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 Rishikesh Hirwe. Last year, Vagabond released her third album, Sorry I Haven't Called, which I've been listening to a lot. So I wanted to revisit an episode that I recorded with her back in 2020 about her breakout song, Water Me Down.
The episode also features the voice of Eric Litman, who co-produced the track. He passed away in June 2021, way too young. Vagabond's new album is dedicated to him. If you haven't heard this episode before, I hope you like it.
Leticia Tamko started making the second Vagabond album. She really wanted to produce the entire thing on her own. It would be a new sound, and producing was still a relatively new skill for her, but she wanted to tackle it head on and do it all herself. On this song, though, Water Me Down, Leticia actually had a co-producer, Eric Litman.
It's the one exception to her otherwise entirely self-produced album. In this episode, she breaks down how she and Eric collaborated to make the song and why it was worth making that exception. Hi, I'm Leticia Tamko, and I make music as Vagabond. I was at my friend Eric Litman's house in Bushwick, New York.
We met at a mountain show. Our friend used to host these shows where you hike up a mountain with your instruments in Cold Spring, New York, and you play at different points of the hike. So I performed one and Eric just needed a ride. So we met through the carpool and became great friends.
He is someone who has been really supportive of my journey as a producer. During the winter, every Wednesday, we'd get together and make music. So we were in his very small bedroom, and the plan was to demo a Vagabond song that I had started writing a few days earlier. So I came there with the intention of recording another song, and then he showed me this synth line that he had started working on for another project.
I heard it and I was like, oh my God, what is that? I'd been playing around a little bit with my mini log, and I made this patch. It's a very like soft keyboard kind of sound. I was just playing around with a couple of chords and then was playing around with a lead line with some delay where the notes kind of cascade into each other.
And then, you know, I added this fluttery MS-20 lead line. The MS-20 is the synthesizer, a bass synthesis, actually. And you can kind of make any sound from it. And I heard this 909 kick.
I didn't have a big intention going in. I was just kind of chasing a feeling and was just kind of excited by it. And it was this kind of like soft, pulsating, little housey song. This is all kind of going on.
And Leticia had come over. I remember you were supposed to let her in or something, and she kind of overheard that like me kind of playing around with this and like her ears kind of perked up. Oh, like, what's that you're playing around with, you know? Like, I kind of want to like play around with this, actually.
And I don't know what we were playing or doing that day, but this became our focus. I was like, I have to have this song. And so I asked him if I can hop on it and just do some vocals. So he gave me the room for 30 minutes.
And, you know, immediately I had an idea for melodies and lyrics. Oddly enough, I had just gotten off the phone with someone I was dating at the time, and it was the most infuriating phone call that I had been on in a long time. And I think I had this epiphany moment where I was like, wait, I don't need any of this. I'm not in survival mode.
I don't need anything that doesn't serve me or make me feel good. I need more. I was having this conversation in Eric's room. So as soon as I got off the phone, I had just had all these things that I wanted to say to the person.
And so I sat on his bed with the microphone to my mouth and I just sang the entire song. Never meant to be you, never meant to be me, never meant to be us. It was very much like I wish I said it on the phone, but I used those feelings very much in the moment and that's why it came pouring out. I was just in it.
In a time when you don't know how to communicate with someone, it has served me well in my entire career so far to put those messages that I wish I can have with people into songs. Never meant for all of this, never meant for you to love, never meant for you to trust. I was entirely freestyling and improvising. I've come to find that my strengths are just getting on a microphone and singing whatever comes to mind.
And it tends to be pretty accurate and raw, and I prefer that. So I'll take my time next time and I'll do it wrong. The vocals on the final track is exactly the same as those vocals that I tracked that night. And I actually redid the vocal, but the performance was not emotionally where I needed it to be.
It was too perfect almost. It was too like, okay, this is rehearsed and I know it now. Whereas this is very off the cuff. It really waters me down.
I like left and made a cup of tea for a bit and come back like 30 minutes later and like she had just like recorded all those verses and it's just amazing. And I was just like, holy hell, this is incredible. And Letitia's voice is just incredible in her melodic sense. It's like I'm constantly amazed by the melodies that she comes up with.
Never meant to be you, never meant to be me, never meant to be us. I often contribute top lines and vocals and melodies and drums to his own project. So there are just so many of my melodies that he has on his computer and that I can't really reuse again. And this one was one that I couldn't part with.
I didn't tell him right away that I wanted it to be a vagabond song, but after I tracked the vocals, I had this thought that like, this is too good to not be a vagabond song. So as soon as I said that, he just got excited that I felt so strongly and passionately about it and kind of let me take the reins of the whole entire track. And so when I got home, you know, I took the whole project because I was like, this is my song. I took the whole project and I bumped up the BPM of this track from where Eric was doing it originally by a whole lot.
After that, I started to work on the drums. Eric and I made our own samples. The only electronic drum is the kick. Everything else was recorded in the bedroom.
We tracked some snare in his bedroom with brushes. On the snare, I threw in two takeaways to kind of have that like dancey house beat. The hi-hats are live hi-hats. And then we did another track where we pitch shifted it.
And that's me snapping. I consider myself a student. I like to learn things that I don't know. And I've always liked electronic music, R&B music, dance music, but making it has never felt accessible.
On my last record, it's largely indie rock record, all guitars for the most part. I was playing with a lot of punk bands, but with this album, I set the intention of working on being a good producer. I wanted to have the experience of making an album be one where I'm learning something and practicing a skill. I like to have a practice.
And so this one was, I want to be the sole producer. But the way that Eric and I worked together and our friendship was very much tied to the making of this song. I would be lying if I said I didn't grapple a little with relinquishing the control of sharing the producer role, but it has taught me that through collaborating, you can actually make something really special and open a part of your creativity. So trusting the person I'm collaborating with, not just their tastes and their technical ability, but just how they are as a person made it easier.
And I'm a better producer for it. That's Oliver Hill on viola. He made this three-part harmony that's very mournful. I wanted these strings that sound sad if you isolate them.
If you isolate the strings and the vocal, you have a whole different song. With these lyrics that are really raw and emotional and ending, it feels like an ending. You know me better than that. You know I hate it like that.
It really waters me down. But within the context of the beat, you have a whole other world because the instrumental feels like a beginning. That is exactly what that punk felt like. And so I really wanted to chase that.
I wanted to express the triumph of feeling this thing, but not feeling like it's the end of the world. You know me better than that. You know I hate it like that. It really waters me down.
You know me better than that. You know I loved you like that. It really waters me down. Water Me Down, it means to be diluted, like someone taking away from the pure concentration of a person.
And so the way that I'm using it in the song is this really dilutes everything that is good about me. Do you know if the person who you were talking to on the phone ever heard the song? I don't know for certain, but I'm positive. I'm sure of it.
Almost immediately, I was like, I know he's gonna hear this, so that's perfect Never meant to be you, never meant to be me, never meant to be us. Never meant for all of this, never meant for you to walk, never meant for you to trust. So I'll take my time next stop, and I'll do it wrong, and I'll take my time next stop. You know me better than that, you know I hate it like that, it really waters me down.
You know me better than that, you know I loved you like that, it really waters me down. You know me better than that, you know I hate it like that, it really waters me down. You know me better than that, you know I loved you like that, it really waters me down. You know me better than that, you know I hate it like that, it really waters me down.
You know me better than that, you know I loved you like that, it really waters me down. To learn more about Vagabond, visit songexploder.net slash vagabond. You'll also find the music video for Water Me Down and a link to buy or stream this song. This episode was originally produced by me and Christian Koons with production assistance from Olivia Wood.
This reissue was produced by Craig Ely, Theo Balcomb, Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan, and myself. Our artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radio Topia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned 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-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishikesh Hirwe. Thanks for listening.
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