#tmays

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' BY GREAT GALE PLAYS:]

And I know where you're going, and I know where you've been, so what is it that gets you by? Do your terrors come when you close your eyes? What is it that gets you by? Do you sleep on through the night?

JACOB: Hello, and welcome to Tell Me About Your Song, the podcast where I talk to musicians and songwriters about a song they've written. Today's guest is Jeana Marie DeLaire of the band Great Gale, and the song she'll be talking about is named "Dunes", from her album 'Somewhere Moving'. Where would you like to start with the song?

JEANA: I think I'll start by talking about my band name, "Great Gale". Though I wrote the songs on 'Somewhere Moving' before Great Gale really came to life, I do all of my shows under the name of Great Gale, whether I'm doing a solo show, or performing as a band with my drummer Jeff and our guitarist. So the band name, Great Gale, is actually named after a hurricane that happened in the eighteen hundreds, that hit New England very hard, and Providence in particular, and so I think that Dunes, which is really motivated by self reflections and nature -- Great Gale (the band name) is definitely as well. This is the most requested song that I have defin-- not that there's many of them. Definitely the song is often requested. I've even had another local musician cover it, and put it on their demo, and it sounds totally different, but it's definitely really flattering that someone felt that inspired by the lyrics to do that, and I really love that the song has sort of become something much bigger than my own experience. Again, it has, I think, almost overly simplified lyrics in many ways. It really doesn't have that many lyrics. Most of my songs tend to be, I think, overly verbose, but this one is very succinct, lyrically. So I've really loved kind of seeing it take on a life of its own in many ways, and even take on different melodies from different people that are singing it, and just mean so many different things to different people. I think what stays the same is the emotion behind it, but the actual lyrics -- they're so open to interpretation. I often moved a lot growing up, and I definitely think that that has influenced me in a number of ways, many positive ways. One way that can oftentimes be perceived as negative is, I don't always feel like I know the social ropes, when it comes to, like, group interaction, and so I've had an interesting perspective, especially at the time that I wrote this. I was in a new city, a new town, a very isolated town, and I was going through this process of meeting new people, and it actually went really well -- I really left that area with a ton of really close friends -- but I've always had sort of this, like, over-analyzing thing that I do in groups, and in social settings, so I think that Dunes really is a song that -- it's the culmination of that aspect of my life. The space of the song was so motivated by my surroundings in Bar Harbor. So, I was attending college in Bar Harbor, Maine -- which, for those that don't know, it's on Mount Desert Island, so off the coast of Maine. and it is actually an island, and it's about six and a half hours from Providence area, where we're based out of. Mount Desert Island is really quite rural, and it's home to Acadia National Park, which is a beautiful gorgeous park. It's crazy packed with tourists in the summer, but in the winter, and the rest of the year, really, all you really hear is the ocean, and the wind, and peepers -- especially when it's peeper season, they're all over -- and the blackflies, and just different parts of nature that -- It's either incredibly calm and quiet, or, depending on your headspace, it's very loud. Though I'd lived in some rural places when I was quite young, I had never lived on an island off the coast of Maine, which was just drastically different, so I think that really, really, heavily influenced the space present throughout the whole song, and it definitely also influenced the process I was going through at the time of really reflecting a lot upon my life, and the life of my good friends, and ... so being sort of like surrounded by nature at the time, I think it's really present in the song, for sure. This song was very different from my normal lyrical writing process. So I wrote it in, I want to say it is 2010, perhaps 2011. So I wrote the lyrics to that song early into attending college there, and it was definitely sort of a culture shock for me, because I had primarily lived in more urban areas, so I wrote the first few words really, really late at night. I had just gotten a typewriter for the first time ever in my life, as a young college student. I had just gotten back from a party, and I had been going through a lot of really intense self-reflection, and a lot of changes really abruptly happened in my life at that time, so it was probably, like, 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and I had just gotten back to my dorm room, and I had this new typewriter, and I was definitely a little intoxicated, and I started typing out the chorus lyrics. So the chorus lyrics actually came first.

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

What is it that gets you by? Do your terrors come when you close your eyes? What is it that gets you by? Do you sleep on through the night?

JEANA: It was probably weeks until I actually noticed that I had done it [laughs] and then had remembered it, so I found it on my desk, and started to tie in parts of short stories that I had been writing, and restructuring it to make it sound more, like, poetic and cohesive. Usually my writing process is much more organized than that. Usually I sit down and write sort of an outline of a song, and it's actually generally poetry that I write, disconnected from the music. That one, I had the chorus, and I saw it written out, and I immediately had some chords that I had been working on that I applied to it. So I really wrote, like, the syllable structure, and the melody, to chords that were already there. So it all kind of happened at once.

JACOB: Had you done a lot of songwriting before then?

JEANA: I had, but I think -- I want to say that Dunes was one of the first songs that I really completed. I definitely had written a lot of partially completed songs before, but nothing that I had actually played out, and Dunes was the first that I knew I wanted to finish it. I knew that I wanted to play it out.

JACOB: What do you think it was about it?

JEANA: I think that it really represented not only a lot of what I was going through, sort of, emotionally and spiritually in my life, but also musically. So, at my college I took some fingerstyle guitar lessons from a really amazing classical guitarist by the name of Kevin Morse -- he is just amazing -- and I was studying jazz guitar, as well. So, that song, though it doesn't sound like jazz or classical style guitar at all, it really ties in a lot of the stuff that I was learning. It is finger-picked, and the chord voicings are -- There's a lot of sevens and there's, like, a 9 in there, too, so I think that I was really excited about the musics and felt like I just needed to get those words out. The goal of the song, I think, has ultimately been to be sort of minimalist, and really play with the space of the song, and I found a really interesting way to do that was to apply a lot of effect pedals. I primarily play acoustic guitar right now, but I have more of a background in lead guitar, and I'm really into, sort of, like, ambient style lead guitar. And so when I started Great Gale as an acoustic guitarist, I kind of struggled with finding ways to still be able to make really weird, bizarre, spacey sounds, and I think Dunes is an example of where I still used a ton of reverb, a little bit of delay, a little bit of tone modification... I use the Carbon Copy delay pedal a lot, and it has a tone modification button, which kind of creates all sorts of dissonance, and that, matched with with reverb, really creates a lot of noise that tends to linger, and also creates this thing that happens, where the tonality of the song almost blends together, and while it's really just a few chords, because it's it's finger picked like that, the notes tend to carry over into one another, and, yeah. And I really tried to play with the overall meaning of the song, and having some of the bizarre sounds sort of symbolic of the overall meaning, too.

[INSTRUMENTAL INTRODUCTION TO 'DUNES' STARTS PLAYING]

JEANA: The beginning of the song is probably the best example. It starts with the really heavy sort of percussion sound, with really ambient guitar, and I'm privileged to work with Jeff Castelli -- he's the other member, other full-time member of Great Gale. He's also the main producer. We did the recordings all on our own, and Jeff is sort of a leader on that front, and he's really great at bringing in bizarre sounds, just in general. [laughs] It's like his favorite thing to do. So, I think that, right away, the song starts out with a lot of tension, and the overall song -- I guess I should just start talking about the meaning; maybe that would tie it in better. The overall meaning is sort of about our internal reflections on our life, and, like, the things that have gotten us there, and how we all have our different paths that we walk, which are often influenced by by the people that we have in our life. So starting this song with that sort of tension and abrupt drums, with the backdrop of really ambient guitar noises, I think it's a good example of that.

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

I'll stop for just a second, to watch the cop cars drive by over the dunes of Provincetown, where your father's ashes lie.

JACOB: In the lyrics, are you referring to real life things?

JEANA: Yes and no. [laughs] So there's some that play on really clear experiences that I've had, and others that are definitely more of, like, metaphors. So, the first few lines about the dunes over Provincetown: I had a really tight, core, group of friends in my adolescence and my teenage years, and we would often take an annual trip to Provincetown on the Cape, and one moment that really struck me, in my adolescence, was sitting at a beach late at night with my friend, whose father had passed away (and I got his permission to talk about this story for the podcast) -- his father had passed away when he was very young, and his ashes were spread over the dunes, which are no longer there because of weather, but the dunes were there at the time, and I just remember, sort of, taking in all of these life experiences that I've had with this group of friends, and it was, sort of, like, towards the end of high school, and it was one of the last summers that we had together, so I knew that I wanted to eventually reference that in the song, and that experience really opened up the song, and sort of paved the way for everything that follows in lyrically within it.

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

... Over the dunes of Provincetown, where your father's ashes lie. And I know where you're going, and I know where you've been, so what is it that gets you by? Do your terrors come when you close your eyes? What is it that gets you by? Do you sleep on through the night?

JACOB: Have they heard the song?

JEANA: They have heard the song. I remember they came to a show -- Actually, when I played it with the Novi Giants, before Great Gale, even, I remember being very nervous, because I knew that I was going to play this song, and I had mentioned it to them, and I think I had even sent them a recording, or maybe I had just sent them the lyrics, but I was still nervous. I think that, as humans, we often try to avoid dark subjects, instead of talking about them, and I don't always think that that's the healthiest way to process. So I think this friend, in particular -- He's my friend Eli, and we're very close friends. We've been friends for years. Us in particular, we have a pretty dark sense of humor with one another. So I took his word for it that it was going to be OK, and he heard the song, and he actually was super happy about it. I think he's the type of person that really appreciates talking about things, and our trips to Provincetown were really important, I think, to both of us, in a lot of ways, because it was always when -- It was at a time where both of us were kind of going through a lot in our adolescence, and those trips, sort of, meant a certain freedom for us. So, I think that being able to sing about the sort of dark emotions surrounding that sense of freedom is important for both of us. Getting back to, sort of, the overall meaning of the song: It definitely is a lot about the changes that I've gone through personally, but what it really is, most of all, is just that moment that you have when you start to realize that the people that you're surrounding yourself with aren't necessarily making the choices that you want to make. And, so, it's really about realizing what that means, and developing that, more for yourself. So the chorus:

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

So what is it that gets you by? Do your terrors come when you close your eyes?

JEANA: It's realizing that, not only are you feeling that, but, in fact, everybody probably feels that, at one point. So, it's just that kind of thought of, like, we're all here doing this again. Who actually wants to be here? What are you actually doing when you're alone? What are you thinking?

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

And hear the howling of the pack who've come to take you in to the place to lose and win, and start again. To the place to lose and win, and start again.

JACOB: And then, the second verse, there's "the howling of the pack coming to take you in" -- like, the obvious thing would be to say, like, peer pressure, but..

JEANA: Yep. It's definitely peer pressure. And it's interesting, I've had -- Some people, a lot of times, will hear the song, and they really, I think, can relate to the simplicity of the chorus. I don't typically write music in a way that's super typical for songwriting, and it's definitely not pop style. Like, honestly, it's everything that my music instructor told me not to do, about writing music, is what I tend to do. So I think Dunes is -- Definitely you can see that kind of style of writing in the song, but it definitely has a chorus that repeats many times, and I think is very relatable, so I've had a lot of folks hear the song, and offer their own analysis of it, and I've heard "peer pressure" -- that definitely was my intention when I wrote that line -- but I've also heard some people represent that, to them, it means more of like their own inner voices and their own insecurities. And I think that those two things are really connected. So I really enjoy hearing people's different ways of relating the song back to their own life. There's also a really intentional shift in, sort of, the sound of the song, which is present in both the guitar and the kick drum, in particular. The kick goes from, I think it's on the 2 in most of the song, and it goes right to the 1 of each measure, and the chords actually change. So it's mostly in A minor, and then when that comes out of -- I guess you could call it a bridge, sure -- the little instrumental break -- it goes from a G, and the G's only in the song a few times, so every time it's there it is quite dramatic, and then it actually swaps the A minor to F, and starts in F, and it's no longer an F7; it's now just an F major chord, just a normal F major chord. So I wrote that part of the song to sort of sound like it was the uplifting part, sort of like the "coming to terms with yourself," and this long process that we continuously do throughout our lives of self-reflection. So it's a, like, happier time where it's, like, "OK. Some of us aren't here any more, but we're all, like, finding our own paths," and it's definitely very, I guess, existential, in some ways, because there is, like, the acceptance of, sort of like, -- I don't want to say, like, depression, but I think of -- there's an acceptance of mortality, I think, in that part of the song as well, so it's definitely part of that existential quest of figuring out who we are, and what we're really here for, and if it's okay if we're doing it alone, and who we are when we're by ourselves, and who we are when we're in a group.

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

And I know the roads been long. Some of us have lost our ways. What is it that gets you by? Do your terrors come when you close your eyes? What is it that gets you by? Do you sleep on through the night?

JACOB: In that instrumental section we're talking about, like, the way that it switches from the beat being on the 2, to it being on the 1, is it skips a beat.

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

And I know ...

JEANA: The drummer, Jeff, he's really into, sort of, experimental drumming, and beat styles like that, so that was definitely his input there, and I really loved the, sort of, dissonance that it created in the song, and once I was finally able to do it successfully in practice, we started adding that in.

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

What is it that gets you by? Do you sleep on through the night? One day we all will fall.

JEANA: I definitely wrote it when I was in a bit of a dark place, so, for me, at the time, it was meant as kind of a dark, like, "This is pointless, because how can we -- We only go so far, and then, you know, we all die!" It's definitely, like, incredibly dramatic, and sort of something that I think a lot of adolescents go through, and I was quite young when I wrote it. But I think that it can also be viewed in line with that, like, F, more major, feel, is kind of coming to terms with what we have and who we are.

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

One day we all will fall. One day we all will fall. One day we all will fall.

JEANA: So you'll hear throughout, somewhere, moving throughout those recordings, Jeff tends to -- his backup vocals tend to be very, like, panned backwards, if you're listening in earphones, and have a lot of reverb. Oftentimes, they'll have delay on them, too, and they'll be, sort of, like, very low-fi, and almost overly compressed, and that's definitely intentional. I think that he had just done it -- I think he might have even done it by accident in one of the mixes. It might have been an accident, or it might have been very intentional. I'm not totally sure -- but I remember hearing it, and just being super into that kind of editing for the backup vocals, so it remained very consistent in all of the 'Somewhere Moving' recordings, and, for me, it kind of represented almost, like, this ghostly voice, that just comes back, and returns, in all of the songs, and a lot of the songs are definitely about watching some friends go through things like drug addiction, and go into recovery, and some of them not necessarily make it into recovery, at the time that I was writing them, so I think that it's sort of representative of literally, like, ghostly figures, and this, like, impending doom that is sort of there. Much of the song is just, is so -- It's quite dramatic, lyrically and instrumentally, so I think that it was -- It just felt like a very fitting ending, for it to sort of go out with really playing on space. So, it actually -- though it's technically quieter and softer because the instruments cut out -- it really just, like, gets under your skin, in a way that I wanted to try to to play with. And the beginning of the lyrics start with a pause, so I thought would be interesting if the end started with sort of an extended fade out on that line.

[EXCERPT FROM 'DUNES' PLAYS:]

One day we all will fall.

JEANA: A lot of the songs I tend to write, and -- I'm not super connected to them, because I think that songwriting is just a really fun process, and you can sort of write things, and leave them, and kind of move on. But Dunes, in particular, has been one that I've kinda kept close. So there's different lines that I've gone back to, and either have a different meaning when I hear it again, somehow, or just stick out in a different way that they hadn't before. So, I think when I first wrote the song, the opening lines -- "I'll stop for just a second" -- were sort of the big thing that I thought about, and I -- When I play it live, I tend to play with the space afterwards. It's not always to time, so I'll sort of extend it out -- again, to play with that tension, which is much easier to do live than in the recording. So, I think that because of the sort of playful nature of the opening line, that I can have with the audience -- That line used to stick out a lot for me. That's what I mostly thought about. But it changes. I definitely think that "the howling of the pack" line is one that I often go back to, as well. And I see folks singing along to that. I've been to a few Great Gale shows, which always means a lot to me when I see people actually singing along to songs.

JACOB: So, if people would like to hear more of your music, what should they do?

JEANA: They have a few options. They can go to GreatGale.bandcamp.com to see all of our works up there -- and those are all self recorded works. They can also go to iTunes and Spotify, coming very soon, so by the time that this is edited, they should be able to find it: "Somewhere Moving" by Great Gale on iTunes, and you can also check in with our tumblr: GreatGale.tumblr.com, and find us on Facebook.

JACOB: Great! And my name's Jacob Haller, and I have my own music, which you can find on Bandcamp or at music.jwgh.org, and I also have a couple of other podcasts and various projects I'm working on, that you can find at jacobhaller.com. I'm going to put together, you know, some show notes with links to Jeana's website, and various other things we've talked about, and you'll be able to find that on yoursongpodcast.tumblr.com (spells it), and I guess, with all that said, we're going to go out by listening to the song we've been talking about in full: "Dunes", by Jeana Marie DeLaire of Great Gale, from her album 'Somewhere Moving'. Thanks for listening.

['DUNES' PLAYS IN FULL. YOU CAN FIND THE LYRICS ON GREAT GALE'S BANDCAMP PAGE.]

JEANA: Yep, that was way more articulate, but, definitely. Great. Yup!

JACOB: Didn't feel articulate! [laughter]

[EXCERPT FROM 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS:]

They got the Father, And the Son, And the Holy Ghost. I got my mind and my body and my eternal soul. That's a lot to fucking juggle, so I'm just gonna make rock and roll. Before I go.

JACOB: Hello, and welcome to 'Tell Me About Your Song, the podcast where I talk to musicians and songwriters about a song they've written. Today's guest is Nicole Alifante, and the song she'll be talking about is named "Before I Go", which is from her album "La La La". So, where would you like to start with this song?

NICOLE: I mean, I think it all -- it all transpired within, like, 30 minutes on my couch. [laughs] I just was laying there, and it came out, and I put the laptop on my stomach, and opened Garage Band, and just kind of, you know, this -- I mean, it, it -- That happens -- not often, but it does happen to me every once in a while -- where just, like, a whole story spills out, and I convince the person that I take it to to that it's going to be cool. And, you know, ultimately, it ends up kind of cool. [laughs] I don't play an instrument, so I write songs -- I write melodies and lyrics that sort of pop into my head, and I can pluck melodies out on the piano with, like, one hand, but when I was putting this album together I wanted to include at least one or two songs that I had written solely on my own. And, so, I was feeling a little weighted by what was going on in the world, and watching the coverage of the upcoming election, and so I had this lyric in my head, and then I sort of had a melody that popped in with it, and then I actually hummed a bass line.

[BEGINNING OF 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS]

NICOLE: I used that -- I opened my Garage Band, and I hummed a bass line, and then I sang the melody and lyrics over it, and then I brought it to one of my songwriting partners, and he kind of helped me flesh it out a little bit. It came up pretty quickly. I mean it -- I just sort of -- I had a lot of, kind of, anger. It's kind of a spicy song, if you listen to it, and I just had, like, a lot of confusion about what the truth was, and why it didn't seem like anybody cared about the truth, and so it came out pretty quickly.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS:]

They said to be nice. I didn't think twice -- I wasn't thinking at all. I turned the news on and the man said that Rome's gonna fall. Gonna grab my glass slippers and dance my ass off at the ball.

NICOLE: I guess that line is about me. It's like, 'They said to be nice. I didn't think twice -- I wasn't thinking at all,' you know? And I kind of feel like, especially in this election, I woke up -- I think it was, like -- It was like, "Yeah," you know, "I don't know anything. I don't know anything." You know, I read as much of the paper as I can, and I listen to public radio, you know, NPR, because I feel like I'm getting, you know, "paid for by the people," or whatever, and they're not snarky, and they're not yelling at each other, and being hateful, so it makes me feel better. But I do kind of feel like this, "Just, like, be nice, and, you know, be good to people, and mind your own business, and, you know" -- It's just kind of gotten us all here, where I don't think any of us knows what's going on. [laughs] So, yeah, that line kind of did stand out for me, and, I guess, growing up, just seeing, you know, beautiful girls in dresses going to balls and being saved by boys, and, you know, it's like, I wasn't -- I definitely didn't grow up in, like, this family that was, like, "Be strong, woman!" You know, they were, like, "You know, you're talented, and we love you, and we support you. Be nice! You know, just go out, and be sweet, and do what you love to do!", you know, and so I think: What is my role now in this world, you know, now that I feel like things are kind of really rocky, to say the least, and I'm a mom. Like, it's time to not to be nice anymore, and figure it out.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS:]

They're gonna spin it, Gonna fake it, Do their time on TV. You can purchase what they're selling cause you need to believe. A ruse by any other name would still smell like bullshit to me. They got the Father, And the Son, And the Holy Ghost. I got my mind and my body and my eternal soul. Well, that's a lot to fucking juggle, so I'm just gonna make rock and roll. Before I go.

JACOB: That second verse: "They got the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I got my mind, and my body, and my eternal soul." Like, those are -- I guess, those -- You can think of these in different ways, but they're kind of different examples of, like, these, kind of, trinities: These three things which are different but related, and, also, maybe kind of the same, in some ways. And I thought that it was an interesting way to contrast those two, and I just, kind of -- Like, one seems very, kind of, organized religion, and the other seems much more personal.

NICOLE: It's cool that you got that, because I had always wanted to write -- I actually have a song called "The Holy Trinity" that I had been wanting to write for years, but it was getting very preachy, and I didn't know how to say what I wanted to say. And so, when I was writing this song, I was, like, "Oh! I can use just one verse, and condense my exact feeling into that one verse." So it's exactly what you're saying. It's like, you know, it's, like: Is it this sort of traditional way of seeing God, that is supposed to be the way we -- you know, the way we make rules, the way we control each other. Or is it more like a personal journey? And, you know, when this Holy Trinity was written about, thousands of years ago or whatever, were people trying to say, like, "I'm grappling with these three things! You know, I've got my reason, and I've got this body that's going to just disappear some day, and then I have, like, something bigger, that feels bigger -- like my spirit, or whatever that is. And, so, I think, you know, it's trying to -- It is -- it's like, they're very much the same, they're all so different, and it was kind of my way of never having to write that other song! [laughs] The first couple of verses were pretty visceral, and there was this, sort of, Cinderella part that came into it, that was, sort of -- it was a little more planned. Like, the idea of, just, like -- If it's all going to turn to hell, I'm just going to grab my glass slippers and dance, you know? Like, it's, like, all you can do!

[EXCERPT FROM 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS:]

Gonna grab my glass slippers and dance my ass off at the ball. Before I go. Before I go.

NICOLE: It might've been Sam Hollande,r or someone in the music biz, said, like, "If you write a good chorus, make it the verse, and then write a better chorus."

JACOB: Hmmm.

NICOLE: And, it's like, that's a good rule. But this one in particular, I was, like, "Yeah, it's kind of flat: 'Before I go,'" you know. And I was afraid it wasn't that exciting, but then I heard the voices. You know, I heard, like, a rich, like, black woman's voice, and I heard a guy's voice, and so we tripled and doubled voices, and I felt like: 'Before I go' is such a simple statement, and I all of a sudden talked myself out of it needing, like, any acrobatics. I just liked the idea that it kind of grows. Like, I say it once, and I think in the second chorus I say it, like, twice, and then, in the third chorus, I say it three times, and I go up high, you know. So, I feel like it was just my, kind of, swan song, in a way. Like, "I hope this shit gets cleaned up before I go. [laughs] I hope I do something, make some kind of mark, before I'm out of here, because, you know, it just seems kind of hopeless right now. So I think it was less of, like, a hooky hook that I wanted people to remember, than it was more of like a statement.

JACOB: One of my problems as an interviewer is that, like, the instant I think of a question, I immediately kind of question ...

NICOLE: The question? [laughs]

JACOB: ... the premise of it. So, like, I'm kind of, like, "Well what is this about?" But then I'm, like, "Well, is it really about one specific thing? Like, how -- is that a good question?" It never is. OK. Um.

NICOLE: [laughs] Well, but that is a good question, because it's not about one specific thing. I mean, I think that, as I was writing it, like, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost crept in there. So it was kind of like, it started out as just, like, kind of a rage of, "What am I hearing? Who's talking at me? What are they saying? Do they believe what they're saying? Am I supposed to believe what they're saying?", you know, and I didn't want to be too specifically political, you know. I'm -- I don't know if I should disclose my politics, but I didn't want to say I hated one candidate, or I loved another, or Republicans were better, or -- you know, I didn't want to get that specific. It was just more like, it sounds like everyone's lying at this point, and it's hard to find, like, any kind of purity in it. But then, the sort of religious connotation kind of jumped in, and so -- So, yes. So, it became not about one specific thing, and started to become about, what is the truth? We look for it in politics. We look for it in God, you know. It's, like, where is it? And it did kind of snowball into several different topics. [laughs] And I don't know. You know, it's funny how someone may listen to it, and maybe could be just -- First of all, they could hate it, or they could listen to it and think, "Oh, yeah, this is political," or they could feel like it's something else. It's hard to -- It's hard to know. Like, this song, in particular, is the one, when I give the CD to different people, I'm wondering, like, how they'll respond to it. Because it's pretty, you know, in your face in a certain topic. And I have, you know, Trump supporters in my family, and Hillary supporters in my family, and I voted for Bernie in the primaries, and, you know, it's, like, everyone has their different things, and, you know, it'll be interesting to see how people respond to it. But, yeah! I think we don't have a lot of references right now for anything, and I think music is just such a safe and awesome way to express that. You know, I just think it's, like, the universal language that people can come together on, even if they hate it, you know, they hate the song. At least it's it's something to talk about, that's kind of safe, in a way.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS:]

All I keep hearing is stupid sound bites. People are dying, it ain't black and white. Rise above the hatred, and make everything all right. Before I go.

NICOLE: I love bridges. I am a Bob Dylan fan, but I always wondered what it would be like if Bob had written a bridge. [laughs] I don't think he's got bridges in any of his songs. But I do love them. It's a change for the ears, snd you're saying something that nobody's heard in the song before, and I just think they're always, like, where you find the, like, the little jewel in the song. So, I think almost all of -- maybe all of my songs have bridges. You know, it's funny. So many things were piling on me emotionally at that time, and so there was, like, the initial thing I talked about -- like, the anger of just, what's the truth? And then the religious thing popped in, and then I had been listening to tons of news. I mean, I had to -- I've stopped, thank God, but, just tons of news about the shootings, and, you know, between cops and blacks, and just, like, all the different angles of that subject. And so I -- That it ain't just black and white. it's just like --

[EXCERPT FROM 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS:]

People are dying, it ain't black and white.

NICOLE: People are dying, and they are people, and it's not just cops, and it's not just black people -- It's people in Syria. It's everywhere, you know, and it just, kind of, -- In those four little lines, I, personally, was saying a lot. However someone else will hear it, will be the way they hear it. But it just comes at you in these little, like, bullet points, and these headlines, and these stories that keep flashing by us all day long, and it's so -- It's kind of desensitizing, and sad, and it's like a whole bevy of things. So it was a lot to say, I think, in maybe less words than I would have ever said it. But, yeah, that bridge did sort of bring in the element of, that people are dying. It started specifically with that issue, and then it kind of morphed. But then, in the outtakes, a lot of what Michelle and I sang about was that the people are dying. I mean, there's a lot of the outtakes. And rising above the hatred, and so, it fed the end of the song.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS:]

Before I go, you know I'm gonna go.

[SONG CONTINUES TO PLAY UNDER THE FOLLOWING.]

JACOB: Probably one of the things, that I don't encounter that often, that was true in the song, is just the fact that, you know, you sent me the lyric sheet, and basically all of that is in the first third of the song, and then it's just --

NICOLE: There's a lot of song. Yeah, that was sort of a big decision to make for the album, because it's not radio friendly, you know. First of all there, are profanities in it, and it's too long. So I knew I was sort of killing the idea that it could potentially be on the radio, although, of course, I have a clean short version of it, in case anybody wants it. But it didn't have the same spirit as -- You know, the inspiration for writing the song was kind of dissipated, once I shortened it, and took the foul language out. But, so, that was a big decision to make, and it was improvised. Myself and Michelle, the backup singer, went to the studio together, and we sort of sang back and forth to each other, and we did about four tracks, and then the sax player came in, and he laid down, you know, some improv, about three tracks, and we just sort of messed around in that way, and then, there was that crazy task of cutting and pasting it. So I would hear something I liked that I did, that she did. that he did, and then we would slowly pull from each track, and kind of compose a story that leads us, like, six minutes later, out of the song -- or however long it is. So, yeah, I mean it's -- I did it sort of as a little bit of a wake up call. Like, I don't think people do that anymore, and, you know, I wanted it to go in a direction that was sort of a little deeper and a little heavier.

[THE END OF 'BEFORE I GO' HAS BEEN PLAYING UNDER THE DISCUSSION THROUGH ALL OF THE ABOVE. HERE WE HEAR A BIT MORE OF IT UNACCOMPANIED:]

MICHELLE: Before I go! NICOLE: Before you go. MICHELLE: Let go. NICOLE: Make everything all right. TOGETHER: Make everything all right. MICHELLE: Make everything all right.

[SONG CONTINUES TO PLAY UNDER THE FOLLOWING.]

JACOB: Sometimes, while I'm writing a song, the song kind of reveals to me, like, what the important part is. Like, I was writing a song, and it had this big, long, chorus, and I realized that whenever I got to the chorus, I just wanted to get back to the verse. So I was like, "OK! I'm just going to get rid of half of the chorus, and we'll just get back to the verse, and that's what the song is about.

NICOLE: Yeah.

JACOB: And then there was another song where the verses are, like, two lines long, and the chorus is this huge, honking thing.

NICOLE: Yeah, yeah.

JACOB: So, this song, I mean -- More than half of it is that kind of end jam, and it -- I mean, is there a sense in which that that's kind of what the song is about?

NICOLE: No. I think so. I mean, I think I was really excited about letting the song play out, and letting her voice be heard, and it's not, you know, some, like, -- I didn't pick her because, like, "Oh, she had the best voice!" -- she has an awesome voice, but she's also a black voice, and that was important to me, to have that represented. So I feel like that whole duelling long piece at the end is really kind of like what I was getting to. You know? And it was me expressing my anger in the beginning, and then being, like, "Let's just sing it together, you know? Let's just come together, scream it to the mountaintops, kill the hatred," you know? And so, yes. Like, you outed me. It definitely was where I was headed.

[THE END OF 'BEFORE I GO' HAS continued PLAYING UNDER THE DISCUSSION THROUGH ALL OF THE ABOVE. HERE WE HEAR A BIT MORE OF IT UNACCOMPANIED:]

NICOLE: Oooooo, let go...

[SONG CONTINUES TO PLAY A BIT UNDER THE FOLLOWING BEFORE FADING OUT.]

NICOLE: I feel like it also has a little bit of a sense of humor, too. There's some, like, funky horn parts, and the guitar goes a little wild, here and there, and it's kind of like, it's a little like [sings taunting 'nana nana boo boo' melody], you know? I was trying to go there but, who knows? [laughs]

JACOB: And then the way it ends -- It ends real sudden --

[VERY END OF 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS.]

JACOB: -- on this real kind of discordant guitar sting, or something.

NICOLE: Yes, yes.

JACOB: And I think that was great, too, because I was like --

NICOLE: Yes that was definitely -- I'm sorry, go ahead.

JACOB: Oh, no, I was just, like, "Is it going to fade out, or how do we, you know how do we get out of this?"

NICOLE: [laughs] Yeah. These were the questions. I mean, when we were rehearsing it, too, before the horn even came in, and before I had the voices, and everything, we -- In rehearsal, we would just, like, play, and jam, and then, all of a sudden, like, you know, the drummer would drop the stick, and the bass player would be, like, "Bwaaarp", you know, and it would just end. Like, we would do that on purpose, like, just to have fun, and I was, like, "You know what? I dig it just falling apart," you know, and I guess that was kind of like the theme of the song, which is that I, at the moment -- and some days I still do -- feel like everything is falling apart. So, you know, it's, might as well let it, let the music say it.

JACOB: So, if people would like to hear more of your music, what should they do?

NICOLE: OK, well, I do have a Web site, which is NicoleAlifante.com. [she spells it] My record is up on iTunes and it's called "La La :a", and it's on CD Baby as well, and I'm on Soundcloud and you can just fish around, and you'll find me. And I do play out, every once in a while, in the sort of New York area, so if you're here, come check me out.

JACOB: Great! My name's Jacob Haller, and I have all kinds of projects going on right now, including music and other podcasts. You can find them all at JacobHaller.com. I have a website specifically for Tell Me About Your Song at TellMeAboutYourSong.com, and I'm also going to put together a blog post with links to all of Nicole's websites, and some of the things we've talked about, and I've been including full transcripts of the interviews, as well, recently. So that should be there, and you can find that at yoursongpodcast.tumblr.com [spells it]. And, with that said, we're going to go out by listening to the song we've been talking about in full: "Before I Go" by Nicole Alifante, from her album "La La La." Thanks for listening.

['BEFORE I GO' PLAYS IN FULL. LYRICS TO THIS AND OTHER SONGS ON 'LA LA LA' CAN BE FOUND BEHIND THIS LINK.]

NICOLE: I have never had to do that before, in such an intense way. I did have one other song that had curses in it -- it was called 'Saturday Bitch', and a music house wanted it, and so we made it 'Saturday Chick' -- 'Saturday Chick'. And so that was just changing a word, and -- So, no, I never really had to do that before. But in this process, we knew -- you know, we knew we were going to do it, so it was -- It's already all laid out, it just needs to be sent, you know, like the mp3, or .wav file, or whatever. But no, I really haven't had to worry about that. This was my first epic Odyssey song. [laughs]

JACOB: Right. So how do you, like -- How did you approach -- Did you -- Does it have the same kind of structure, or did you fade it out, or --How do you how did you make it work?

NICOLE: Well, we changed the curses.

[EXCERPT FROM RADIO EDIT OF 'BEFORE I GO' PLAYS:]

A ruse by any other name would still smell like B.S. to me.

NICOLE: So it's the same exact lyric, except the curses are made to be, you know, I'd say something else that's, you know, just as strong, but not a curse. And then, to be honest with you, I don't know how we ended it. [laughs] I can't wait to hear it!

[Note -- I tried to identify who said what in the episode, but likely made a number of mistakes. My apologies for the errors, and take the attributions with a grain of salt. -jwgh]

NARRATOR: For this episode, I talked to the Porch Party Mamas about a song that one of their members, Ksenia Mack, wrote following a road trip with her husband. I asked her what she wanted people to focus on in the song, and here's her answer.

KSENIA: I don't know what to say. I think when you give people time to spend, you get a good result. You know, and I feel like my husband and I do have a good relationship, pretty much, regularly. But there's that connecting, that time to connect. Maybe I think that's important to me, and that's what I'd like people to get. There's time to connect.

NARRATOR: More about that road trip, the relationship between music and the visual arts, and collaborating on bringing a song to its final form -- all that, and more, can be found in today's episode of Tell Me About Your Song.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

And I've got nothing to do, but to lay here too, under wide open night skies...

JACOB: Hello, and welcome to Tell Me About Your Song, the podcast where I talk to musicians and songwriters about a song they've written. Today's song is 'Broken Line' by Ksenia Mack of the Porch Party Mamas, and I've got a few members of the band here to talk about it.

KSENIA: So I'm Ksenia Mack. I play guitar and sing for the group, and my name is spelled with a K. [spells it]

FELICIA: I'm Felicia Brady Lopez, and I also sing, and play accordion, and sometimes play bass, and guitar, and glockenspiel. [laughter]

JANE: And I'm Jane Grondin, and I mostly play fiddle, sometimes play a little guitar, and also sing.

KATRIN: And I am Katrin Peterson, and I play percussion and sing background vocals.

KSENIA: And we have one girl that's not here tonight, Kelly Riley, and she's a songwriter, singer, and plays bass primarily, but also can play guitar.

FELICIA: And ukulele!

KSENIA: And ukulele. [laughter]

JACOB: Excellent. So where would you guys like to start with this song?

JANE: Ksenia's also a painter. So she's, you know, very much into colors and landscapes and ...

FELICIA: Visual.

JANE: Visual, yeah.

KSENIA: My husband and I have taken road trips since our honeymoon. Our honeymoon was a road trip, and we went 8,500 miles, and after we got all through, we realized -- well, we realized it on the trip, too -- that we really like this, so we kept doing them, and we've been to all 50 states, and he's a photographer, and he was going to have a show at a gallery of some of his road trip photos, and he asked me to write a soundtrack for the whole show. So, after thinking, you know, that was not a good idea, going back and forth with him, I started writing pieces for this road trip. So the idea was that people would come into the gallery and look at the photographs, and then there would be music playing, and that would be the music that I wrote that would go with specific photographs. And so I needed a theme song for our road trips, and that's how I wrote this song, and I recorded it for that show, just a very small pressing, and all of these three girls came, and helped me arrange it, and recorded it, and then we recorded it again on our album differently, and more matured, after we spent some time with it. So this is the theme song for all those road trips. So I wrote a series of maybe eight to ten songs on this CD, and some of them were very, very short, because, you know, your attention span, if you look at a photograph, is not going to be that long. And then Robert paired the music with the photographs, so that you were literally supposed to -- instead of listening to, "Oh, and in 1817, Mary Magdaline decided to, you know, paint Mary Cassatt" hanging on the w -- instead of that, you would hear music instead, and what we found happened, was, when you look at a still photograph, and listen to music, and you actually have to stay there for all of, maybe, a minute, or two minutes, the photograph starts to move. It starts to actually, like, have the shadows change, and it was quite bewitching! But, it --

JANE: Especially if you're on your third glass of wine!

KSENIA: Yes! [laughs] Well, anyway ... It was also not really realistic. It didn't really work. People didn't really want to spend all that time listening to the music and walking through. So it ended up being that they just played it -- most of the time, they just played it while the show was up. And so the music just played.

JACOB: My impression from the email that I exchanged earlier is that it was inspired by a specific photograph. Is that true, or ...?

KSENIA: It is, actually. This photograph that I found when I was looking for the lyrics. So it's a -- It's a dark road with a yellow broken line, and it's, it's pretty empty, and a sort of a gray sky, you know, but it's, it's one of those wide open spaces, where you just see the yellow line, and then the broken -- broken line. Which, to me, actually makes a rhythm. Like, when you're in a car, and you're [claps a beat] and you listen to the rhythm of the wheels, and you listen to the -- In my mind, as a kid, I used to always make music out of the broken line in the road.

KATRIN: Right. I think that's -- I feel that that's the same thing with the percussion, that that's what I can remember. Seeing that image, and feeling like it's -- It's something -- You're moving all the -- you're moving constantly in that song.

KSENIA: Mm-hmm.

KATRIN: And I think that that's what we created.

[SONG BEGINS PLAYING]

KSENIA: The very first lyric I had was "I forgot what I just said."

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

I forgot what I just said. I lost the ...

KSENIA: And so the lyric that came out was: "I forgot what I just said. I lost the thought that I had. It must have slipped between the seat and the drumbeat." But there are many lyrics that didn't -- There were many times I wrote that phrase over and over and over, without coming to that exact phrasing and point. So part of writing lyrics, I think, is -- What's really fun is all the bad ones, right?

JACOB: Mm-hmm.

KSENIA: All right. So I think it starts here. Oh, yeah.

I forgot what I just said. It fell between my thumbs, and slipped between myself and the thought that I just had.

[laughter]

I forgot what I just said. It slipped between the thought I had. Something slipped, dropped between the seat that ended up beneath my feet.

[laughter]

I forgot what I just said. It slipped down between the seats. One long moment playing drums inside my head. You're not so far away. As a matter of fact, you're right here.

I forgot what I just said. It slipped between the thought I had, Down between the dirty sheet, and the gummy treat beneath my feet.

KSENIA: Finally we get to:

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

I forgot what I just said. I lost the thought that I had. It must have slipped between the seat and the drumbeat.

['Broken Line' continues to play under the following.]

KSENIA: So that's the one I kept. I pretty much should have probably kept the gummy treat one. [laughter]

JACOB: The gummy treat is good.

FELICIA: I think it's all right. [inaudible]

KSENIA: So it's just all those layers of lyrics I go through.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

... read my mind. And I've got nothing to do but to lay here too under wide open night skies,

KSENIA: Well, I wrote a chorus, and I had a really good friend listen to it, and she said, "Well, I think you could go further," and I knew what she meant -- it just wasn't good enough, and it took a, I'd say a couple of days for it to really evolve. But I really wanted to capture those long feelings of looking up at the stars, and just having nothing to do. Like, one of the things that I loved about being on a road trip with my husband, is that there isn't anything to do. We don't -- we actually leave without a plan. So we're not trying to get anywhere, or anywhere specifically. And so finding little towns, and having time to not do anything, together, evolves these kind of conversations that make you really feel very connected -- that you don't give yourself that space in everyday life, necessarily -- connected with the person and connected with your surrounding. And, also, it's just kind of like if you've had any fights, you know, they get kind of washed away as the miles go on. And, you know, you get in new fights when you're on a road trip, too. [laughter] You get in brand new ones.

JANE: Like when he won't stop at the bathroom for you. [laughs]

KSENIA: No, he always stops at the bathroom for me. [laughs] But, yes, right. That's -- that's your husband. [laughter]

FELICIA: But, you know what? But I have something to say about that. Because maybe it was subconscious, but when you do your verses, you're telling the story, it's more wordy, and the notes move more often.

KSENIA: Mm-hmm.

FELICIA: Then, when you get to the chorus --

ALL SING: And I've got nothing to do ...

FELICIA: It's like, you're not doing anything, just holding these notes ... [sings] "... but to lay here too."

KSENIA: Yeah, it's just all this space.

FELICIA: Very simple, and, yes, spacious. I'm sure you meant to do that.

KATRIN: [sings] Under wide open night skies ...

KSENIA: I love that. [laughter] Good. Thank you, Felicia.

JANE: One thing that I like about the chorus of this song in particular is that I feel like it's -- By the time the audience hears it again, like, the second time around, it's pretty easy to sing along with, or to hum along with, or, you know -- it's pretty easy for an audience member, even one who's not that familiar with the song -- you know, it would be a song that I would easily be able to hum along with. You know how, some songs, you might start tapping your toe to them? This one is one that you -- I feel like you could, you could sing along with pretty quickly.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

... Dark road, broken line. Brilliant yellow, baby blue. The sky and land divide in two: A Mondrian without end...

KSENIA: So my husband and I were in Terry, Montana. Like, we decided, we don't know where we're going, and we're, we just want to keep going further west, further west, and my husband Robert once says, "I just want to go to this town where there's nothing." Well, there was a lot of towns with nothing, but it had to have a bar, and it had to have a hotel, and the neon light from the hotel would -- you could see it flash all night long in our room, and it was like: "MOTEL. MOTEL. MOTEL." You know? [laughter] And it was really a very, actually, kind of nice place, and it had this upstairs balcony that looked out over the street. It was, like, such an old honky tonk, you know? And we were driving a red Kia Soul. So I go in the morning to buy groceries in the grocery store, and I see they have wine, and we were out of wine, so I thought I'd pick up a bottle for the evening, right? And this lady says, "Oh, we don't sell wine at seven in the morning." And I say, "Well, that's a good thing, because I don't drink wine at seven in the morning, but I wanted one for later tonight." And she goes, "We saw your outfit, coming down in that red Soul ... [laughter] ... from Massachusetts. We see --" I was, like, "Wow!" And I put the wine back, you know? And -- But the funny thing is, is that Rob was really into taking photographs, and he was taking abstract photographs of Terry, Montana. So he would walk up to some building that had a little blue, a little white, and a little red square, and get really close with his camera, and take these pictures. And so that was Mondrian to me. You know, that -- the painter Mondrian? But the whole funny thing about me saying it's a Mondrian without end is that is actually a Rothko, with the one, one block in one color, and a horizontal line, and another block in another color, so I actually ended up saying the wrong artist, and Rothko just doesn't work in the song. [laughter] So Mondrian stays. And, anyway, I'm sure that's a big garbled image, but that's the whole second verse sitting right there.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

A Mondrian without end... Red glare window through the night, From that hotel neon light. This town was a poker game that saw us coming. What was its name?

JACOB: Do any of the rest of you, sort of, remember when you first, kind of, encountered the song and what you had to say about it?

JANE: I mean, I remember working on it in your living room, but was that before we worked on it for the 'Lost Across America' project?

KSENIA: No. That was two weeks before we recorded it for the 'Lost Across America' project.

JANE: OK.

KSENIA: Two weeks before.

KATRIN: And that was that photo exhibit that they're talking about. It was called --

KSENIA: That was the name of it. 'Lost Across America.'

FELICIA: I just remember it feeling pretty new when we recorded it, because it was new, and now it feels like such an old, familiar, comfortable song, like an old sweater you put on, you know?

JANE: Yeah.

FELICIA: So we were still getting to know it, back then.

JANE: Mm-hmm. And we kept -- I feel like we kept it pretty simple. It's a fairly uncomplicated arrangement. On the fiddle I'm doing, like, practically nothing on the whole song other than just a, a shuffle.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

Brilliant yellow, baby blue.

KSENIA: But that shuffle is, like, a road -- it's, like, a --

JANE: Yeah, I wanted -- I wanted to create the road imagery, to keep that going, and that's pretty much all I'm doing, so that it has that pulse to it.

KSENIA: You know, we recorded the song twice. Once was way before we were ready, for this little album that I released with the show, and then another time, after the song had gelled, and they were coming up with parts right in the recording space, and then laying it down, and not making any errors. I mean this was just, like, boom boom boom, and it was done. And then, you know, maybe the second time through, they'd say, "Hey, I think I'm going to play this, and you're going to play that," and they would just come up with this swelling beautiful line, and it was done!

[SHORT, ACOUSTIC VERSION OF 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS]

FELICIA: I think some nice touches, though, are Jane, the fiddle player, had an idea of having an ascending scale in thirds that she does on fiddle and I do on accordion while we're singing backup in the chorus.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

... Under wide open night skies,

FELICIA: I think that adds a really nice line. And the break in the middle -- I remember, when that happened, we wanted to do -- We wanted to just do something really different, and do percussive sounds on our instruments, but in a non-conventional way.

KSENIA: And in the recording, the weird -- The honest truth is, we recorded that song, and we forgot to put all that percussion in it, and we do that live. And so, we left the recording studio, and it was blank -- we left this -- sort of nothing is really happening in that section, and so we went back, and I dropped a little piano in it, in the recording and that brings the volume way down, and that's ...

[INSTRUMENTAL SECTION FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS]

KSENIA: And then these lyrics -- You know, there's a little tiny verse left, and then we go back into the thing, with a little bit of bass.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

I've got nothing to do but to lay here too under wide open night skies while those times we failed to connect ourselves fade on dark road ...

KSENIA: We start to bring it all back up again.

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS:]

... broken line. And I've got nothing to do but to lay here too under wide open night skies All those times we failed to connect ourselves fade on dark road, broken line.

[MUSIC CONTINUES TO PLAY UNDER THE FOLLOWING]

KSENIA: And then just fade it out at the end, as if the car is just pulling away into the distance, and then, finally, you can't see it anymore.

FELICIA: And we make the ending kind of drawn out, actually, by doing the vocals with an 'oooh' sound, instead of the words, and we drop that out, and it's just the instruments, and so it really is like a, just a slow, slow, fade out into the horizon. [chuckles]

[EXCERPT FROM 'BROKEN LINE' PLAYS WITH 'OOOHS' UNTIL THE SONG ENDS.]

FELICIA: There is a hopefulness in the performing of it. Like, quiet, content hopefulness and joyfulness. It's very stable, always, singing it. And I just know when I'm singing it, and I do the harmony with Ksenia -- it feels really great. It just feels like, a -- You know, in this world that's so unstable, and sometimes scary, and we're sometimes, you know, ripped apart from one another in small and big ways. And then to offer this to an audience -- it's usually our second song in the set -- and it's not busy, and it's calm. We can look out to the audience, and I feel a real connection with them, and with the band, when we're performing this.

KSENIA: I didn't know that.

FELICIA: Well, you know, you sit here, and talk about a song, and you realize, "Wow, yeah, that actually -- that's what it feel like when we perform it.

JANE: And it's true.

JACOB: If people want to hear more of your music, what should they do?

KSENIA: Oh, I think they should go to PorchPartyMamas.com, and I think you can download the songs from there. You can order them on CD Baby, and you can also download them from iTunes.

JANE: And you can also just contact us directly through the website, and we'll send you a physical copy. You can go to any of our shows.

KATRIN: We are also on Facebook and Instagram. A little bit on Twitter, but we're not really Twitters. Tweeters.

JANE: We don't tweet. [laughter]

FELICIA: But if people come because they heard the podcast, and they come hear us live: Please come and introduce yourselves to us. [sounds of assent] We would love that.

KSENIA: Well, Jacob, how about your music? Where can we find yours?

JACOB: Well, that's very nice of you to ask. My name's Jacob Haller. You can find my music at music.jwgh.org. And, actually, I recently created a kind of master website that links to my music, and my podcasts, and everything that I'm doing, and that's at JacobHaller.com [spells it].

KSENIA: Jacob Haller? [spells it]

JACOB: Correct. And I have a website for this series at TellMeAboutYourSong.com, and I also -- I'm going to put together a blog post with links to all of your websites, and everything we've been talking about, and people can find that at yoursongpodcast.tumblr.com [spells it]. So, with all that said, we're going to go out by listening to the song we've been talking about: 'Broken Line' by the Porch Party Mamas. Thanks for listening.

['BROKEN LINE' PLAYS IN FULL.]

JANE: You just roll! We're going to go -- we're going to be spontaneous.

JACOB: OK, great. I love it!

JANE: [inaudible] She'll roll with it.

KATRIN: And we have cookies too, so we're all set.

JACOB: Oh, man!

KATRIN: I know. I wish we --

JANE: Sorry we can't share them with you.

JACOB: I know! I should have cookies. [laughter] That's poor planning on my part.

JANE: We have Hershey's ...