You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Hrishikesh Hirway. Remi Wolfe is a singer and songwriter. Originally From Palo Alto, California, she's been releasing music since 2019.
She performed at Coachella 2023 and toured with Olivia, Rodrigo, Lorde and Paramore. Her second album, Big Ideas, came out in July 2024. I talked to Remy about how she and her collaborators wrote and produced the song Soup, how to use 80s gear to make 80s sounds, and how the idea of making a fun anthem quickly turned into something pretty vulnerable. My name is Remy Wolf.
So I was on tour at the end of 2022 in Australia. I was holding koalas, I was dealing with kangaroos. And I was also in a lot of airports and in a lot of cafes. And in said airports and cafes, they play the song Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun.
I was hearing it everywhere because they're an Australian band and it was a song I already knew, but I regained an appreciation for it when I was hearing it in its natural habitat. The song is this huge four on the floor banger. And when I would hear it, I was like, this is such a smash. And, like, I would only want to hear this in a stadium or an arena or somewhere where, like, you're completely enveloped in, like, reverb.
That, I think, was the first thought of Soup, because I wanted to make something that felt huge, like it was created for a big space. Two weeks later, I went to New York. I went to Electricality Studios with my friend Jared Solomon, Solomon Phonic, Knox Fortune and Carter Lang. And it was our first session together ever.
Jared created a drum loop on the drum tracks, which was this drum machine that we were using from the 80s. Knox is playing chords on the Prophet and Jared is playing bass. And the first thing that came out was doing business on the top of the roof. Those words literally came from us being in Studio D and Electric lady, which is on the roof.
And we were doing business, but it kind of ended up very quickly morphing into the scene of me on a rooftop, partying a little too hard, way too high, way too drunk, and in that, abandoning the needs of my partner. I was in a relationship at the time, and it was relatively new, and I think we had just kind of pushed beyond the honeymoon phase of it all. So it was starting to get really real. I was scared that I was going to be too much for this person.
That feeling of Am I enough? Am I able to control myself and am I going to be able to do this? It is so at the top of my vocal register, like I am belting. I think I recognized immediately that it was a chorus because this can't be.
This can't be the verse because I don't know where the hell else we're going to go. I knew that from the chorus we had to go down at least an octave in terms of just like where I was singing. So essentially what I did was I was like, okay, guys, we're going to go into the studio room and we're going to sit in the circle on the floor and we're just going to pass the mic around and I'll get my voice notes out and I'll make sure I record everything. Stay, stick around, Please don't get in your car.
If a plane's on the ground, you can never really get that far. The verse is your partner is kind of like, I'm gonna go and it's kind of me begging them to stay and telling them that I really want to change. And I'm like ready to do things differently for them. Now I'm cleaning off the dirt of my feet and I'm hoping that I'm getting better, better, better, better.
I mean, I've had unfortunately plenty of situations where I've been in relationships with people and just sometimes going to this like pure self destruction mode, throwing my hands up to the sky and letting my demons fly and it's unpleasant. We laid down some guitar and we laid down a couple more synths, like some Core Gam one. It sounds almost like a weird piano that's been like welded with keys inside of it and it just sounds strange. We were layering synths and there was a lot of 80s stuff, which is, I think why people have this feeling.
My music that's very nostalgic and like throwbacky and it's because we are using here from those times. You're so patient with the animals too. If you gave me your keys, I'll go and pick up the soup. Making food for other people is one of my love languages.
My mom is a chef and taught me how to cook really, really early in my life. I mean, the idea of it is like, I'm going to go get you soup when you're sick. Reiterating that idea of like, I want to be able to be there for you and like Knox is honestly the reason why I gave myself the permission to open up lyrically in this song. Because I Would say a lyric or he would like, kind of shout out, like a lyrical idea.
And I'd be like, whoa, that's really direct. And he'd be like, yeah, I think we should be direct. And I was like, okay, I think you're correct. So my big line in this song is, I don't want to live without you.
I don't want to live without you. Which seems so direct and so simple, which is normally kind of a scary place for me to go. I think typically in my writing, I'm able to express myself in, like, metaphors or in drastic imagery or even just like shock value lyricism. And I think it allows me to, like, hide behind something and, like, I'm the only one that knows the truth behind the song.
And I think in some ways that excites me, but I think in some ways I use it as a crutch. But there are times when we need to kind of let that go and just lay it out on the table. So, yeah, I think Soup was like a big step, letting myself be seen a little bit more. Even people that are like, really close to me.
Unless you're like, really tightly in my heart. Will I share, like these like, nightmarish feelings, I guess, that I have at times, but I've literally said that phrase like, I don't want to live without you. Or I felt that feeling before of being so deeply attached. Feeling like your entire self worth is being derived from another person.
And I think that I've been in long periods of, like, deep codependency where I definitely feel that feeling and don't like expressing it because it's like, embarrassing. But then you gotta put it in a song that millions of people are gonna hear. Yeah, Everybody can say na na na na. And in my original intention in the song to make it like this big arena song that everybody can kind of relate to.
In a way. A trope of those songs is that there always is a Lala or a Na na or a Dada or something in there that is like a baby sound. And essentially my plan for this song live is that this bridge is going to be a huge moment. And I'm gonna get everybody clapping and everybody's gonna be screaming their nana all together.
No matter, like, what language you speak, no matter, like, if you are 2 years old or 95, you can do it. The arrangement of this Na Na section really took a journey. It used to be full of synths, and then we've uncovered that picking line. I think it adds like a little element of Funk, which is kind of always something I'm attracted to.
And I just am obsessed with harmonies. I love creating an instrument out of my voice to feel almost like another synthesis. And I was belting, and they're the highest I've ever belted. And it's honestly a challenge that I really like pushing my voice to its limits and seeing where I can go.
I didn't have to go that hard, but I did. At the end of the night, it was like two in the morning. We kind of had wrapped up and we were drunk, everybody. And I was like, can I play the OB8?
And that's where we got the line. It's a very simple line, but it goes and you kind of hear it all throughout the song. This one reoccurring OB8 line. And drunkenly, I wanted to play drums, and I can play drums, like, relatively well, but not drunken.
At 2am, horrible drums, but nicely mic'd. But the final chorus doesn't have any drums. It's really letting that vocal speak for itself for the first time. I really wanted this euphoric release at the end of this tune that's so, like, tense.
We're really building so much tension. And then finally you're kind of able to, like, sit back and enjoy the vocals and the message and, like, the tones of these synths. I don't want to live without you I don't want to live without it unfortunately, the relationship that I was in at that time did not work out. But getting to learn more about myself through that relationship and through not being in that relationship has been really important for me.
I was a girl wanting to be on a journey of self improvement, but not yet on it. And I think the song was almost like a cry for help to myself in that way. But I'm trying to be a better person and trust the process. If I have the intention of improving, then it'll happen.
Coming up, you'll hear how all of these ideas and elements came together in the final song. And now here's Soup by Remi Wolf in its entirety. In the island As a means of my survival I can't help but make about me oh, when you and I together Now I'm brushing off the blood of my teeth and I'm hoping that I'm getting better Until I. Don't want to.
To learn more, visit songexploder.net you'll find links to buy or stream Soup and can watch the music video. This episode was produced by Craig Ely, Theo Balcombe, Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan and myself. Our production assistant is Tiger Biscuit. The episode artwork is by Carlos Larma and I made the shows theme music and logelle.
Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from prx, a network of independent listener supported artisan podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter which you can find on the Song Exploder website. You can also follow me and Song Exploder on Instagram and you can get a Song Exploder t [email protected] shirt.
I'm Hrishikeshirway. Thanks for listening. Radiotopia from PRX.