Episode 002 MICHELLE McGREGOR: From Meat Loaf To Judee Sill - A Life Told In Ten Tracks

A ten-song playlist sounds simple until the stories start landing like milestones. We sit down with Michelle McGregor as she traces her life through the music that shaped her, starting with her current passion project: producing Tom Waits War Songs as a concept concert with animation, atmosphere, and a war themed narrative. From there, the mixtape jumps from childhood living room performances with Meat Loaf to the pop voltage of Billy Idol, then straight into the sweeping emotional logic of Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings score.

The conversation turns personal in the best way. Michelle talks about insomnia and The Wall, discovering Tom Waits through a piano book in Santa Fe, and why she’ll defend his voice all day. We get into creative lineage and interpretation with Motown “platter playlists,” a heart stealing cover by The Hesitations, and a live Nina Simone performance that makes history feel physical. If you care about music memoir, artistic identity, or how a song can rewire your nervous system, you’ll find plenty to hold onto here.

We close with grief and devotion through Nick Cave, then Judy Sill’s spiritual songwriting and the cost of being uncompromising in the entertainment industry. Finally, Patti Smith’s Just Kids becomes the permission slip that turns “I act” into “I’m an artist,” full stop. If this hit you, subscribe, share it with a friend who loves playlists, and leave a review, then tell us: which one song would be on your life-defining mixtape?

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Transcript

Welcome And The Mixtape Setup

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everybody, this is another edition of My Greatest Dead. I'm Giovanni Marco, and my special guest today is Michelle McGregor. Michelle, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Before we begin on your top ten songs, your the mixtape playlist that you made for me of songs that are important to you and mean a lot to you, why don't you tell me a little bit about what's going on with you right now?

Building Tom Waits War Songs

SPEAKER_04 0:25

Well, I'm very happy to say, and I don't think people get to say this very often, that I am currently producing and bringing to life my genuine passion project, which is Tom Waits War Songs. I've been dreaming about this show for 15 years, I think. Wow. And finally making it happen, and it's actually opening in like two weeks, I think. Um it is just we're we've taken all the songs that Tom Waits and his wife and writing partner Kathleen Brennan have ever written about war and building a sort of concept concert narrative concert with uh animation. We've commissioned an animator, which is why I'm very impressed by myself being able to raise enough funds to do that. Um so we're projecting animations behind the band the whole time, and um I think it's gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Um having had a little peek inside or behind the curtain, I can I can only say that it's like if Tom Waits sang for Pink Floyd.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

So it's like I say it's like the wall on an indie budget, but with Tom Waits songs.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Like the wall if it was inside of a barn. Yeah. A lot of old machines and stuff. Yeah. Um

Meat Loaf And Childhood Theater

SPEAKER_01 1:46

let's get going. Let's get going. So um these lists that I ask people to do, these playlists don't necessarily be in any in any particular order, but um I know I think of it as like a cassette and a side A and side B, five songs each side, and the the first song is everything louder than everything else.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

Meatloaf, battered a hell part two. And because of mine I did put chronologically.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Okay, no, no, that's perfect. That's perfect. However, you want to have we want to cook.

SPEAKER_04 2:15

Chronologically, I felt like there are definite songs that sort of uh tell the story of my life as it attaches to music. And Meatloaf's Bad O to Hell Part 2 was the first. So my twin sister and I would come home from school every day and go through my mom's CDs. And, you know, we don't know what any of these are. We got really into anti-Linux, uh, you know, walking on broken glass. Why? Yeah, why? Um, um, but you know, we're 12 years old and or 11 and we find Meatloaf Badana Hell part two, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:50

We don't know what part one is, and we just put it in.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

I mean, and you start off with, you know, I would do anything for love, but like, I don't know, 12 and a half, 15 minute version.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

And I mean, we but when it got to everything louder than everything else, I mean, we would get on the coffee table, break out the like spaghetti spoons, and just like rock out, you know, and like I don't know what he's singing about, but I just remember him, I remember he him going, uh, you know, who am I and why am I here? Yeah, forget the questions, someone give me another beer, right? And we're like 12 years old and we we can feel the like attitude. We're like, forget the question, someone give me another beer.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

We're like, yeah, like it was just everything. And so yeah, I don't think I would even have a childhood without that.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Also, yeah. Yeah, Milo for it's amazing that he kind of was able to repeat the sort of same energy and same sort of uh uh uh theatrical vibe from from uh like the same stuff that he did early on from Bad Out of Hell.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

Well, Jim Steinman. I mean that's gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

But I feel like it's his voice that makes it sound so like it's like a it's like an opera of hormones. Like almost teenage hormones, too. It's like very like, you know, there's a there's a line in that sound that always hits me that's uh the I'm not gonna say it right, but it's like uh they say the thriller's gone. We gotta take it back.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

The thrill is gone, but it's time to take it back. I'm gonna take it back.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

I love that. And it's like, and it's so funny, and it's so common in a lot of the songs on the album that when they get caught on like one thing that they really say, they were like, how do how can we make this more 12 minutes? How can we make this? How can we make this more impactful? Let's just repeat it seven times.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Yes. Well, and I don't know if you know this. The do you remember the monologue in that album? I remember everything. That's Jim Steinman.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Oh my god. I believe.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Maybe the internet will tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that is Jim Steinman doing that monologue.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

I also heard that he gave Meatloaf half the songs, and he said basically, I'll give you the second half if you change your managers, because your managers are thieves.

SPEAKER_04 5:04

Oh, that's sexy.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

That was crazy.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

Didn't he pass away like last year? Jim Steinman last year, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Look up, find if you can find his solo album, you it's just as good. It's just as good. Uh that's beautiful. That's I can I can totally see you and your sister just kind of freaking out. Yeah. So number two,

Billy Idol And The Awakening

SPEAKER_01 5:24

number two.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Number two, I believe, was um Billy Idol's Cradle of Love. And I it's so okay. Actually, I probably should come before me, Liv, because I the how I found it was in my mom's minivan. She had under the seats, I don't, cars don't do this anymore. You can pull out a drawer and they were for cassette tapes.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Do you remember those?

SPEAKER_04 5:47

Yes, like you fit them in the little and so you know, here she's you know, what do you want to listen to? And I open up the drawer. And there's uh Billy Idol on uh uh what albums, Cradle of Love? I probably Rebel Yell because it's no.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

No, no, it's not Rebel Yell, it's actually came out later. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she had gold album.

SPEAKER_04 6:05

She had Rebel Yell though. Yeah, and that and I got and I put that in, I was like, oh my god, I love this. But it was Cradle of Love. I became obsessed with Billy Idol. He's still the password to all of my anything internet is just like I love Billy Idol is my password to everything.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Which it means to say is I love Billy Joel. Yes, I love Billy Joel, not Billy Idol.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

And but it was Cradle of Love that like his Elvis tune. I feel I became a woman to that song.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

I feel that like at like 10 years old when I saw that music video, I was like, that's what sex is.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

I was like, that's what sexy is. That's what was the music video like uh it was like a babysitter in a house and she was like watching TV and it doesn't specify babysitter, but she was young, which I now watching it, I'm like, is she too young for this video?

SPEAKER_01 6:55

But me at 10 years old, she was like, Which is why Billy Idol is actually behind a TV screen and not in the room.

SPEAKER_04 7:00

But don't do you know why he's on the TV screen. So I think David Fincher directed that music video. And I believe Billy Idol had been in like an accident.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Oh, he had broken his leg. Yes, his leg.

SPEAKER_04 7:11

So David Fincher made a way for that this bitch in video, but then Billy Idol's just like, yeah, in a picture frame singing. But she's just a neighbor, I believe. And she's kind of like, hey, can I play some music? And then she's like, let me just undress and dance around. And I was just like, Oh my, like, I like literally, I'm sure every child has a moment where it's like, oh, loins, like fire. That was it for me. And I will never, I will love Billy Idol forever.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yes. Flesh for fantasy indeed.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

Yes, flesh for fantasy. So, like, for a 10-year-old, like that's a dirty.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

So, yeah, that was my second one. Um, I believe my third one had

Howard Shore And Middle Earth

SPEAKER_04 7:53

to have been. Yes, if you're ready for it.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yes, Howard Shore.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Yes! Yeah, Howard Shore is The Breaking of the Fellowship.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

I, if you asked me, like, what is my top five favorite songs? Because this isn't my favorite songs, these are like my 10, like, I don't know, my life, these are the songs, right? But if I had the like gun-to-head five favorite songs, the breaking of the fellowship would be on the and it's so beautiful. I was definitely very into the Lord of the Rings movies. I don't read, I don't read. I'm not, I just I maybe tried to read those books, didn't happen. The movies I loved, and the breaking of the fellowship is just so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

I don't know what else to say.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

I mean, it's just, you know, Frodo's going to Mordor and he's going alone, and then Sam's like, yeah, you're going alone, and I'm going with you.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

And then every time, anytime you hear a little that's the Shire.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

And I just it's this is it's an amazing song. Well, and if you listen to like the actual song, like the full song, you get that little boy singing, and I who is probably the same like the like angelic. Yeah, like what are they called? Castrates?

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Oh, castratos.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

Castratos? I mean, I hope not. Yes, but it sounds like that.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

I mean, you know, that they put words to the melody of breaking of the fellowship, and then, you know, and then they all the fellowship like rallies to go save the world, save Middle Earth.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

I it's funny because it's you know, when you think of those kind of movies, you can almost think of uh different kinds of composers being involved because they're they're so you know, there's so much tension, there's darkness, they're going into new worlds, just adventure. And that music is so beautiful, and it's like a lot of it is, it's like so and he's got he like the when you watch the movies, it goes through all the motions, but uh Howard Shore is very uh sensitive to to the to the happenings.

SPEAKER_04 10:08

Well, I feel like with Howard Shore, I I mean I could be wrong, but I I uh it's not like if you if you hear uh like Philip Glass, it's like oh that's Philip Glass. It's so specific.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

I mean it's the same thing like Hans Zimmer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

But Howard Shore, I feel like you he could do a soundtrack and you you have to see his name on the screen to know for sure because he he I feel like he adapts himself to if this this the same guy did Mrs. Doubtfire and did Seven and uh didn't he do the first couple uh Tim Burton movies?

SPEAKER_00 10:44

I mean he was I think it was always uh what's his face? Until after.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

No, Danny Elfman. No, I think Howard Shore did um um what's the one about the director?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Barry Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah he did Ed Ed Wood. Ed Wood.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

I think he did Ed Wood, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like thinking of Barry Lyndon.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Barry Linden. We get our names mixed up.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

Yes, yes, yes. Anyway, so anyway, yeah, the breaking the fellowship is I think just one of the most important things. How old were you when you do you remember how well I was in high school and I failed my um my whatever my I was my junior year when the Return of the King came out and I failed miserably my analysis three year, whatever that class was, test the next day because I insisted on going to the midnight screening of the Return of the King. So I didn't get home until four in the morning. It's like seven hours. The test was at like 7:30 in the morning, and I just remember seeing. I mean, I'm probably still crying over the the oh god, because Annie Lennox sings at the end of Return of the King. Oh my god, yes, Into the West. Anyway, so yeah, didn't pass the test, but did have my life change. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

The Lord of the Rings. A different kind of analysis.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

I made Nick uh watch Lord of the Rings the whole thing. Because you know, Nick, not to get too off topic, but Nick has never seen any movies. I mean, like he doesn't single one. Yeah, he's like, I mean, he literally like only listened to music growing up. So you could be like, Oh, remember in Jurassic Park? And he's like, I never saw it. It's like, how can a human being not have seen Jurassic Park? So when I was recovering from my big surgery, I was like, We're watching Lord of the Rings.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

I don't know if it I don't think it got to. You didn't quite understand that it were three movies. Yeah, three, three-hour movies.

SPEAKER_04 12:32

Well, I didn't make him go back and then watch the like commentary, you know. But I bet if I told him he would have done it.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Folks, what is love?

SPEAKER_04 12:43

Okay, okay, but what's the

The Wall Era And Insomnia

SPEAKER_04 12:45

next one? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

So four is Vera.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

Oh, four is Vera! Vera! Oh my god. Well, I mean, I yeah, like when I first saw The Wall, I did first see the movie before I knew the album because I was born in 1987. So I, you know, whoever introduced it to me introduced it to me through the DVD. And I watched that DVD like 10 times in a row. I had wicked insomnia from the age of like 10. So I mean, all through high school, all through college, never sleeping. And so I, you know, watching movies or having music. I watched The Wall over and over and over and over again, and then multiple, multiple times when I would drive from either North Carolina or Tennessee all the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I just finally started studying acting for college. I listened to The Wall, I think 14 times in a row was my record. And it was also, I wouldn't say it's not quite, it's close. If if I weren't so passionate about staging Tom White's war songs, I would be staging The Wall. I think a staged production of The Wall would be incredible. But Vera, like, I don't know, that's the one I had to pick, just because whatever. I don't know. Living in Brooklyn. I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2006. Okay. I lived on Bedford and Northape.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 14:15

Which now I can't even imagine how much that would cost. But when I was there, I don't know, twelve hundred dollars at most. And you'd say, like, yeah, it's just one stop off the L train. Like there, and people are like, the L train, it's a Parkland, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

But I was the first, it's like so close, it's literally like once you get there, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:35

Which was in 2000, I don't know, 600. But it was just seven, you had to explain.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Now it's it was like Warriors Land though, it was just like deserted. Well, it was Hasidic Jews.

SPEAKER_04 14:44

It was all, I mean, that was the neighborhood, you know, and then hipsters took over. But I worked at a video store.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Uh, and and I would say does it get any more hipsters than that? He's like, I was like, Oh no, it does.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

It does. You wanna know because why I got hired was because I'd shaved my head the night before.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Okay. Insert picture here.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

I actually don't even know if there's any pictures. It was 2008 and we didn't have to.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

I will make a picture. I will draw one.

SPEAKER_04 15:18

So I think that's probably why I got hired, but um, but like we got to pick movies to put on. Okay, yeah, yeah. When you're working, you just play.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

And I always put on the wall. And my employees got so annoyed all the time. They're like, Are you kidding me? Like, yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

The wall, right? Why Vera?

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Well, I don't I can I I don't know why I chose Vera specifically. It might be because I was thinking chronologically and I was thinking about the video store, and there's you'd ask people for their ID. And if they didn't have the ID, you could be like, that's okay, what's your name? And every week this girl would come in and I'd be like, Do you have your card? And she's like, No, and I'm like, that's okay, what's your name?

SPEAKER_03 16:02

And she'd go, Vera, and I'd go, Vera, Vera, to like zero response. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She didn't ever join in. You're like, nobody else. But I would force them to listen through the whole thing. Because so she, I'd go, Do you have your card? She'd go, no. And I go, that's okay, what's your name? And she'd go, Vera, and I'd go, Vera, Vera. And then I wouldn't stop and I'd keep the silence. And then I'd go, What has become of you? And then I'm like, okay. Never remembered what she looked like. So every time she came in, I had to ask.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

But um, I don't know why, Vera, other than that, but I just it's just a great song.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

It is a great song. It's beautiful. It's a good break in that whole produ in the whole like um alignment of the album.

SPEAKER_04 16:53

Well, and of course, then, and this was like pre-everything being answered on the internet. I'm like, who is Vera? Who is she? And I felt like for years I couldn't figure it out. But then I think somebody was like, Oh no, yeah, she was like a performer who sang for the veterans or for soldiers. Vera Lynn. Vera Lynn, yeah. Like, and I was like, Oh, I didn't know that. I thought, I thought there was like no answer, but there was an answer.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Trying to think the only Vera I knew I remember was from I think Alice, the TV show. Was there a Vera on there? Like there was Flow, Alice, and there was a Vera.

SPEAKER_04 17:31

That sounds right.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:33

I mean, I don't know why she would didn't get into it.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

Her parents clearly had a bitch an idea for how everyone should respond to her when they meet her.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

And she was just like not dated, not digit. Yeah. Um, I think

Finding Tom Waits In Santa Fe

SPEAKER_01 17:48

we're at number five. Uh-huh. It's Tom Waits.

SPEAKER_04 17:51

Oh, 16 shells from a 30 out six. Yes, this is where it all began. I mean, though, okay, so obviously, I mean, I could I So wait.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Almost So you you made this chronologically with your life work.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

So now we're out of Brooklyn. I finally realized, so when I first oh, I moved to New York and went to college, but I studied film. I didn't think I was good enough to study acting. I didn't think that I was talented enough. And uh so I kind of had already given up on that idea. And so I was like, well, I'll study film. My best friend at the time was doing it, and I was like, okay, that's what I'll do. And then very quickly School of Visual Arts, but only for like a semester, because then all I kept trying to do was get in everybody's movies. I was like, Do you need an actress?

unknown 18:39

Do you need an actress?

SPEAKER_04 18:40

And on top of that, I hated directing film. I just hated it. I love directing theater, hate directing film. Um so dropped out of college, and then realized, like, okay, I want to be an actor.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Long story short, no, no, Tom Waits. Short story long.

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Tom Waits has become my favorite artist, like as a as an understatement. Like, like Tom Waits is my inspiration artistically, period. Like everything is through the lens of like every anything is possible because Tom Waits was possible. I don't know. Um, but the reason it all happened was because I was I'd gotten into the Yale School of Drama. That was like, you know, I that was like, oh my god, I got in and they sent us a list of plays that we were required, well, I thought required. I think I was the only one that read them. We were supposed to read over the summer to like get there. And like, I mean, that experience, I mean, like reading a cat on a hot tin roof for the first time. Like, anyway, but so I had to go find these plays, and I was in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the time, because that's where I went to college for acting. Um, so after I dropped out of film school and decided I want to study acting, I went to the school of visual uh College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. So then got into Yale and went to go buy these plays, and I walk into this bookstore, and like I walk in, and just like right there at the bottom shelf, there's a big ass like piano book that says Tom Waits Beautiful Maladies. And I was like, oh, Tom Waits, like that's that guy that my friend Nick really likes. Uh not this Nick, another friend I had named Nick. And I was, and so you know, I I don't know, I just went and I like picked it up and I opened it and I was like, that doesn't look that hard. Because I like play a little bit of piano and read sheet music, but I'm not I don't do it a lot, so I it can't be too complicated, or I can't do it. But I opened it up and I was like, that looks like my favorite level of difficulty to play. Like, not it's not wimpy, easy, it's not like hot crossbuns, but it's not like Chopin. It's like in between. I'd say Tom Wade's Beautiful Maladies is right in between it, intervening crossbuns and Chopin. And uh, so I bought this piano book and was like, all right, cracked it open and it goes chronologically alphabetically. So 16 shells from a 30-06 is the first track. And I'm like, what in the fuck is this? And I'm like, what is a 30-ought six? Like, what is it? And then so I'm like flipping through and I think I'm flipping, I'm flipping. I get to, I think soon was the Briar and the Rose. And oh my God. I mean, if you don't know Tom Waits, but you know how to read music, and you start playing the Briar and the Rose, and you start reading those lyrics. I mean, I don't see how anybody couldn't just be like, I'm in love. Like, what is this? So then, of course, then I went home, I downloaded all the music. Started with 16 shells from a 30 a.6. I literally remember that. I mean, I was 2 maybe 22 years old. I still remember this, like it was yesterday. Putting, drawing a bath, you know, putting my computer on the toilet seat or something, and pressing play. And 16 shells from a 30 yacht six starts, and it's dung. I'm like, what the what is this? This is amazing. And it was the rest is history. I mean, the amount of Tom Waits I listened to, I guess to the point where I can't believe nobody else has done this, but I realized like this guy's read a lot of songs about war. Like, why doesn't somebody do all the songs this artist has written about war into a show? That was that idea came like 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

My my father, um, I was I started getting obsessed with Tom Waits around the same time late 80s. And my father caught me one day listening, and he said, His music sounds like a car with three wheels.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

I know.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

Wait, wait, wait, wait, this is what I don't. I mean, look, I understand people being uh by his voice. I get that, but at the same time, you have to respect the fact that I don't think he's ever not been on pitch. Tom Waits has perfect fucking pitch. Maybe you don't like the tone or the quality of that voice, but that man is fucking talented as fuck. Like he can sing the the low that he gets to and even the highs. I remember once he was on an interview when Bad as Me came out. He did an interview on NPR with Terry Gross. She seemed, to be honest, really uncomfortable and very ill-prepared for this interview. To the point where she says, like, she literally is like, Oh, I well, I there was one track I liked.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Like she's kind of like, okay, I well, you then you do this song that actually is kind of good, or like something ridiculous like that.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

And she chose Kiss Me and she's like, Well, let's play that. But then something happened, and then they're talking, and she says, Well, have you ever thought of taking voice lessons?

SPEAKER_03 24:19

And then they didn't even end up playing Kiss Me because of how rambly and awkward she got and everything.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

But to, I mean, to think that he's I just don't that that idea that he doesn't have a good voice or something is like you're smoking crack. Tell me one to give me any example of a time that Tom Weitz has ever been off pitch.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yeah, I mean, uh people, people, people will argue that. People will argue that. I mean, it's like I I just feel that it's it's uh it's one of those things, it's like hearing music from a car that's going by. You can if you're not in the car, it just sounds like like it's going up and down in a weird way. You know what I mean? Like it's not, it doesn't make sense to you in you know what I mean? Like you have to be in the car. You better get in that car. Because to me, it's like Tom Waits is one of the best, regardless. And you can the two phases, right? Like you got the crooner and then there's the Barker, you know, and it's like the carnival guy. And to me, I I know I got into him from the the second era.

SPEAKER_04 25:19

Yeah. You know, uh post-Cathleen Brennan, yeah. Swordfish trombones and all the time.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Swordfish trombones, Frank, Frank, me too. Me too. All that stuff to me. Because especially that, the 80s stuff, he was still kind of like kind of blending out of the old. Well, and it's just still like, you know what I mean? So it still had this sort of romantic, uh very, very uh uh like uh bar room love.

SPEAKER_04 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

You know, totally still very kind of like on the edge and borderline, extreme, violent, but violent emotionally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:53

Well, so I didn't realize this until for Tom Waits War Songs, where I've made like a program that includes all the lyrics to the songs that we're doing, and I'm crediting like from the album blah, blah, blah, this year. And when I got to Swordfish Trombones, I assumed that I would say written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, because that's when they started collaborating. But she isn't credited as a writer on Swordfish Trombones. Um, everything after that, she is. And he's made it clear that that's when their collaboration began. But like, I mean, her influence and where he went with his music because of her is like that to me, that's my favorite stuff. When people ask me, what's your favorite Tom Waits album? I always say just bad as me, because to me, they just get better and better and better and better.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

It's no, it's ridiculous. I mean, mine is Bone Machine.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

It's so good.

SPEAKER_04 26:43

I almost put in the Coliseum in Tom Waits War songs, but it didn't quite fit. Yeah, it's like it's it's war-ish, but it's not. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

Oh my god, wait, doesn't um doesn't Bone Machine have a little drop of rain on it?

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Yeah, I mean, this album that is like so crazy and then so heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

And it's like, what's he doing in there?

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Oh, what's he building in there? What the hell is he building in there? The people have a right to know. I hear he has a subscription to something. And I swear to God, to me, in the feel, I love that feel.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Moaning low.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

Sorry. No, no, no. Oh, that feel? Oh my god. That feel, Keith Richards. Keith Richards and Tom Waits collaboration is one of my favorites, too. That feel is one of my favorites. I love that song.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Oh, you do that free. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

I almost put 16 shells from a 30 out six into Tom Waits War songs as well because a 30 out six was a weapon they used in World War One.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

But the song's not about war, so I didn't, but that would have been fun.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

We can we can talk about Tom all night.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

We could,

George Michael And Audition Nerves

SPEAKER_04 28:08

but let's not. Let's move on. The next has gotta be Faith. It's gotta be Faith. It's gotta be George Michael's.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Double check with us, man.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

And the only reason I put this, I do love the song, and I think George Michael. I think George Michael's.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

So we're turning this out.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

Yeah. Oh, yeah. This would be a good piece guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Start fresh, start, start nice and lively.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

Faith, George Michael, incredible artist, not one of my favorites, but like incredible. Yeah. But I really don't think that I would have gotten into the Yale School of Drama if it weren't for this song.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

What?

SPEAKER_04 28:37

So at these like grad school auditions for these. So you go to a city, you either go to New York, LA, and I went to San Francisco. And uh I think maybe they do one in Chicago. So you go and you sign up for as many schools as you want to audition for. And they're like cattle calls. So all this will Yale, NYU, uh, Juilliard. No, I think Juilliard maybe they just stay in New York, but like all the big schools. So they've all got these rooms that they've rented. You sign up like months and months in advance with your cover letter and your whatever, and you go audition. You have to prepare four monologues and one song. Acapella 32 bars of whatever. You go one, you basically do two contemporary monologues and two classic monologues like Shakespeare and then whatever song. So you are going to all these auditions, and they may ask you for one or two or four of them. Like, you don't know, you just gotta be ready. Ready. And I like, I don't remember if Yale was the first one I auditioned for or not, but I just the the like the the nerves in the hallway. I mean, there's just hundreds of actors, like sweats, yes, the like the the anxiety and everything, and and everybody's pretty young. I mean, I was 23, maybe 22, somewhere between 22 and 24. And like, you know, everybody's just, you know, it's such a big deal, right? And and I didn't I didn't understand what I was getting into, honestly. I was I was talked into auditioning by an incredible teacher. And I, when he said I should audition for Yale, I was like, Yale's got a drama school. Like, huh?

SPEAKER_03 30:31

You know, and then like Wikipedia did it, and I was like, oh, Meryl Street went through my god. And then I was like, oh, they only take like 16 people out of like thousands, like I'm not gonna get in.

SPEAKER_04 30:42

Um, but you know, I loved acting, you know, and so sure, I wanted it in the sense that it's like maybe this is like right for me, like maybe this is my path or whatever. But like, man, people freaking out in those hallways. And so I just like and played George Michael's Faith over and over again.

SPEAKER_03 31:07

And it made me so happy.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

I like I was literally so happy that I was just relaxed and just had fun, and you know, and I'm pretty sure that's probably why I got a call back. You know, they call you back at the end of the day. So if they if they want to see you again, you wait around to the end of that hour. That's what it is. Okay. You audition with like there's like 30 people per hour slot or something like that. And you do your thing. And then if they want to see you again, they let you know if you should stay or go for the end of that hour. So if you get into the end of that hour, both the Yale teachers come together, Ron Van Lou and Walton Wilson come in and then you come and do it again at the end of the hour, and then you find out if you get a call back for the end of the day. And so, you know, I just I just kept making, and then they call you when you go back home, and then they call you and they invite you out to New Haven to audition for the final thing where you now have like a 50% chance. And I was just like, You gotta have 50% welcome into the room like shaking your ass. And I was so mad because they never asked me to do my contemporary comedic monologue. And at the time, I'd been doing stand-up, I wasn't doing any acting at all. I was only doing stand-up.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

So I was like, girl, let me make you laugh. And they kept making me do the fucking like Henry V, my like Lady Percy, like dramatic Shakespeare monologue over and over. They loved that monologue, and I was like, I don't even know what I'm talking about. That's not true. I did prepare, I did prepare.

SPEAKER_04 32:47

Love it. Okay, but yeah, so Faith, George Michael's Faith got me into Yale, and then life goes on.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Then you win, you're in jail. Yeah.

Yale Years And Motown Mixtapes

SPEAKER_04 33:00

Um, so yes, so at Yale, not good times, lots of mental health issues, lots of physical health issues, lots of uh misogynistic issues, lots of bullshit issues, yeah. Lots of what the fuck is this place? Um, but there I did make some really good friends, and I fell in love with like Motown music. Like I just I I a friend introduced me to um a guy named oh what's his Paul Defran. And he create Paul made these playlists, they're called platter playlists. Do you know platter playlists? Yes, they're so good. So I just I just fell head over heels with this music. I would say like at least 50% of the music I love is probably influenced by his mixtapes. Nice. He makes the best mixtapes. I mean, he really came up online.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:05

So, but one of the first ones that I fell in love with was, I believe it's on his playlist called uh I've cried my last tear. And I believe that playlist ends with a whiter shade of pale, but the hesitations doing it. And to me, like as somebody who has now loved singing, I didn't think I could sing. I was told I couldn't sing growing up. Uh and so, but then I kind of was like secretly like I kind of love singing though. Once I figured out, because my friends and I would do karaoke at Yale, every Sunday we would go to the only gay bar in town and sing karaoke every Sunday. And I started singing like Mr. Postman and a little bit of Patty Smith, and I was like, okay, I actually kind of can sing though, but it has to be like the right songs. And so to hear like these artists do these known songs in a way that like just takes your heart and it's just like oh, like, damn, like like you I thought I knew what White or Shea Pale was, but I didn't until I heard this version of it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Yeah, to me it's funny because I remember hearing that song for that version of the song for the first time, and it was after knowing the original so well.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

And it was the first time that I like realized, and I don't know if this is even true, but when the hesitant hesitations version, it totally felt like they wrote it. Well, one thing they own it, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it just felt like the the lyrics and what was happening in the song happened like he was just having like a bad day. Like where the other song, it just like it just I felt the emotion. The other song, you know what's really weird? The other song, the organ dominates for me.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

I the Proclo Harem version of White or State of Pale, though it's the original, is my least favorite version of White or State of Pale.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

There are several, right? But it's like that's like that whole to me, it's like it's all about that that intro, right? For me.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

All of a sudden that hesitation is like that's out the window. And it's about this guy. It's just like it's all about the vocals.

SPEAKER_04 36:13

All about the vocals and the hesitations on it. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. And it's like in your face. In your face. Yeah, so in your face, you gotta do that version of it. I don't know what key they put it in, but you would crush that version of it. Yeah. But it just like that, I think to me was about the time period, and that was a big influence on like, whoa, like you can take art you love and make it your own. Absolutely. Which is, I think, kind of all I do now.

SPEAKER_03 36:43

I don't need to write music. There's plenty of music out there that I love. Just let me do it.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

You're an actor, you know. I mean, it's like you have to, you have to own it. Feel it, you have to become it.

SPEAKER_04 36:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

And then it's your voice, it's your it's your personality. Totally, totally. All right.

Nina Simone And Feeling History

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Number number eight.

SPEAKER_04 36:58

Is it Nina Simone? Yeah, it's gotta be.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:00

Yeah. I think Paul Dufresne and the platter playlist probably also built my love of Nina Simone. And his what he chose to put on one mix was her song Baltimore, which is an incredible song, but it gets ten times more incredible if you listen to her live version of it from 1970s, something early 70s on Vine Street somewhere. She goes, All right, we have time for one more. And you know, all these people are la. And then she goes, I heard Baltimore, we'll do Baltimore. And she starts going, dunner, dun, dun, dun, d, d, dun, she changes her own song, and that's what I love about Tom Waits. I mean, he does his own songs in a completely different way. She does that with Baltimore and this thing, and I'm telling you, like, for me, like I'm I don't know what everybody's experiences being a child growing up and learning about slavery and our history in America of that. But when I learned about slavery, I like wanted to vomit. And I I still carry like a nausea around the treatment of black Americans. Like I just still and to and like the the like when people don't see that, yeah, I just like don't understand. And I feel like Nina Simone like helped me to understand on a visceral level part of a fraction of what it might feel like to be black in America. Like her somehow her voice and her songs and the way she does them tells that. It it like hits me as I think a white person who's like, no, of course I don't know what that's like, but because of her, like, even though I can read everything and be like, oh my god, this is disgusting, disgusting, awful, awful. But when I hear her sing it, I feel it.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

And I just have you ever seen her documentary? Yeah. I mean it's incredible. I think I think that she's uh there's so much more too that like there's the whole being a woman and and growing up being told that you're ugly. You know what I mean? That you're not good. Right. It's like so it's like it's her whole entire life that she's been fighting this sort of thing inside of her. And when you see interviews with her, it's like it's kind of like you you don't really get a sense of who she is necessarily because she can be confrontational or she can be um kind of l just very quiet and not say much. But it's through her performances where you see that she's actually like fighting back and and with that song and the song that you picked, Baltimore.

SPEAKER_04 39:58

I also I was debating between Baltimore and her version of uh I Got Life from Hair.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah, I mean when she does that's another thing. It's like she does that song and it's completely different, completely different meaning. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_04 40:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Ugh. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

All right, what's next? What's next? I can't feel anymore.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

So number nine would be Nick

Nick Cave Through Grief And Love

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Cave.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

Oh, yeah, okay. Now we've gotten into the chapter of my life that is Nick Liberator.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

So, um, yes, Nick Cave I Need You from the album Skeleton Tree. That album dropped like at the same time that not only did my grandmother die, who was one of my favorite people in the entire world, but my ex-husband and I were separating, and Nick and I were falling in love, and there was this like trifective experiences where I was grieving so much over my grandmother, and then Nick Cave was grieving over the loss of his son, and then I was also grieving what I thought was the end of my relationship with Nick because you know, I we we couldn't remain friends with me being married, like it was just was too hard for him and us and everything, and so there was this like grieving of the loss of my relationship with Nick and the loss of my grandmother. And I would like listen to that album like over and over and over again. And every time he started singing I need you, I'm just like, oh my god, like I do need Nick. And I remember like literally like coming home from my grandmother's funeral with my husband at the time, Jacob, whom I love and I still love. And like we got back from the funeral and were like eating ramen. And I was like, I need to see Nick. Like, I don't know how you feel about that, but like I just need to see him. Like, I can't process this grief without seeing him. And Jacob was like, Of course, like I understand it was, you know, we don't have to go into like all the details, but like there was an understanding of a lot of things there, and like, you know, that song I felt like encapsulated the feeling of like needing somebody. And I honestly I don't even know if he's singing about his son or if he's singing about his wife, but like for me, anytime I hear that song, it just reminds me of like how awful my life would be if I couldn't be with Nick. So that's why I chose that song.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

I think there's this there's a there's an interesting parallel there because I feel like um the album and that song in particular is very different than the Nick Cave of before, right? And and and the craziness is that when his son died, he had already written all the songs and the basic tracks were recorded. So it was just like he ended up changing a lot of the lyrics in the song to kind of match what it because he was he just like I can't, I gotta sing this song differently, whatever. But I think of that song in particular, too, as you said, it's just um I you the parallel that I'm trying to draw is that like I feel like you were married with the with this person, and that kind of represented the old Nick Cave. And then this new version of Nick Cave, which is like a that hit you deeper in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

And was calling you. And it's just like it was I don't know. I find that when that album came out. It was uh it was a it was I'm gonna say it was the beginning of a messed up time for me. It was like a warning and things have kind of changed.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

Well, Nick and Jacob and I went to a Nick Cave concert at the Greek together. It was when Jacob and I had separated.

SPEAKER_04 44:18

I don't know if we'd signed the divorce papers yet, but like I I don't know if we'd already for this album, I imagine.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Or was it after?

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Yeah, it had to have been, or you know, yeah, it wasn't, it couldn't have been too long afterwards. Like, yeah, I mean, there we are, like at the Greek theater watching Nick Cave, and he starts saying Into my arms, and like that was Jacob and I's song. We love that song.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

So he's Nick Cave is playing that, and it's like, oh my god, hi, hi, you know, and then stuff from Skeleton Tree comes up and it's like bye, like hi, bye.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Yeah, like I don't know why this comes to mind, but like, you know how when Facebook started putting like the relationship status, it's complicated. There it is.

SPEAKER_04 45:04

Yes, uh, I guess, but I feel like for a relationship that from the outside could seem very complicated, I feel the three of us made it very uncomplicated.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Yeah, and I mean it's like if you see the roads, yeah, you know what I mean? If you see what's what's coming and going, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:21

I like, and we don't have to put this on the podcast or not, but like I I think Nick being in love with me was the reason Jacob could leave. Because I think ultimately that was what he always needed was to not be with me. And I don't think he would have felt okay leaving me without knowing that somebody actually cared about me that much.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Well, it looks like you attract good people all around. I do.

SPEAKER_04 45:53

I do. Okay, what's nice? We're done, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Number 10, number 10, number

Judy Sill On Faith And Cost

SPEAKER_01 46:00

10.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

Judy Sill, uh, the donor was I believe what I picked. It was between the donor and the kiss. Everybody loves the kiss.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Have you listened to Well, I listened, I listened to the album, I'm gonna say a few years back. Because for my birthday, somebody gave me the vinyl of this record. Um, and I remember listening to it and quite a bit back then, and I was just like, Which is the donor? Which is the donor? I was just listening to the donor. So did you listen to it again? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you think? I was listening to it, I'm going like, okay, oh yeah, I remember this, I remember this. And uh it got to a part towards the end, and I was just like, oh. And like it hit me like a like, you know, I was standing over there and I almost like collapsed. Yeah. And it was the the line where she says. I wish I could look up look up the lyrics right now. Something about the Recueam.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

At the end, towards the end. I don't rem I don't know. But I I don't know. But I know. Well, I I gave it to you, and then I you never said anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

And I thought No, I told I told Nick about it. I'm sorry that I didn't.

SPEAKER_04 47:08

Oh, that no, that's okay. You didn't you're not required to say anything about it, but I thought, oh, did he even listen to it? Because I, for me, I was like, there's no way that Gio is gonna listen to Judy Sill and not respond like, oh my gosh, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Um I have this is the reason I'm stopping, is just because this line hit me so hard. So sad and so true that even shadows come and hum the requiem. So the line is so sad, so true, that even shadows come and hum the requiem.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

And I was just like, you know, and uh so so before we even talk about Judy.

SPEAKER_04 47:57

I mean why did I I had to pick Judy Sill because I would match Judy, I would put Judy Sill right up there with Tom Waits when it comes to an artist that has something to offer that literally nobody else in like millennia could offer and does it despite anything. I mean, I don't know, Tom Waits I don't know if it was as hard for him as it was for her, the cost of her life. I mean, she did not have an easy life. No, and yet she created music, created music unlike anybody else's, and that's like Tom Waits. It's like nobody else is doing that. I mean, influences sure, Captain B, Captain B Far, blah blah blah, whatever. But at the end of the day, nobody else could do this. Like, if Tom Waits wasn't born, we would not have those songs. If Judy Sill wasn't born, we would not have that song, and her voice, like that fucking voice, it is angelic. Yes, it is angelic and so pained.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

Yeah, sorrow. Yeah, sorrow.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

And like her, I one thing I love too about Judy Sill, it's interesting because Tom Waits kind of has this in some ways too, is their their folding in of religion. But Judy Sill, I feel like, like you could say, like, oh, is Tom Waits religious? And I'd be like, I have no idea. Right? Yes, he has you could do Tom Waits' gospel songs for sure and fill the the the bill more than Tom Waits War songs, but is he I would believe he's an atheist or not, like, or whatever. Judy Sill is religious. Judy Sill believes in God. And for me, like I've always been fascinated by people who believe in God. I find it un I'm not being glib at all when I say like I find it really fascinating, like that that could be true for them. Yeah, yeah. And to see that belief in somebody who creates art out of it, ugh, that's rare. I feel like that's really rare that you get an actual religious experience that is connected to a like a faith that is like a their love and the light. And and it's a Christian faith, I feel like. I mean, it's like it's so rooted in like actual like Christian history that I will don't understand and don't have, but like there it to me, there would be a euphoria that would come from a belief in God.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:54

That I feel like she carries a little bit, but then outside with with that is like the genius and the beauty and the pillishing and the yeah, yeah, yeah. But that the donor, I feel like, is a bit of like a masterpiece of hers. The layers, the layers, the layers, yeah. It's just like, and that she's singing these un non-English words, curious. I mean, like Curie Lisson.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

Yeah, like so.

SPEAKER_04 51:26

I just yeah, I don't think I I think you'd have to be like a psychopath to be like somewhere where the donor's playing, and at some point you don't go like, whoa, yeah, whoa, like what is that, you know? So yeah, yeah. So I had to pick Judy Sell, which of course Nick introduced me to.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Just another suffering artist.

SPEAKER_04 51:50

Okay, wait, I will say this too. If we're gonna get real, like real and personal, is like she have did you see her the documentary that came out recently?

SPEAKER_01 51:59

No.

SPEAKER_04 52:00

So good.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

So I mean, all I know is that basically I know that she she was the first person to be signed to asylum. Like David Geffen's first artist. And it's uh Asylum was the first, the label that Tom Waits was on first, right?

SPEAKER_03 52:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

So it was just kind of like that era, right? That early 70s.

SPEAKER_04 52:18

Well, I I I don't know if she was the first. That would actually surprise me.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

She was the very first artist that he found. I uh I mean, according to the internet.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

Yeah, I don't I don't think that's true. Maybe the first solo no, because Linda Ronstadt was with a side. Anyway, we'll look into the history. We can update the internet, but but one thing about that, this maybe comes full circle with like my experience at Yale early. She she got pissed at Geffen.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:52

Yeah, there was like a a a like she kind of felt like fuck this shit, like the the way that I'm being treated, the the energy that you're giving me versus like your other people, or whatever it was that she felt compelled to say something live. I think she made like a joke about David Geffen or something. It might have been like a homophobic joke, too. So, but like she said something. Did not land. Sometimes when you're on drugs, yeah. She then it was after that that he kind of brought like she kind of she fell as I kissed yeah, because she got in that relationship.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

That never was released, yeah. Or demos at least or something.

SPEAKER_04 53:36

But like, honestly, and I don't, I mean I wasn't there, who knows, right? He claims, right? Like, no, I don't know about any of that, whatever. But like, if that's true, that she felt like fuck you, like you're being bullshitty to me, and that she just naturally said something, as like I guess I'm sure the podcast knows, I just start to naturally expose things about how I feel and what I think. That that would come back to bite her in the ass professionally is like one of the things about my experience in life, particularly with the entertainment industry and maybe even more specifically the Yale School of Drama, that like I had experiences there that I thought were so blatantly not okay that if I naturally had to say something. And saying something cost me who knows what, right? Like, like, who knows? I'll never know. Yeah, you know, and and but if I could go back and do it all again, I might dare myself to play the game a little better, keep my mouth shut, be a yes person, just say yes, thank you, yes, thank you, sure.

SPEAKER_03 54:50

I don't know if I could ever be that person, but uh it does cost a lot.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

You wouldn't have grown into the person you are today, and you would have been slightly different in an opposite way that you might have despised.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

You know what I mean? You might have hated that person.

SPEAKER_04 55:05

I know, but it does cost something, and I think we see that in Judy Sill a lot. I mean, she I'm not comparing myself to Judy Sill, but uh sorry, last thing about the comparison is that she also will speak openly about her experience feeling like a non-traditionally beautiful woman. Yeah, and man, do I know what that feels like. Like, I like as an actor, I know the feeling of like I don't look like the other girls. I'm not saying I'm ugly, not saying I'm not beautiful, but I know I'm not like I I'm not the same. I don't look the same. And she really struggled with that, and I really appreciated like the openness around that because I know personally all I have to do to get over that is just be okay with who I am and like not give a shit. But I I'm not I don't always win that battle, I don't always win the battle of not caring what I look like, and I think a lot of women are trained to care about what they look like, and uh I just felt like she I I love that I love that she acknowledged that as well because she doesn't look like the other artists, no, no, and she and it it's I find it really heartbreaking that because she was a woman that did play a part of it, she was as brilliant as Bob Dylan, as Tom Whites. No, no doubt, definitely. Yet there's a there's a thing that she has on her shoulder that men don't, which is like, what do I look like? Am I sexy? Am I pretty?

SPEAKER_02 57:00

Yeah, am I beautiful?

SPEAKER_04 57:02

What am I wearing? Yes, yes, and I just love that. Like, I feel like there's probably women artists out there that have Patty Smith. There are women artists out there. Oh, that would be my number 11 that have been able to whatever that question, am I pretty, am I sexy, and just be like, I don't care. Yeah, very few women have been able to do that. Patty Smith has, and Judy Sill didn't, and she's at least for a brief period of time, and to me that's really inspiring to be like, okay, like it's okay to struggle with that question as a woman of like, am I pretty enough? You know?

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

So um, you mentioned Patty Smith, and I see a lot of parallels between you and Patty Smith.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

And uh the compare comparison to Judy Sill. Um, I don't know too much about Patty Smith's history outside of the fact that I know that she was just uh um a poet, a writer, a performer, and and music was just like a thing that she kind of got into. 100% because it was just like, hey, this is a further expression of what like what I do, as opposed to somebody like Judy Sale who probably started musically and had to do this other thing. She was already Patty Smith was already like comfortable in the worst case scenarios because she fought her way without ever having to be put in the sort of the music pop. Um so by the time she got there, she was already like Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:38

I mean, so and I so here's what's funny is I I could tell you a lot about Patty Smith's history, and I couldn't tell you a ton about her music.

Patti Smith And Claiming Artist

SPEAKER_04 58:47

And I do like her music, but if we're if we're making a list of like top hundred favorite albums, like I don't even know if horses would make it on there. Like I'm not I'm not a quote unquote like Patty Smith. But because in grad school I played uh her character named Kavale in the play Cowboy Mouth that she and Sam Shepherd wrote together, I did a deep fucking dive into Patty Smith. Her book, Just Kids, had like very, I think, recently come out, or maybe I'm wrong about that, but it I read just kids. This was like 2012.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

And that book and her writing is what made me understand that I was an artist. Wow. Full stop. Full stop.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

You were living you were living the artist life.

SPEAKER_04 59:42

I thought that I wanted to be an actor and that maybe I could identify with like, oh, I'm an actor, until I read her book and I understood that I was an artist, period. So anything else was part of that was part of that. And like, fuck. The other thing, so in in Cowboy Mouth, Cowboy Mouth that her character like believes in a utopia. And I don't I in the the play itself, like, so she she and Sam Shepherd wrote it together. Yeah, and I don't know how much of the character was her, but I believe it was it's gotta be in the 90 or above percentile of like what is that character? How much is that Patty Smith? It's like up there, yeah. And her character believes in a world in which art could be so good that it changes people, yeah, that it it allows people to behave in a way that makes the world better, and that really resonated with me, and I really fucking loved that. And so I then like I loved playing Patty Smith so much that when I found out that Showtime, I believe, had bought the rights to her book Just Kids, I was like, I have to get an audition. I have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

I think it could still happen.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:07

Well, I know I'm too old now.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

No, you're not.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:11

That's what it you know. They're like eight.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:14

Yeah, yeah. So, and the but this is another kind of how Nick and I came together was because I'd seen him. Oh, I met him through the comedy jam. I saw him at the comedy jam, and then I came and saw them, he and Joel play their L M O P gigs. And when I was like, I want to audition for just kids, there were no audition notices at all. I was just like, I want to audition for this. So I want to create an audition tape called Michelle for Patty. Hashtag Michelle for Patty, and I needed to sing. So I asked Nick if Nick and his and Joel would do some songs with me, and we did Because the Night and Gloria, yeah, and recorded it, and it was like the first time I'd ever sung with a band, ever, you know? And like so she brought you to that, and actually it didn't make it to Patty Smith.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:07

It did, yes, it did, but she was like, they're I they're not they're never gonna actually make it, but like, yeah, it did actually get to her, which was like that's amazing, really cool. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, that was amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:18

Um if I could go back and do it all again, though. I never tried to get her accent. She's from Jersey. Yeah, yeah. You have to have that, and I'm so bad with accents, so I can work on it, but but I just like I it's so funny because yeah, I'm not a fan in the sense of like her music, even though I like her. I appreciate the music. I like a lot of it. And but like I'm not like I'm I don't it's really a weird thing to describe. It's like if Patty Smith walked in the door, I wouldn't be like, oh my god, you're Patty Smith. I'd be like, oh my God, let's talk about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

I'm gonna play you. Like I love her writing though. I love her, I love the book, Jessica. So you you know you you love the way that she expresses herself and and she made you understand a part of you that you weren't aware of, which is basically that all your life you've been living an artist's life.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:04

She gave me the permission to call myself an artist, and I she gave me the words for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:10

For sure. And I think I could play her really well.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

I think you still can.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

Yeah. Well, yeah, if they do a biopic of like 30 plus, yes, I could. But we need to see the like 18 to 30 years, because that's where the like, you know, Robert Maplethorpe magic happens. But um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

It can still happen. We're gonna make it happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:30

I'm not using AI, Geo. I'll play the air.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

Just sign the contract, you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

So that's my life story in the song.

Closing Reflections And Thanks

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Thank you so much for giving us this list of songs, this amazing list of songs. There's definitely a uh a through line of sort of the outsider, the person that's kind of like um unappreciated, the person who's just not taking advantage, like just like uh uh basically trying to find themselves. And I think that that's like that's you know, it's I appreciate you sharing um your personal stories as well, like the connections to the songs, and uh and just to know that also that you are an amazing artist, you know, that I can call you a friend, that I can actually witness your like your rise. You're amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:28

Well, you taught me how to sing. I don't know, but that needs to be said. You you're the reason I sing.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

Thank you so much, Michelle McGregor, y'all. My greatest hits. See you next time. Hear you next time.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:46

Yeah, that was great.