerchiefs that extended them to the bottom. I got rid of the tarp. I did in fact leave the saw on the wall because that was by then a crucial part of the decor and my identity and remains so. I don't remember what I did with the change corner. There's a good chance the change corner sort of remained. The growing up process is a slow one. The growing up process is a slow one, but it began with fixing up that first room. There was a moment, I remember, where she came and visited. It was early spring, and we had this really wonderful weekend together exploring the city.

22:45and she'd grown up in New York and I was kind of new there and she was showing me around and we went to like a Lebanese church and I'm Lebanese and it was kind of like a, they just wandered in because they were having like a food festival kind of thing. Like there were a lot of wonderful serendipitous things. And I remember it was after that visit, I think on the day that she had left, that I was hanging out in my room and I was playing guitar and I started writing this song.

23:19Like a lot of hack guitar players, I use a lot of open tunings. And around that time, I'd been playing the Rain Song by Led Zeppelin, which is a version of OpenSea tuning. And so I just would keep my guitar in that. And I remember figuring out the sort of main guitar line and then messing around with the words over it.

23:43If I didn't know you by now Would I ever hang the blinds up on my window Falling away and pack up all my clean clothes Without complaining You know, I'm not a professional songwriter. this was a song that like definitely did not come easily to me, but it felt sort of like inspired by that moment and that feeling. It was kind of like a reflection of the fact that I was noticing that my life was changing and an expression of gratitude to her for bringing me to the place where I wanted to do that. At what point did you realize I'm writing a love song for Julia? I think that that is just what it was.

24:36I think it's just because that was sort of where it came from. So I don't think it was a realization ever. It was just kind of, that was the feeling it started from.