Give me all your Taylor Swift talk. The tunes that rule our minds. Now that she has dropped the F bomb. Now's the fucking time.
Mm-mm. Give me all. The Taylor Swift talk. No escape.
No escape. Taylor Swift talk. Taylor time. It's here.
The day has come. I've waited this day. Mm-mm. I've been building up to this for a while.
We've got a lot to say about Taylor. We sure do. Taylor is a big part of our lives. She's got a family member.
She is. That's true. She has a family member at this point. She drops Izzy off at school.
Mm-hmm. With us. Yep. She doesn't really pick.
We don't really listen to it so much on the way back home from school. No. No we do. You're not with it.
Nighttime pickup. But she and I and Izzy spend time together. Yeah. Crossing the streets of Greenfield and the minivan with Taylor.
The glamorous sounds of Taylor Swift. Mm-hmm. And our town. Our town.
Yeah. Well. We are a Taylor Swift family. I was sort of brought to Taylor.
I didn't. I didn't. You didn't like her as first. Yeah.
I don't want to say. I like disliked her. It was more like she just wasn't really on my interested radar. I just wasn't that interested.
Yeah. You described her style as speaking and singing. You thought that she wasn't really singing. Like Beyonce.
Let's say. Yeah. And for you, Taylor Swift fans out there. I'm wrong.
And she does sing. And I'm a fan now. So you're not allowed to come for me. I'm with you.
I stand in complete. I'm arm and arm. We're linked. And I don't know.
Maybe I wasn't ready to receive her yet. But then I didn't really have a choice. Izzy told me when she was ready for Taylor. She went from Casey Musgraves from being literally Casey Musgraves number one fan.
I will fight you. She was. She was 100%. Casey Musgraves number one fan.
I was really there for that one. There is a if you can't beat them, join them aspect to the. Aspect. Lark's tongue and aspect.
Aspect. Oh my. There is a can't beat them, join them aspect to Taylor. But that simplifies it too much.
Absolutely. Because when you start to climb into the world of Taylor Swift, it begins to reveal itself. And it's a very, it can be a very rich experience. Even for an old punk rock cadger like myself.
It's true. Look at her breaking you down. And now she's actually, she's introducing profanity to a new generation. And it's coming to the new generation in a way that I wasn't expecting.
I didn't believe that Taylor Swift was going to be the one to deliver, to deliver shits and fucks, littered all over her new album. I didn't know that. Surprise. Well, she's a grown ass woman and she's going to say, what she wants to say and, you know, feel what she wants to feel.
And I don't know, that new album's really grown on me. I have to say, Midnight's. I'm way into that record now. Yeah.
Couple of those songs. I didn't think it was going to happen. I was like, I don't know. But yeah, it took like two listens.
That's not right. That's pretty good. It's pretty damn good. It's really 135 listens to like some of those earlier Taylor Swift songs, like the Romeo and Juliet one that drives me kind of crazy.
That one's not my favorite. And the one, is he's number one favorite song? What does that, you should be with me or what does that one mean? You belong with me?
Yeah. That one, I'm not into that song on a philosophical level or a sonic level. But I've heard it many, many times. It actually, it's haunted my dreams, like on repeat, like short snippets of it will just loop and loop and loop and loop.
But thankfully, this new record is it's okay. It's got, I've got to put that song Karma right in the middle. Go ahead. Please bring it to me at three o'clock in the morning.
I'll be happy to receive. Karma is great. How do you deny that song? So good.
I don't deny it. I don't want to talk to anybody who does deny it because I just want them to have their own opinion. I just, I don't want to, I don't want to fight about it. I want to fight about the Taylor Swift thing.
Yeah. Well, there's no fight in our house. It's just we just were committed. We're into it.
And, um, this is reminding me of a few things that I wanted to say about it. Okay. And how influential Taylor has become to me as an artist. Okay.
What has she done for you? Well, she had her music is so relentless and prevalent in our life that I found in this last two months that writing my own music, you know, to accompany these, these podcast episodes, writing my own music and immersing myself and cover songs and stuff was really the only defense I had against it, it just being Taylor 24 seven all day long, all night long in my brain. So I was really inspired to start working again and, you know, swiftly and with great gusto on my own, in my own world and in my own music. Just so I love Taylor, like we said, but boy, when it's really just nonstop because I'm a real music related person and music that I like, the songs that I like will just dominate my conscience.
Yeah. Yeah. Even if it's your favorite song. Yeah.
Right. And then the Taylor songs had actually become these, these crazy salads of bits and pieces of like several different songs all in this kind of knurled flow, infinity flow. You know, just these, the genetics of two to three, four or five different songs altogether. I think I had that exact thing happening the other night.
I was trying to sleep and it was like between that wonderful witching hour, like one to three a.m. My favorite time to get no sleep and, well, Taylor, she came to me yet again. Yeah, she does. And it was like a montage of it was like my brain couldn't even keep track of it.
It was a mashup. It was a mashup. Thank you. Okay.
All right. Okay. All right. What is your second favorite Taylor Swift song?
Um, really like you belong to me. That's really good. There's, you belong with me, but there's so many other songs by her. You can't even choose.
Midnight Rain. Midnight Rain? Really? Yeah.
Why do you like that song so much? Because like, like when she, like she, um, at the first, she like also does this cool, um, photo with her mouth at the starting. She never told, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, there was a time when it didn't Because it's a bad word and I just don't really want to say that. Because if I said it when I was younger and I was like 4 years old, I felt so bad.
You did say it when you were 4? Yes. You did? Yeah.
Oh. I felt so bad. You felt bad? Yes.
Okay. Yeah. Well, there are some words on the new Taylor Swift record. Yes.
Because she's getting older. She's older. Yep. You're gonna need change track with me.
My town was a first-round full of cages, with fences, preniquins and big pretend wounds. My first armpit was paradise. The world was a mountain. Some notion was motioned in our phones in the ocean.
Look how hard she was named. She was so incredibly young. She was really comfortable and older than me. She wanted me a bird and I was looking around.
She said that same. She said that same thing I know of me changed her. I'm in life. She came like a bird's card.
She placed her chest and was hollow and she came in. Her hurt gets every day. I'm peed into a room now. A deep portal, time travel, on the mountain.
I'm rambled. Then the light side goes away. She was so tired of it now. She wanted it to come from all around.
She wanted me a bird. I was walking my own name. She's in our fate. She said that same thing I know of me changed her.
I'm in life. Sometimes we all know. She said that we wanted. She never thinks of me.
I'm not from deep. I guess sometimes we fall in there. Sometimes I'm kind of haunted. Sometimes I'm not haunted.
And I never think of her. The life is nothing new. She said that I'm in life. She said that I'm in life.
Should I call you Lou Barlow or Trent Reznor? Call me Trent Reznor. I'd be happy to step into his life right now as long as you were there. Who knows?
Maybe you'll cool that. I feel like that's very Trent Reznor inspired. Is that wrong? Or I know you don't really know his music.
Maybe it's inspired by the same thing. I bet Trent and I share some things in common. I bet he and I could probably have an interesting discussion about early 80s regional golf music. I bet you guys could probably have a lot of discussions about all sorts of things.
He's also just like a... Are you guys like the same age? I don't know. Probably very, very close.
Yeah. I would say maybe 50s-ish, right? Sure. He's married.
He's got some kids. I might be older than him. I bet I got two to three years on him. Oh, I don't know.
Lou, tell me what inspired you to make your cover of Midnight Rain sound the way it does. I was using what I had at my disposal. I don't have any really sophisticated rhythm machines right now. And I don't know how to program rhythm machines.
I've been studying the basic beat of Midnight Rain for two to three weeks because I came to the realization that I was going to have to cover this song. I think either you gave me the directive. Actually, you've suggested I cover all kinds of Taylor Swift songs and I've said, No, no, no. But when you said I should cover this one, I was like, Okay, I can do this because it's almost a collage and it's also extremely simple.
There's only four chords to the song, which is unusual with her. Her songs actually are pretty sophisticated songwriting pieces. This is one progression of four notes. That's my territory right there.
It makes it easy for me to cover the song. Didn't have to do a lot of it. And I like how it's like just a really, it's self a collage. I'm almost 80s sounding synthesizers and blurbles.
And it's a really nice, like kind of ambient piece a bit. It's cool. It's a really cool thing. But I was just examined.
I had just examined it and figured out how I could, if I had eight hours to make a Taylor Swift song and do it in a way that I was pleased with. I knew what I had to do and I had to go with some really basic beats and just the basic feel of things. I could actually spend another week or two working on that cover. I had to let it go.
I feel like if someone is out there that is making a new horror film, they might really want to use that piece. Okay. Yeah. Lou Barlow Music at gmail.com for permission.
Yeah. And the answer is yes. Whatever you want, take it, make it. Taylor's going to make the money from it ultimately.
Right. I'm just the performance, the master side. Oh, I had to tell you about how not, I mean influential also in this way. She's got swear words all over the record.
And I actually had the thought, hey, I don't really swear in my songs and I don't need to. I was being a little judgmental and thinking that- That's very judgmental. Yes. You swear in your music?
I was, I'd like to think I was being uncharacteristically judgmental. That is uncharacteristically judgmental. Right. I thought I was not, I was resisting Taylor using profanity.
Mm-hmm. I kind of wish she didn't do it because it does create a dilemma for little Izzy. Yeah. Although she seems to be negotiating it fine.
It's very matter of fact. Yeah. I was just, as evidenced by our little interview snippet. Anyway, so I was, had this sort of righteous thought and then the next day I was working on a full-complosion song and all of a sudden I was like, oh no, I really want to use profanity in this song.
I really feel like profanity is where this has to go. And then if I don't bring profanity to this song, I am not doing service to my muse. Oh, so on that note, did you bring profanity to the song? Oh, yeah.
Are you going to sing it for me, baby? I'm going to play this for you. So this is a new in-progress full-complosion song? The real defining aspect of this song is a wonderful ringing guitar riff by John Davis, which you will not hear.
Oh, that's nice to hear when I do. It would probably be like, oh, that's a good song. This is just me kind of weird. I don't know what this is for me.
But it has profanity, everybody. It has profanity. Whether it stays or not. I can't say.
I'm changing my mind about these songs all the time. Can't find the daylight. Gotta let it all in. Dust from a curtain sparkle.
Settling in. Do I do with all the beauty and pain. Another way around it. Bit over again.
Warm side along to the cold that I never move on. Until I woke up on the floor. That's no way to live. Getting it more than I get.
With that truth I'm running from. Congratulations. Near the end of the day. And take a sip of poison.
A little coaster. And then he starts. I reckon after midnight. He belongs to the cold that I never move on.
You murder us at night. That's no way to live. Getting it more than you get. With that truth I'm running from.
General me, you love me the way that I am. One day I'll be the way I am. Why don't you call me the more I behave. Soon I won't need this fucking cave.
I like that song. I'm excited to hear the song however it ends up. But with it being all filled out with John Davis's playing as well. The song that it's based on was so strange.
We got together again within this last year too. And I always remembered his riff from the song. I actually remember the bass line and the riff. But I don't know how because I don't have a demo with the song.
I don't know where it is. It's just been in my brain as a guitar part and a bass part for 20 years. I thought I had it recorded somewhere but I don't. I told John I was like do you remember this song?
And right away without barely even explaining what it was to him. We played it. We set the two of us and played the thing all the way through. From memory of this one jam we had.
It was like uncanny. That's incredible. Actually and that's incredibly touching. It was wild.
It was one of the most like I've never had. That was a really, I mean John and I have had some pretty unique musical experiences together. That was that truly. So this song carries a lot of weight I think in that way.
It's really something that it kind of. That's really special. So I've been, as I write the lyrics for the song I really, I'm just, I don't know if I'll ever be happy with what I get. Maybe it's a song that like this will be a stop on its journey, you know, on this album.
But then maybe who knows? 20 years from now you guys will pick up the song and you'll change it all again. But it'll still have an element of the very first and second versions. Yeah.
That's fun to think about. And I think that the swear words do make sense in there. The profanity. Fuck man.
Yeah. Feels good. Sometimes it's hard to just deny the — oh is that the end? Yeah.
Oh Taylor. Taylor Taylor. We love you. Taylor Swift.
The perfect. Yeah, like in the small town. Taylor in the town. K-A-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-W-S-W-D-A-BOB.
Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift.