Carly Rae Jepsen

0:00This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto.

0:43Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. I would want Lena to write my memoir. That would be a great ghost. You know what I mean? Like, are you busy? Carly Rae Jetson, welcome to One Night Stand. Thank you so much. Very happy to have you here. Excited to be here. Have you always been a big reader? I haven't always been consistent with my reading. I'll go through phases where then I'm like a book girl and I would almost define myself that way.

1:18And I'm just like reading constantly on the plane all the time. And then there's like a drought and I just kind of become a TV girl for a minute and I go back again. What pushes you into a drought? is it for me it's when I'm reading a book I don't love and I like stick at it for too long I think you might have just found the thing like the culprit of why I stopped but I haven't really been able to define it until now yes that is exactly what happens and then sometimes you force yourself to keep going and then you just realize well I'm just avoiding it by never reading and that doesn't feel like the solution either give up on the bad books yeah that is a real lesson that I've embraced in my 30s oh I haven't yet I feel committed to men like and it's almost then I'm like it's like this homework assignment that I have to get finished and I don't know why like what am I who am I approving to who yeah exactly yeah exactly no wow yeah well thank you there we go I'm glad to be a muse I'll get going yeah well you've chosen five incredible books for us to talk about and I thought we could start with Book of Longing by Lennon Curran tell me about your love of this poetry collection very sexy start it is there's a particular poem in there that I remember like screenshotting and sending to my husband when he was still my boyfriend.

2:32And I was like, hey, like, do you like poetry? And he was like, poetry. Like, I think it seemed like a foreign idea to him because, I don't know, he just wasn't really into it. He wasn't into it. But then I sent him this poem and we started trading poems back and forth. And we kind of like, it took us both on like a little bit of a journey. And we would go to the bookstores and we'd look in the poetry section. And now he's like really into it. And me too. So yeah. Do you remember which poem it was? Yeah. I mean, I could definitely find it. Should we do that? Let's do it. I mean, it's a saucy poem.

3:04Oh, I feel like I know where it is in the book. Is that weird? No, not at all. I love that. True, true fan. Disturbed this morning. Do you want to read it? Well, I mean, I'll read it. Let's do it. Ah, that. That's what I was so disturbed about this morning. My desire has come back and I want you again. I was doing so fine. I was above it all. the boys and girls were beautiful and I was an old man loving everyone and now I want you again I want your absolute attention your underwear rolled down in a hurry still hanging on one foot and nothing on my mind but to be inside the only place that has no inside and no outside oh I love that that is a racy it's a racy poem but leave it to Leonard Cohen to do exactly that dark sexy mysterious come on and so did he he must have loved getting that text I Yeah, you know, it was a bold move.

3:55Come to think, rereading it, like, who did I think I was? No, I love that though. So when we were sleuthing online, some people think that's the book that's on the cover of your new album. They're not wrong. They're not wrong. They're not wrong, yeah. And how come you chose that to be on the cover of the album? It was actually kind of a coincidence. I had, well, funny enough, this actually is also a book that I gave out as a gift at our wedding. Yeah. Along with the Patti Smith's Just Kids, because we were married in the Chelsea Hotel, and so there was like lore to the artists having stayed there and anyways uh fast forward to the photo shoot for day and night and I think the creative director was like do you have any books at your house that we could just like have popped around the shoot today and I threw that into the bag and it just made it onto the table so it's a little bit of a coincidence but also has like some real connection to my life I was gonna say it's like a nice little easter egg yeah yeah well it wasn't meant as it but it definitely turned out to be yeah you were just like oh i love that have you always been a poetry person i think i've always been a lyric person and i think that the the songs that i gravitate to are the songs that are almost like poems in their own right and then the music just adds to it so yeah i i would say in some ways more so now like we really went on like an ee cummings kick like i i don't know it yeah i feel like i even reference ee cummings in day and night on this song called just a little walk on the moon that's like ends our day song we were reading a lot of that when we were in the philippines and we wrote that song in like our hotel while i was like in the bath and like we were i don't know it's just like a very lovely yeah i wasn't in the bath with the guitar just for clarity i was humming things yeah and he had the guitar oh that's really special yeah do you read to your child like poems or anything like Yes, but my child is five and a half months, so it's like, twinkle, twinkle little star.

5:43No, for sure, yeah. And baby beluga. But I mean, we kind of actually, both of us were really conscious, we're like, do kids just gravitate to like children's music? Or can we like offer him some like earth, wind and fire? Like, how does this go? And so far, I don't think he can tell the difference. So we're just playing whatever we like. Baby beluga's a banger. I'm sorry. Yeah. I agree. And I sing it every night to him when he's in the bath. So I know that song well. it's uh it's that and hop little bunnies is the other one that my sister's kids are always bopping along i feel like raffi though is like some quality children's music like i feel like we need the raffia of our time and i don't think baby shark is it sorry yeah no baby shark it doesn't have the same soul as like it has something but i don't know if it's something that like we need more of yeah i know what you mean you know what i mean yeah maybe it's just the repetition kills me yeah after a while and parents everywhere but it's like an earwormy quality to it that I sometimes find with like a cat's eye song or something where it's like every it gets in my brain even though I'm like I don't know if I actually like this song my mom calls those earworms yeah they really are but she'll also call me and be like you did it again I didn't sleep until four with that song like sorry but yeah that's so sweet like maybe yeah I have to ask her no I think that's so lovely that you're you know Leonard Cohen's poetry is obviously he's kind of a big yana are you do you think of yourself as a yana he is i i definitely love you know longing i think is something to play with in music it's very fun people say like you know sex sells i always think like the the thing of knowing what you want and it being slightly over there is so powerful and exciting and i think we all have that i think that's part of the reason we keep going and want to be alive is totally yeah and i think as you get older you sort of have to find new things to reach for because I have a lot of I'm 37 a lot of my friends are turning 40 I know that you're now 40 like and a lot of them are reckoning with having a lot of the things they thought they once wanted and then still wanting to like like you say wanting to reach for something is such a powerful feeling and then I think you can feel a bit empty when you're not reaching for something necessarily oh I think the the the passion of life is so key to like wanting to get up in the morning and wanting to figure out what you're doing and I I feel like that's such an exciting thing when at least, I don't know, you have an idea in mind of what you're after.

8:06Totally. Yeah. When you were writing day and night, were there any particular feelings or things that you were yearning or reaching for in that moment? So many things, actually. It was a really like incredibly like big time in my life. When I look at sort of where I began and sort of what I was processing when this album was being written, it was sort of me kind of realizing that I wanted a lot of different things than what I currently had. And I had been a bit of a workaholic, I would say. And I was sort of proud of that. Like I was like, you know, if there's a thing, I'll go to it and I'll do it.

8:47And if there's hard work to be done, I'm your girl kind of thing. But I didn't have a ton of balance. I didn't have a relationship that meant that like felt serious or felt like it had the potential to become something bigger. And I definitely didn't even have thoughts of a baby yet. And so these were all just these like far off dreams that became realer and realer once I met Cole, my partner. And I think also a lot of like work that happened before I met him even allowed me to be ready for that relationship And it just I think this album is like kind of what was being written and thought about While I was going through the pretty profound experience of falling in love with my husband Yeah that's so special so how old were you when you first started working on it?

9:30It was a few years back well I mean I met Cole actually during the loveliest time Which was the album prior to this and we had that song So Right together and then on this album we have a few now um but yeah he began as like a friend that i'd known for forever so i've known him for a lot longer than we were like together yeah i think that is sort of was my approach to dating as i would sort of keep an eyeball on somebody for like a year as a friend and then one day be like are we in love that's the best way to meet someone like i think so yeah for sure i think there's some truth to the fact that they're not showing up with like like I don't know trying to make an impression of themselves like you would on a first date they're a bit more real you get to kind of see behind the curtain a little bit I agree I don't know I agree I also think that that feeling you're describing of realizing that you there are a lot your life right now isn't where you want it to be it's just such a common end of 30s feeling like if you read my journal page from this morning it's basically that sort of energy like I feel like so many of my so many people can will relate to that yeah it's really fun to do in that space because I think that's a really like powerful place too is sort of like like like grab a bunch of magazines and a piece of paper and like literally in a teenage sort of way it's to feel silly like just start to like put together things that you want and like dream really wild and big about it with like one other person yeah not just by yourself like with one other person to say the wild things that you want out loud I really think that like I know it's like a simple idea of manifestation but I feel like it's like very powerful actually to put some clarity to what you do and do not want and what your idea of like success looks like.

11:08I think I completely agree I actually did vision boarding with three of my friends in January and we like bought tons of magazines laid them out. It's so fun. It's so fun and it's also I think people think about manifesting like okay the the problem is with manifesting in my experience is that you've got to decide what you're manifesting first and that's what the exercise helps you. You have to tell the universe what to give you. Exactly that's so that's that's very cool one other thing about this book in particular I know that then a cone wrote a lot of these poems when he was at a monastery are you a solitary person or do you like to be around people I never know how to answer that question I think that I will say that when I'm around other people it takes my energy down yeah but I wonder if that's also been my role with like my band and my crew I feel like it's a whole bunch of people from different walks of life and it feels like I'm the one that brought them to this like place yeah in Japan that night and so I kind of feel like it's my responsibility to make sure everyone gets along yeah and be like hey we're gonna do like a dinner it's gonna be a family thing and so when I go home I'm always like I'm so exhausted and so I don't feel like I feel like when you hear like true extroverts they like go out and they feel like jazzed by that I think it drains my battery a little bit so I have to be like careful when and how I do it but I do enjoy it so it's like a very complicated relationship I have with being social but if you ask me like am I out a lot throughout the week I'd say like if I I do one social event a week, I'm good.

12:30I don't need more than that. Other than that, I'm like a pretty and so like, I want my husband, I want my baby, I wanna like have some time to myself. That's sort of where I - I totally get that. That's my sweet spot. Yeah, I like to be in rooms with people that I love or like and then be able to just be quiet within them. Like I quite, I went on a boat with friends and they kept being like, UK, you travel sick. I was like, just let me sit. I wanna just sit and listen. Like I don't always wanna - Yeah, it's sort of a funny, but I relate. I get, I need to be around people because I need like also I just feel like if you're artistic or creative or any of those things you need like the stimulus of being out in the world absolutely and so it's important not to get too cocooned in your comfort yeah I feel like I should up my ante from one to two times yeah maybe two maybe two yeah two times okay it's a deal it's a deal we'll check back in to see how it went um next we can talk about uh what I talk about when I talk about running oh my gosh which is have you read this i read it yeah for this it was really cool so cool i mean it's so i love when an artist like lets you inside their process a little bit i feel like he says that the title is about running but i think it's also just equally about his writing it's about making art yeah and how he approaches it in like to me what is similar to how i think i approached songwriting and i didn't really realize until after i finished the book but it's sort of like you show up every day you show up whether you think you're gonna have an idea and you're less judgmental of what you're making you're just more the creator in that moment and you sort of are as open as you can be but you're also I think that thing about like the work ethic of you you kind of arrive and you're doing your job by being present and I get teased a lot for being like an overwriter so there'll be like an album of 17 songs too and I will I will write hundreds like literally and and I think some people say that like I really do write like too many songs and it doesn't feel like work to me It feels like my process for how I get to the 17.

14:25It doesn't feel like every song is good. It doesn't feel like every idea landed. But somewhere I learn what I don't want to do or I learn something I want to take into the next song. And it just feels kind of like, I don't know, I've stopped judging the process of it. It's just sort of how I relate. So when I read this book, I was like, oh, OK, maybe I'm not crazy. I felt sort of like there was some and he's even more methodical with like his run and what he eats. and everything. And I just thought it was pretty inspiring to see that he went from like, you know, owning a record store and like a little bar and then like his wife just believed in him and he went and wrote his first book.

15:03And now he's like one of the most prolific writers I've ever even heard of. And I think he does a beautiful thing. I don't know if you've read a lot of Murakami, but I found him when I was traveling a lot. And I feel like he does this thing that almost like Billie Holiday does, where they find a sad quality about something and they teach you how it's beautiful in a way. And I feel like he does that with loneliness. He makes the idea of being really alone feel really thrilling and beautiful. And for a woman who was in different hotels and on these different elevators going in and out different places, I needed somebody who made it seem beautiful to me.

15:43And he really helped with that. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move.

16:22Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. I completely get that. one of the lines that I wrote down is emotional hurt is the price a person has to be in order to pay as the price a person has to pay in order to be independent which I thought was such an interesting kind of about that idea yes yes and I feel like this is like even not the book that he does the loneliness the best on but he it's like I think his secret weapon totally of all of the stuff that he touches yeah being solitary doesn't need to be scary sort of thing yeah it actually can make you almost like what you're saying about being on the boat like a little bit more observant yes a little bit more like present yeah actually and and I don't know yeah are you a runner sorry did I laugh no I mean once upon a time I was actually yeah like the longest since runner when I was back in high school interesting yep like what kind of distances do you run in high school I don't know whatever the high school like really lame distances are nothing really to be bragging about in an interview but um yeah I did I didn't do sprints well but I could do the stamina of a long run well good for you only because i i think i was like slow but steady yes you know franklin wins the race i i could do that i think that's as much about mental state as it is about physical state my father is a very good runner and so i would run with him sometimes and like we have these little like trails in bc where i grew up so it's like kind of like i do like little forests now when i go back and we would go on runs and he would talk a lot about pushing past the pain to the next like almost like place where it didn't hurt anymore.

18:08And I remember like realizing the truth of what he was talking about. And then it kind of felt like you almost like leveled up. You're like, okay, now it doesn't hurt anymore. And I'll get to the next place where it hurts. And there's another place if you push past that. I do think it is a mind trick more than a physical thing. He talks about that a lot too. Yeah, when I was reading it, I was like, do I want to become a runner? And then I was like, no, you suck. Your knees, girl. My knees? That's exactly what I told my friend. I do not want to be a runner now. It's the knees, isn't it? that is no oh no when he talks about like the physical pain that he's pushing through i'm like no this is like a never be me person's sport so i know i feel exactly the same i was like go off it's also one of the lines i wrote down that i thought was really interesting goes he i run in order to acquire a void which i totally relate to because there is something about having a void that's really powerful like i guess it's like meditation but i just never find it in running that's like empty your brain yeah because for me running is like a form of active self-loathing in my brain not avoid but do you seek a void ever like do you like that kind of meditative open oh I think I think I should be seeking it more because I my partner's actually introduced like not in like a pretty crazy way we haven't done this in a while so like before we had a child he would try to like meditate with me and I would try and I would spend the first five minutes like making to-do lists putting them to the left and the right and like and and I felt like I was cheating meditation to be honest and then and then like literally the last minute of like our you know 10 15 minute session I would get to something similar to what you're talking about and I was like oh I think this is what I'm supposed to be trying to do and it was delicious yeah but I wasn't able to get there immediately and it's still something that I should probably work on I struggle with it as well it's not an easy thing I think especially like my brain's always worrying and I think it's very hard to get it to shut off and I people who can do it through running I think they're very lucky yeah yeah it's really I agree it's really interesting so when you talk about you know you being the type of creator that makes like a hundred songs that what kind of self-editor are you like when you're waking day and night and deciding how goes on which goes on which side and all of that how has that process changed for you there's a little bit of um like magic to songwriting that I still feel like I'm not really responsible for it like I almost don't really know how to talk about songwriting very well because I feel like part of it is definitely showing up and definitely learning how other songs are created or even like the rules of a pop song or when and how to break them and all those sorts of things.

20:39But really when I'm collaborating with like longtime friends and musicians, there's sort of just this all that I think we all share that we've gone and had a conversation. We've gone to the studio late. we've woken up the next day and we're like how did that happen and it does feel like this magical thing so I think the editing process um is actually gotten a little less um like I say I wrote a lot of 100 songs for past projects I don't think I was as crazy for this one like I still probably got to that number ish but the batting average was higher because it was a double album so there's 24 songs I had space for and as well I I showed up with like a different kind of intention and a little less pressure to chase every idea.

21:23So if something wasn't working similar to your book idea, I wasn't finishing the book. I was like, okay, this doesn't feel like it, but I started something. Maybe I'll take that part and move the next day on to something else. So I would say my process is still my process that I definitely write more than I need. But editing is a little bit of a separate thing to the creation. And I think there just needs to be a break between them. So on the days when I'm making, I'm trying, I'm probably still editing, but I'm not trying to be in that space I'm trying to just be in the place of like discovery and then I do the editing later yeah that's so interesting yeah one of the other ideas that I think is in this book is really about aging it's really about like him reckoning with the fact that he can train hard and he's he might feel like he's improving in his commitment to his habit but his time because he's getting older probably won't get short like shorter how do you ever reckon with aging and And how does that feel to you?

22:20Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I think that the truth is every time that I attack a project, I'm looking for something different that I haven't found before. And I think as you get older, you've done more things. So it just becomes a little bit more challenging to be like, how am I approaching this? It doesn't feel like a rebellion. It feels still authentic. It feels still like me, but it's not repetitious. And so I think that is like the main thing. And I think the answer to that is like, don't just make something when you're uninspired. Do it when you feel something. And because I think there was a lot of things happening for real time in my life, it felt like a profoundly prolific time, to be honest.

23:03And it felt really easy. And I think that's a good sign for me is like when it feels effortless, then something's happening. And when it feels like I'm pushing, I kind of need to take a break and go live somewhere. life and I have I have done that too and that's like regardless of age I think like right after home maybe I went on hiatus and like went and did Cinderella on Broadway and nobody knew what I was doing but I was like this is what I need to do right now you know yeah that's so I mean one of the bits that I wrote down as well was when they were talking about aging is that um because I think Murakami was talking about his own discomfort and wanting to be constantly pushing forward with Nunez and he quotes Mick Jagger saying I don't want to be 45 singing satisfaction and I was curious how you feel about a song like call me maybe now do you think you'll enjoy still singing it at 45 or i mean as long as i remember the words like yeah no truthfully like fun fact i forget the words to call me more than any other song really because i think i just have sung it so much that i like check out a little bit yeah and then i'm like but it is a good one for that because you can just like turn the microphone oh yeah that's where we are okay and then you just keep going honestly I think I think there was maybe a time like right after it was I was like I am burning out on this but I I come back to like a place of gratitude with it I think of like if I go see Van Morrison like I want to hear moon dance like I want and so I'm like if you're coming to my show we're gonna play you that song yeah it won't be all that there is to it and it's a moment for like of like joy and nostalgia and everyone is participating it's hard not to like yeah see it as a light thing and not be like it's this heavy thing I carry it's yeah it's not that serious I thought I saw it's interesting recently that Audrey Hobart was talking about um when she performs Sue Me she performs it twice once at this where she's like everyone has their phone out and then the second time she's like okay can we now do this song where none of you have your phone out because I think like when when you perform and it's a song that you know everyone loves everyone's going to want to catch it for their Instagram or something is that I mean do Do you feel that when you're performing as well?

25:02The phones and the performing is like, it's so true. Like there's concerts where they weren't there and then all of a sudden they were there and it's in every moment. And I don't know, I don't really, at this moment in time, it just feels like you guys do what you wanna do. If you wanna have your phone tucked away and party, you party. If you wanna document every moment to watch it later, you do that. But no, I haven't really thought too, too much about it. But if anything, I'll just like try to, you know, allow it to be what it's meant to be, like a playful moment. And that feels kind of like my job.

25:37Yeah, that's so fun. Well, I loved I mean, I listened actually to this book, the Murakami one. And I know you're right. It is just such I think I probably wouldn't have picked it up without you choosing it because I've been like, I'm not a runner. But actually, it is about so much more. And he's so tough on himself, but also so gentle. Like, I think it's really interesting. I mean I think it's a very cool meditation on how to like be a creative and have balance but in like a very like almost like nine to five like regimented way and I feel like he's found a little bliss for himself that's like well done sir I know it could never be me yeah me neither but maybe we'll just like write Murakami on our next like mood board exactly what are we doing what are we channeling a little bit of like light fish for lunch exactly exactly yeah well maybe next we can talk about fame sick by lena dunham oh my god which is an incredible book page turner literally tell me tell me what you love about this book well i think this got me back into reading again yeah i was like she got me back into the kick obviously lena is just a brilliant writer and hilarious and just um i don't have enough good things to say anyways i was really excited to read this I felt and I told her this too there was some things that she put to words in a way that mimicked a little bit of my own experience with with just being like thrown into the spotlight in a quick way that I hadn't even made sense of yet and I I was like thank you for putting this into words so I found it really liberating to see somebody talking about it and um I I just also think that she is a profoundly like powerful individual who's just like been through so much and made such good art and all of this is going on for her and it's just a very very impressive yeah she's such a visionary and like I think and just her capability to put something into words and all it's just it's so singular I know she's so gifted it's so true yeah when did you first meet well I probably met her through Jack Antonoff actually because Jack and I I think it might be the first time Jack like collaborated outside of just like um his project with fun at the time so this is like goes way back so I was at their apartment way way back just like I think the first song Jack and I did was like sweetie and Lino was so sweet and like I don't know just was really really lovely and I had always hoped that one day me and her might work on something together and then now we are.

28:11I know, so obviously I cannot wait to tell me about 10 Things I Hate About You, the musical. What can you tell me? Oh my gosh, I mean, I could talk your ear out, but it's just, it's just been like a passion project really. And the fact that it's actually coming to life is sort of the most surreal thing to me. I don't know. If you saw my little board that Cole and I made in front of the fire, I was like, I can't believe I'm gonna say this out loud. but one day I'd like to write the music for a musical and I felt so stupid saying that and he was like no say it and then lo and behold this project has like come to life so how did it actually come together with you it actually was none of my doing I I was I got a lucky phone call from Mike Bosner and he I think he mentioned like Lena Dunham and 10 things I hate about you in the same sentence and I was like say no more how how can I help and um and yeah and then I was lucky enough i reached out to ethan greska who is just like a force in his own might he's my um uh my writing partner from the music side of things and lena enlisted jessica and she is um doing the book they're doing the book together and then christopher wielden and tom kitt it's just like um it's a little team and yeah what does the actual collaboration process look like for something like that like is there an order of operations or great question I think it's been something we've been figuring out in real time together because my understanding is that it's like different for every team okay our team is incredibly collaborative and what I think is like our strength but because Ethan and I live in Los Angeles like we'll write a lot of the music there and then we'll come to New York for the workshops and we'll work with the team kind of present everyone will give feedback we'll go back and reduce and rewrites and it kind of rinse and repeat over and over and over again and it's a process of killing your darlings and learning a lot and then like coming back and being like oh wait this is way better thank you and it's i think our job to like you know show up and and be inspired by when these characters need to break into song really and also be sponges and learn from some of the greats and we're like surrounded by them so it's really wonderful were there any key moments from the movie that you were like god i can't wait to write a song about this or like i mean yes yes yes and are you able to share any or you i don't know the rules of this okay i'll just say yes yes i am so excited i feel like that movie is just such a it's like a cult classic it really is it really really and i was in that cult like a hundred yeah it's it was just so i don't know smart and julia did such an incredible job and it's it still really stands up it really speaks to I feel like there is some rage she held for women everywhere that is still not completely gone if anything has been enhanced yeah and I'm so excited to get to honor the character with the rage that I wish I could rebel with and it's like let's do it through this character let's go it's just a delicious project I love that well I know um the year that sort of Call Me Moby blew up is the same year that Girls came out and so like you say there was that sort of dovetailing and did that did the did Lena's book I guess uh you know invoke memories of that era of being famous in the 2010s because it was a weird and dark time to be a young woman in the public eye in some ways um yeah I think I can just speak to like I related to her feeling almost like she had to apologize for anything because I feel like I felt very much like I had been struck by lightning and I had songwriters to my left and right we'd perform our songs at the ends of club in Vancouver and it was just like I remember thinking like why did this get to happen to me and this one song and I felt so like I had to almost like apologize for it and and I think what I feel now is more that I can just have great gratitude and do understand that that is true so there is some lightning to the situation and how it all kind of happened but there's less guilt and a little bit more like well this is incredible and what a wonderful way to get to start a passion project and turn it into a career but it still blows my mind that this is my career I'm very very lucky well you're very talented I mean it's sort of all aren't isn't it but it is it's a it's a funny thing and I think Lena's dad says to her at one point like you're the goose that lays the golden egg and they're protecting the eggs not the goose where like in terms of the people around her yeah I do remember I do remember being at like a label party and it was like an old executive who said to me he introduced me to like an artist that had just been signed there and he was like this is Carly she says yes to everything in terms of like I would go to that interview I'd go to that country I'd say that and I remember being like was I allowed to say no?

33:06Like I didn't actually know that I was allowed to have some agency over my own schedule, how tired I was. I was the person, I wrote like personalized thank you letters to every radio station that played Call Me Maybe. Like I definitely went above and beyond, but to the point of like absolute exhaustion. And I think now I'm like, did that need to happen? I think, not that I don't want to work very hard, but I do want to be able to say yes to the right things and say no to the things that make you feel imbalanced or that it is pushing too hard and so I definitely related to her feeling of like when a lot of money's at play and there's a lot of powers that be and there are people who are pulling you from every side they kind of forgot that there's like a human being underneath there and I didn't know at the time to speak up for that and I think if anything that hopefully the business has changed a bit since then but I definitely have yeah it's difficult and I think like you say you want to be grateful for the luck or sort of like good fortune but you also protecting yourself when you need to is such a it's a challenge especially for young women I think like people please us it's hard like I didn't have an overnight success story like it seemed that way maybe to people who had never but I was 26 when comedy movie happened so I was kind of like a a woman and I had already been pushing and struggling and like scraping by for like a small career within Canada where we like drove in soccer mom vans from like venue to venue in the winter and like made our own merch and like put up our own so it really felt like now that I'd had any notoriety in any way I just I was scared it would go away at any second and I really wanted to deserve it so I think that you know this business is one where you can never really completely just like give up on the effort that it takes to to put together a project yeah but I do think that there can be more balanced and into it yeah and and that's that's been a lifelong lesson for me yeah yeah I agree one of the um things that strikes me in fame sick is obviously when it came out so much of the press coverage was around like the breakup of with say Jack but actually the book really to me feels like it's about her breakup with Jenny like the the showrunner who she worked with on girls and like those professional relationships and how they you know I just felt sick to my stomach reading and like so sad like for all those things and I wonder if you ever had a collaborator who you've had to put distance with or gone through like a difficult period with where you you know move in a different direction and how you've sort of managed that this episode is brought to you by Facebook so you were scrolling on marketplace and there it was the bike you'd been searching for.

35:54You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom Homescrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan.

36:32Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. I haven't had somebody who's been like a constant in one project like that. but I will say that I gravitate to like-minded people. So I would say that in a general way, when I first came to LA, I was so excited to like have access to these like gods in my mind, like Max Martin, like, oh my gosh, like I'm going to meet the Wizard of Oz. Like that's what it felt like to me. And just to pick their brains and to sponge and learn off of them, it was like, it was just the education of my dreams really.

37:11but I felt like in some of the rooms that there was like a almost um there was almost like a manufactured way of going at pop music that I didn't feel was going to work for me long term it was like nice to understand how they were thinking about it almost like an algorithm but it wasn't exciting to me and it kind of killed the magic that I'm talking about and so it was a bit of time for me to understand why I was confused by it and I'm excluding Max from this because he's a genius and he's able to do all of the things but I feel like that just kind of trusting my gut about who to collaborate with and why and truly with like emotion on like I would just listen to music and then once I like something look up like who worked on this and that's like what led me to like Deb Hines and like then Deb Hines introduced me to Rastam and once you meet one like-minded friend you're just like off to the races and and that's kind of been how I go at collaborations ever since and so with day and night are you working with mainly familiar collaborators or are there some new collaborators what's the mix like it's like mostly all old friends yeah with like other friends that they introduced me to so like if I was in Sweden with Patrick Berger who's a lifelong um collaborator and and Pontus Wimberg and Noonie Bao then all of a sudden they've introduced me to um vincent and magnus and and then marcus is brought into the group and like before you know it i'm like in a room with like a couple new people but mostly like a family home base and that that was like the best way for me to i would say not feel like i was showing up to the room trying to like prove something yeah which is a really important thing to make sure there's no ego in the room when you're writing a song and i think in the past i was always just sort of felt like okay let me show you that I write and that would almost get in the way yeah of writing a good song that day yeah you know what I mean so when I've seen sort of videos say Taylor Swift writing she often like works on something on her own with an idea and then has an idea sorry and then takes it to the studio where they like might develop it together what's your approach like do you start from scratch in the room with other people or is it more that you workshop on your own I like to do it all I think it depends on the room yeah so if I show up in the room and it feels dry and we're not really coming up with anything or the things that we are happening I'll sometimes pull from like my cookie jar so to speak to be like I have this idea that I wanted to think why don't we try this and if they're excited by it we'll go that direction but if I'm in with people who are long-term collaborators it's way too much fun just to start fresh like let's just play today and then somebody's like playing the piano and you're just like I don't know it feels a little bit like that um is the most exciting to me but But yeah, I have that ready just in case the day is stale.

39:52Yeah, now I get that. Would you ever write a memoir like Lena? I would want Lena to write my memoir. That'd be a great ghost. You know what I mean? Like, are you busy? Be like, oh, when we're done with this. Yeah, no, I don't know. I think that like, I think like maybe writing a book is a little bit like acting where it looks easy, but it's probably incredibly hard to really do. I think like whenever I see somebody acting I was like I could do that and then like put a script in front of me I'm like I could only act if I'm playing my character exactly or something adjacent to like me but like ask me to be anything else I'm sure it would be terrible and I'm worried that maybe book writing it's like a fantasy where like in the back of my brain I'm like oh yeah but I just I don't know I would probably go off on like eight different tangents in all different directions and never come back to a point yeah it's hard I mean but a lot of people do use that's why people use ghostwriters I guess because they sort of are able to help harness it into like as a collaborator but I don't know I don't know I think I have to like be much older yeah I get that if I was going to consider it but then by then I'm so forgetful I won't remember half of what happened to me I love that well you don't I mean we had Jay Ellison who wrote a memoir and he said he had to like fact check a lot of things with his mom and get clarity and he said it was amazing how much memory didn't always match isn't that yeah which is true we all know that but like it's kind of funny too i'm very lucky i toured and he just retired actually this year but with my um jared manierka who used to play keys with me in the band and he remembers everything oh that's it's wild and he'll just be like do you remember when we were in paris and this happened and i'm like no tell me more like i have no idea what was i wearing that night yeah yeah and it's it's amazing so he's holding on to the memory bank for all of us i love that did you ever consider the acting then or was that more of a like passing i don't mind it like like cinderella was fun and like frenchie like but those are like i said they're like kind of like they're sort of like big characters it feels more like pantomime even like i but i know i i think like i said i i liked the idea i think i'm a little camera shy when it's like lights count okay go like if it's a conversation like this it feels a little less intimidating i mean i totally know what you mean but I loved the video for Don't Leave Me on the Dance Floor.

42:05I thought it was so beautiful. I thought you did such a great job. Oh, thank you. I mean, that was all Alden and Jeremy. Oh my God, it was incredible. That's so cool. Did you see Alden's play last year? I didn't and I got it. It was very, very good. Oh, I mean, he won everything for it. He was very, very, yeah. He was so good in it. He's just like, he was so visceral of like a certain type of man in a way that like really gets under your skin. But yeah, he did such a great job. I would say he's got some sort of like star, like magnetism. Like when the camera goes on him, when we were just talking with him in conversation behind the scenes, he was like, like a lovely guy, so good.

42:45And then like we turned the camera and I was like, he's just, he's devastating. Like this is just wild to see. So yeah, no, I know what you mean. Some people just have that. I've noticed that with interviewing people. There's some people, they'll come in and be very quiet and then they sit down and it's just like, ding. And you're like, whoa. Oh, you're a movie star. I understand. Totally. I had that with Jennifer Garner. I was like, whoa, yeah, movie star. Yeah. So fun. Well, maybe next we can talk about Interview with the Vampire. I mean, this is a pretty obvious one. I mean, maybe it isn't.

43:13But to me, I'm like, it's such a, I don't really like to be too scared, but I like a little thrill. A fantastical thrill? Give it to me. Yeah. This is like the perfect amount of, I stayed awake at night, but I enjoyed it. Good. When did you first read it? Ages ago. Yeah. Like, I couldn't be quizzed on it right now. but I would say that I remember I was in, I was in, um, I think I was in like Portland or something at some part of it. So it felt a little bit witchy, you know what I mean? And I, I think it's just, it's, it's a riveting page turner, love a vampire story. Yeah. Were you, were you like into Twilight and all of those types of, I might've been a little too old for the Twilight.

43:52My sister was very into Twilight. I mean, it's sweet, but I wasn't like a, no, I was, I was like, Like this was more my vibe. Oh, interesting. And so did you, so were you an adult when you read this or when you say you're in Portland or were you younger maybe? Young adult? Yeah, young adult. It really is that vibe. And the, it's. It sticks in my mind as one of those books. Like when you were like, what are your favorites? It was like one of the first. And I just, maybe I just had an experience of being at like a restaurant by myself and there was a candle and I was like reading it. And then actually recently, I actually also remember why I brought this up.

44:29So Cole and I, when we, not anymore because we have a baby, but he used to read to me before I went to bed at night. Oh, sweet. And this is one of the books that I had him read to us. Oh, wow. And we were both like kind of like into it together. That's so lovely. Yeah. It was almost because I have insomnia. And so we realized that if he read me a couple chapters, I would fall asleep like a baby. No, I often listen, when I can't sleep, I listen to Lena reading her book. When I can't sleep, it really does help. Yeah. What other books would he read to you? we read oh anna krennan but well yeah that's another great one too yeah which is like also amazing because the birthing scene in that one is maybe the most beautiful thing i've ever read ever and that was like before we knew we were having a baby but we're like oh my god that sounded so beautiful that's such a lovely thing to do together as well and that yeah it is it's extremely sexy to have your partner read to you at night even if it's like a weird vampire like book it's just felt I don't know very comforting I agree yeah one of the lines that I wrote down is actually very similar to what we're talking about with Murakami where it goes like all strong people this is about a Babette who's one of the plantation mistresses like all strong people she suffered always a measure of loneliness she was a marginal outsider a secret infidel of a certain sort which I think is so I don't know I think it's so true and so accurate of like all strong people you if you do have this sort of like loneliness often that I think is a sort of like heightened perception thing like if you perceive things well you can often like feel a bit lonely do you relate to that I I do I mean I do relate to I feel like I've definitely experienced like loneliness and tried to like turn that word over in my mouth to be like how do we make this not sad like how can being alone be powerful because it's the life that I chose requires a lot of you know you're away from your family or sometimes away from your your your whole life and everything that makes sense to you and you're kind of like this like like little nomad traveler in the world and I also think as an observer of life as you're like reflecting as an artist or songwriter there's sometimes you kind of can go inward and like be more just like watching things happen and sort of feel like you're a little on the outside of it looking in but I am really happy to say I feel less that way recently like I just feel like I've which took some bravery actually like it takes like a little bit of a decision to kind of like I said like almost like engage like I'm doing it it's scary but let's go yeah but I think that was just yeah how does album release week feel from that point of view like it does that feel like a lonely week in the sense of when you're waiting for everyone's reception to something or I'm just really excited about it I think it might have been different whenever you run but I do believe that the way for me um to survive kind of that feeling of it being just yours and then it being everyone's is I have one last listen some are romantic and I make like my own piece with it and then I kind of never listen to it ever again really and I also try not to read any reviews about it but I my mom is funny because she'll be like I have some good ones can I send them to you?

47:38And I'm like, no. And she doesn't understand. And I have to be like, if I believe the good ones, then I'll believe you're giving power to either thing. And I think somebody brilliant who I can't remember said that like what people think of your art is like none of your business. And I think that there's some truth to that. It doesn't mean it's not delightful when you go to a show and you're feeling them connect and they know the words. I would be lying to say, I don't love that feeling. It's the best feeling in the world. But I do feel like I I try to get some healthy separation between like what I made and how I feel about it and how it gets received afterwards yeah that's that's I think that's really beautiful and I think that's something that did it take you a while to get to get to that point do you think or I think I got there with emotion because I was pretty certain that no one was going to listen to it like I had already made I was coming in from a place where I was like well this will just be for me yeah so I felt quite confident that it didn't matter what happened and I was excited about it either way I I was really happy about what I had made.

48:33And I didn't really know if it would find an audience or not. But then it surprised me. And then when we found our little following, it felt like, okay. I have a small but mighty crew and I'm going to feed this. And that felt way more exciting to me than trying to guess and make everybody happy at once. You can't be everything to everyone, can you? No, nor should you try to be. It's an exhausting ordeal. so yeah yeah is there anyone who you're particularly or like with day or night that you're nervous for them to listen to it or anyone who's listened so far that you're like oh that's a really good question I mean I think the people that I was nervous have listened to it have already listened to it yeah actually like motivation is the songs coming out next and I was nervous for my family to hear it because I wanted them to understand that it was a love song even though it has like some complex lyrics that are kind of hinting at more like the struggle of what it is to be in a family with like high pressure and high expectations of one another and but they heard it and they got the the love of it that it is a love song in fact my mom was like we should play this at your wedding and i'm like no we're not gonna be playing any of my music at my wedding that's weird yeah she's like maybe i'll do it anyways and i had to give a little note to the wedding planner be like if a woman who looks like me who is my mother tries to play said song don't let her she's like I got you girl that is that's such a classic mom move isn't it oh you have no idea it is I mean it's something that I think Lena reckons with in her book as well and I think Gracie Abrams spoke about this with writing music now and like people how to write about real people is that something you like reckon with in your art as well yes I I definitely feel like I can't write something that I haven't experienced and felt and have it land as real.

50:21It has to come from like a real experience. So because of that, I mean, even in this album where I'm meeting my husband, I'm still like processing, like, how did I get here? So there's songs about exes, there's songs about like heartbreak and things that I went through. And I think the rule for me is like, don't say the person's name. Honor the fact that they don't have a microphone and that you're one side of the situation. And it's like not super respectful, I think, to like, I don't know, air so much of it when you're the only one who gets to sing about it. So I think, but the reality is, is I think that I'm not looking to be like, this guy did this one thing to me on this Tuesday at four.

50:59I'm more just like, what was the emotion behind this? Where did we both meet each other? Where did we lose each other? How do we find that? And I think that's just a good old fashioned love song. God, you're so evolved. Are you a therapy person? yeah i just feel like i am a therapy person but thank you yeah i just feel like yes i don't know you just seem so like you've got on the right path on everything oh thank you no i i cole and i both think that they're everyone should go i know so good i know i wish like our parents generation i mean it's obviously different in the uk i wish that my parents generation in the uk have been more that it had been around i think it would have been really helpful i think it's just nice to have like a space every once in a while to talk to somebody where you don't have to like be concerned about how they feel about what you're saying and you're just being brutally honest a lot it's almost like that manifestation thing we're talking about where you're like say to one other person without like judgment of yourself yeah see how you sit with it I think a lot of therapy you're spending sort of just like reflecting on like it's interesting I'm talking about this I didn't even know this was going on for me in the back of my mind and so I find it a really helpful way to like reconnect to like I don't know the little switch that I can almost easily shut off especially as a performer sometimes to be like I gotta go do this right now I can't feel this but it's like waiting in the sidelines and I need to kind of go there at some point yeah I think it's so I mean I am also a medication person I feel like medication helps you like get out of a hole but I think really therapy is I think of it as almost like my weekly check-in to stop me falling back into some of the holes that I might fall into around like you know whether it's how you feel about your work how you feel about a particular relationship and like those well-trawn paths just putting that like slight that makes the train go on a different track it can be so powerful.

52:38Amazing. Shout out to the good therapist. Shout out to good therapists. They're not all good, unfortunately, but you know, that's fine. Let's talk about Anna Karenina, her last book. Tell me what you love about this. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for.

53:15From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. It's interesting because I was like, why did I pick this? It's not so much the story that I'm obsessed with.