BONUS EPISODE: Jann Arden and Erica Ehm Mixtape Album Release Special

Erica Ehm  0:18  
Dance hit by Jann Arden,

Jann Arden  0:21  
they sped it up. Erica, they sped it up on these. They think the people that are in control of the stuff of the speeds. How are you? Thank you for doing this with me. Erica. M I

Erica Ehm  0:34  
am so thrilled to be here. Jann Arden, and I'm thrilled to have so many people joining you to celebrate the release of your new album, mixtape, which is so good I have to tell you, you know, Jan

Erica Ehm  0:52  
n, I haven't been part of the music business for a long time, so getting access to an album before anybody else gets to hear it is not common for me anymore, so for me to listen and to hear it for the first time, I have to tell you, you know what it made me think of for people who are watching right now, it's an album of cover songs, predominantly from the 90s, and there's a few other surprises in there, but it made me think of Forrest Gump. It made me think of it made me think of, what is that saying? Life is like a box of chocolates, and you never know what you're gonna get. Yeah, that's what I felt like when I was listening to your record, because it's eclectic. You picked such, I think, surprising songs, unusual songs, which we'll talk about today. I want to understand why you chose some of they're all fantastic, and you Jen ardenized them, which is so cool.

Jann Arden  2:01  
Yeah, I'm I wanted to make sure that I didn't stray too far from, you know, the classics that all these artists have created, you know, almost 2530 years ago. So

Erica Ehm  2:15  
yeah, but I feel like you made those songs your own before I let you talk anymore, I want to talk to everybody who is joining us, because there's no party without an audience, and all of you who are here today are part of the conversation. And so you can ask Jen questions. You leave them, just type them into the chat. And Sarah is producing our show tonight, so she will help me and Jan put your questions in Jan's face, and also you can even be part of our live stream. I met you in 1993 and before I met you personally. I was handed a cassette tape by Alan Reed, wow. Alan Reed, from A and M Records, when I was on much music, he literally, I have it somewhere. Jan, he walked up to me and he gave me a cassette tape, and he said, I think you're gonna really like this. And I went home and I put your cassette on my boom box, like, and I was living with Kim Stockwood at the time, oh man. And we were both like, Oh my God. Who is this? So who were you? Who was Jan Arden back

Jann Arden  3:45  
in the day? Well, I was, I was fresh off of 10 years of being in the bars in the interior of British Columbia in Alberta. We were up in white horse and Yellow Knife. We'd go up north Dawson, for people who aren't familiar with the with the West, but yeah, I'd been at it a long time and just singing in the bars and Alan Reed, who gave you the tape, and I'm assuming the cassette was time for mercy. That would have been my first record in 1993 he he's the fellow that signed me, and it's a long story there, but it's, it's very interesting. And oddly, you you're talking about Kim stock would, well, he went on to him, and Kim stock would have two beautiful sons, and they got married, you know, several years later. So there's lots of connectors in my life. And Alan Reed is also the gentleman who inducted me into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. So I have a definite book end with our relationship. But yeah, he he was going to pass on me, and then a girlfriend broke up with him. I'm condensing this story. And when he got back from taking a little bit of a break for, you know, personal reasons, my cassette was my demo cassette was still in his car. You. Yeah, and he heard a song called I just don't love you anymore. And he said, I don't know if you're ever going to sell a record, but I think I get what you do. So it's been pretty great. Alan and I over the years,

Erica Ehm  5:11  
isn't that amazing story, and I'm guessing that people who are joining you today have been there, if not, since 1993 probably there about because that's where we first fell in love with you. But you know, it's been very interesting for me, watching you evolve. There was such a disconnect between these incredibly painful, beautiful, wrenching songs and this hilarious person in real life. And I thought even in your covers, you didn't even pick a funny cover, yeah, on your album, no, you seem to keep it so separate.

Jann Arden  5:58  
Yeah, I never really wanted you know, humor or tongue in cheek thing to get into my songs. I think for me growing up, I was always a very funny kid, and I was such a ham in school, and when I sort of fell into songwriting and making up songs in my parents basement, I was so relieved to find something that I could express myself without having to be funny or feeling like I had to be funny. So just instinctively, I was just like, I don't. I don't want to be funny. I don't want to sing songs about monkeys in barrels, or, you know, I just I don't. I. There's lots of people that can do that, but I would have not been truthful to myself as a musician, so it is separate. But, you know, it worked really well for me, you know, over the last few decades, because I think when people come to a show, I always let them off the hook. If I, you know, play a couple of songs, I always talk and tell stories about my family or what I've been doing or and it's something that has worked really well for me.

Erica Ehm  7:04  
Can we talk about one of the first song on the album? I love that you actually have an album with side one and side two. So kooky. Joan Osborne, I love this song. One of us. This song came out in 1995 which coincidentally was the year I was gone from much music. The music industry was already in my rear view mirror at that point, but music was super important to me. Where were you in 1995 when you heard this song, do you remember?

Jann Arden  7:41  
Yeah, I was actually in the States. I was touring the living under June record, and we were criss crossing. I was out with Patty Griffin, but we were touring. We were doing all these clubs. We were in Boulder, Colorado. We were just zigzagging, crossing all over the city. But, you know, Patty Griffin, like, it's so nutty. And she was so incredible. She went jogging every morning, and I just remember standing and listening to her play, and it was so unbelievably incredible. But yeah, within that next couple of years these, you know, I heard a lot of songs just traveling around. We as a band, we would listen to stuff, but one of us kind of popped up in the next couple years. And I know that I was in the States when I first heard it, and I just thought, What is this? It was. Just seems so blasphemous to be singing about, what if God was one of us, you know, just a slob like one of us, a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home. And I think it seems so absurd that that lyric sticks with you. You don't have to hear that very many times to remember the entire song and keep your ears peeled for the tuba.

Erica Ehm  8:54  
What I'll tell you, it reminds me of XTC. Dear God, oh, which came out

Jann Arden  9:00  
around, oh, that song, that would have been a great thing to cover, too. Had

Erica Ehm  9:07  
you called me, I would have told you, yeah, what are you thinking about when you're singing this song?

Jann Arden  9:13  
I think exactly what the Lyric is, you know, what is God? What are people's perceptions of God. I mean, religion is being stretched to the limits right now. We are fighting. We are saying, I'm more Christian than you are. My God is bigger than your God. And you know things happening in the Middle East with, you know, Jewish people in the Palestinian Muslims, and I mean, religion has taken on this perverse kind of everyone's so misunderstood when really we all just want the same things. We want to give our glory to a higher power, to someone who watches over us and someone who sees us and loves us, and someone who can guide us some someplace to put our faith. And I think essentially, and I'm no theologian. But it's the same it's the same energy, same essence. And probably these stories are told very differently to different cultures. You know, I mean, if I was God, I would want to adapt. If I was in China, I would want to adapt if I was in, you know, the Sudan, I would want to adapt if I was in northern Canada, I, I don't know, just all the fighting that goes on this song really brings it home about, you know how personal it is for people. What if he's just trying to make his way home? And that is sad. I had lots of friends requesting stuff, really? Yeah, I had them, my friend Leah said, you gotta do, gotta be, you know, it's

Erica Ehm  10:44  
funny. I was gonna ask you about that. It just seems so Jan, because, especially I watch you on social media, like you seem to be one of the few voices of reason out there these days. And it feels like this is such a Jan song that

Jann Arden  11:00  
you could have written. It really, really fun song to sing to me. It's a dance song, yeah. I mean, I don't know how you can help to move. And oddly enough, with this song as well, Russell broom, my wonderful, wonderful, wonderful producer friend guitar player, musician extraordinaire, he we spent a lot of time trying to get the keys exactly where they should be, and the tempos and a lot of these songs were quite a bit faster, I think gotta be. It was kicked up a bit from here too, and we brought it down a little bit. It's very wordy, like gotta be bad, you gotta be bold. But Desiree sings it a little bit faster than that, but I just didn't feel comfortable. It didn't feel like it was coming out of my mouth properly. But I do. I really love the song. I think the tones in it, the guitars in it, the groove is really fun, but it's a, yeah, it's it's just a great song. And I was in Europe the first time I heard that song, and I just saw the video, this beautiful black and white video, and Desiree the way she she moved her arms to this video. You remember it? Erica, I remember it so well. You just she was standing there, I would think it was by the ocean. And you were like, Who is this goddess? We

Erica Ehm  12:17  
have one of the people who are joining us today has a question for you. Okay, so I would like to, I think her name is Joanne, so

Speaker 1  12:28  
Jan, I just wondered which song on mix tape was most emotional for you, and why?

Jann Arden  12:37  
Oh my gosh, you know, I'm probably going to say the boxer. It's a Simon and Garfunkel song from the 70s. So it definitely doesn't quite fit the criteria for the 90s stuff that I did, but I literally begged my record company to let me include the boxer and boys of summer. Boys of summer being in the 80s, and the boxer, of course, Simon and Garfunkel in the 70s. But I think when I went through this song in particular and just listened to the Lyric, and I've heard it a million times in my life, I am just a poor boy, though my story seldom told. I've squandered my resistance. We all know that part, and then it gets into then we don't know, but we absolutely know the opening line to that song. But when I sat down and had the lyric in front of me, I was like, oh my god, this is about coming to a new town and a new place, and not knowing where you belong, and you don't know anybody there, and you know, you find comfort by being in the really rough part of town, because you feel like that's where you belong. And just about having that fight, everyone has a fight in them and a desire to do better and to conquer hard things. And as much as it's this beautiful poem, I think Paul Simon really outdid himself in this writing, the melody the Laila lie, everyone knows that. I mean, imagine writing something that a planet knows you could be. You know, I was naming all those countries earlier. But you could literally be in Argentina, or you could be in Ireland. You could be in the Shetlands in northern Scotland. If you played that song and got to the refrain of La la la la la, the whole world could sing along. That is an accomplishment. So it's very emotional to think about that, and to be able to interpret a song like that is is really delightful from a singing point of view. I hope that answers your question. That was

Speaker 1  14:45  
an awesome answer. Thank you so much. Well, thank you for thank you for coming

Erica Ehm  14:49  
to our listening party. Joanne Jan Arden just sang, I know, just saying, well he

Speaker 1  14:55  
sang to me in a cameo. That's a prized possession of mine, too. So. Thank

Jann Arden  15:00  
you for doing that. We've raised hundreds of 1000s of dollars and have been helping animals all over the planet, from rhinos to octopus to dogs, horses, mules, you name it, and it's all because of people ordering those cameos. We

Erica Ehm  15:18  
did too. My sister and I did remember using one for my dad. It was

Jann Arden  15:22  
absolutely classic. I love doing them. I especially like people asking people to get married. I've done probably 15 or so of those over the years. I've done about 4600 cameos now since COVID And which is why I signed up, right? What about divorce? I've asked. I've broken up with people as well. I have broken up with people. I'm like, Hi, it's Jan. Arden, Phil. You're probably wondering why I'm popping up on your computer or your iPad or whatever. Doris just doesn't want to be with you anymore. She finds your hygiene difficult. And I mean, I'm just making but I literally am, like, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm literally the messenger. Thank you and goodbye. Sorry, Phil. When

Erica Ehm  16:09  
we finished talking, like, in 45 minutes or whatever, we're gonna play the entire album without a word, you and I zip it. Yes, you

Jann Arden  16:20  
guys can log on. The album is going to be played at the end of this conversation, from beginning to end without interruption. And that's what this listening party is all about. You get your sneak peek before you stream it, before you buy it, before anything else, you can sit and listen to it. And you know, I didn't do the sequencing, but somebody at the record company named Jeffrey, the actual president of my record company did the sequencing, so he picked the order, and I just love

Erica Ehm  16:43  
it. Wow. Well, I'm picking the boxer right now.

Jann Arden  16:47  
Yeah. So yes, Kyle, Kyle mckerney, and he is such a beautiful singer. He's, I call him like a Americana, Canadiana, roots, country rock, R and B singer like he does everything. He's a guy that just his voice is is unbelievable. And I just said to Russ, I wonder if he would sing on the boxer. Because, as you know, Simon and Garfunkel were renowned for their harmonies. Art Garfunkel, and you know, you think of songs like The Sounds of Silence and things like that. But anyway, he didn't do the Garfunkel stuff. He didn't go in there and just copy art. He made it his own. So when you're listening to the gentleman singing who sounds like an angel at times and is singing way higher than I am, it's at certain points in the song, your version

Erica Ehm  17:38  
is incredible, like I when I heard that album, this is the song for me.

Jann Arden  17:46  
It's so funny, because everyone has a different kind of version of what their favorite tune is. I really love the boxer as well. I mean, like I said, when you delve into these lyrics, and I will preface this by telling you, Erica, that the working title for this record almost 20 months ago was, I bet you didn't know the words, or I bet you thought you knew the words and new sound. Was like, That's stupid. So I ended up but I really did when I started singing these songs with the lyric sheets, I'm like, wow, these lyrics, because a lot of times we don't know what they are. We don't always hear what they are. I never

Erica Ehm  18:25  
know them. I just know the song. Actually, we have some funny stories to talk about some lyrics, but first of all, we have another guest who would like to join us, Carrie.

Speaker 2  18:38  
Where do you get the inspiration? Like, is this something that you learned, or is this something that you taught yourself to do?

Jann Arden  18:45  
Well? I thank you so much, Carrie. I you know, my mom was a huge influence in my life, and she was a very intrepid person. You know, she was always encouraging me somehow. But as far as writing, it is a mystery to me. Carrie, I don't read music, so I don't know what the I don't I don't read, you know, sheet music or anything like that. And I really don't know what I'm playing on the guitar or the piano. I play them both a little bit, but I really just, I think you got to trust your intuition. I don't know exactly how it works, and I've had many people ask me about songwriting. I write lyrics and the music at the same time, and I usually finish songs within an hour, like 45 minutes to an hour. It is not a long process. It is very quick. And it's it's just, it's like tuning into a radio station. It's fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy, and then you tune into the station, and I think that's what your heart does. You kind of tune in to something. And I just trust writing down words. In a few of my notebooks, I've scribbled out the odd word, but very, not very often. But, you know, I try and write about personal experiences, and I write about. Things that my friends have gone through, and I write about, things that I read about so long, long answer to this beautiful question. It is magical. I don't know how it works, but I know that I just feel something and feel compelled to write it down, and I just enjoy it more than you can imagine. It's like my favorite thing, keep

Jann Arden  20:43  
longer you gotta be hard.

Erica Ehm  21:01  
So the songs that you chose for mixtape for your new album, did they speak to you in the same way as your own lyrics speak to you? Like,

Jann Arden  21:12  
Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was gonna tell you a story, a quick story about breathe me by Sia, and I was on a tour bus, and I was in my bunk, and it was back in the 90s, and I was watching Six Feet Under, like, every night. After the shows I watched, I had, like, how many series of six feet under was there? 567, I bought all of them. It cost me, like, 180 bucks to get all these DVDs the last episode. Spoiler alert. You find out in this montage what happens to your favorite characters and how they die. Essentially, the song playing underneath that was see as breathe me, and it was the beginning of this artist that had been at it for many, many years down under, just busted in to an international I mean, it was pretty instantaneous. What happened to her. Everyone wanted to know who was singing that song. But moments like that, I thought about being in the bus, in the dark, in my bunk, rolling down the freaking highway somewhere in Canada with this crappy, you know, DVD player, and balling my head off. And so fast forward, when I was thinking, I'm thinking was, breathe me the 90s. Yeah, it was the 90s. And I'm like, do I even dare cut that or go near that? And Russell broom, he found a way to make these soundscapes for me. We've worked together for so many years, and he just knows where my heart is, and of course, we tweak things in but he would play me stuff. I'd come in the studio, and he'd play me, you know, ideas that he had, and I just be like, Yes, so, and that's how the whole record felt with him. But it was moments like that that are very memorable, that it takes me back to a place. And I thought, if that does that for me, maybe it'll be like that for somebody else. You know what's so

Erica Ehm  23:11  
weird? I was a VJ on much music, so I know music. I never heard that song before. So on the album, that was the song that was my second favorite song after the boxer. And this is why I think you have the wrong name for your album, because I think it should have been called the rabbit hole. Because I was like, Wait, that's a see a song. What see a song is that? So I went onto YouTube, which didn't exist when I was on my show, Oh, it didn't. Found a version of her singing it live, South by Southwest. Ooh

Jann Arden  23:53  
and South by Southwest is a big musical festival in the States. You

Erica Ehm  23:59  
could hear a pin drop her performing that song. It was just stunning. And then what happens is when, as you know, when you're on YouTube, suddenly all these videos start showing up on the side. And I was like, oh, and I found an old interview of me with Crowded House, so I was clicking around and jumping back and forth from videos from the 80s and 90s, back to your record. So your album means a lot to me, because it is the stories of a very important time in my life.

Jann Arden  24:38  
You and I share a lot of very similar memories, like we were talking were basically the same age, you know, and being in a tactile universe with music when it was very immediate, the Much Music Building and much more music that was started a few years later, the energy in that building. Was so incredible. I mean, you know, walking around having a gin and tonic, and you'd walk past Tom Cochran or Bryan Adams, or, you know, whoever in the hallway and and, you know, Denise Donlon was so instrumental in doing the the unplugged, perform it and interactive, intimate and interactive. And she took a chance on me, and let me do one. And I'll never forget that. And, you know, she goes, you really weren't the kind of band that we did that with. It was more like rem and, you know, rock bands that you would break down. So I was, but I just remember my conversations with you, Erica, so vividly. I remember, I mean, we were both young, and it was such an exciting time. We're in that building. You were always so gracious to me, and you have been for all these years. Anytime we've ever run into each other and done things together or or seen each other, it's just with such kindness and this mutual respect, because we were both young women trying to to do something, and I think we both had a lot of no's, no, you can't do that in our lives. You were it's

Erica Ehm  26:05  
so interesting that you say that because I, for sure did not fit into the music industry. I didn't I didn't party. I wasn't bad. I was good, and I liked things like, I don't know, Wizard of Oz, or, you know, I was happy, and the music that I liked was thoughtful. I couldn't abide the heavy metal. And I called those, can I say fuckers? Yeah, I called those fuckers on it. Whenever I would interview them, all those heavy metal bands and stuff, I would challenge them on behalf of all women, and I feel like you held the torch for a lot of women. I

Jann Arden  26:48  
don't think I fit the pop box. I mean, I was told I was too this or too that, or too plain or too normal. I wasn't very fashionable. But, you know, looking back at myself, I'm like, Oh, my God, you were so cool. You know, my my my burgundy hair, and I used to darken in my Mole and I always wore red lipstick, and, you know, I'd wear men's jackets and combat boots. And I don't think I realized how fascinating I actually was, and I was so quick witted. I think interviewers were cautious with me, because they knew, you know, fuck around and find out that kind of thing, right? And so I was just very quick. I wasn't intimidated, even if I was intimidated, I never let on that I was that was a huge advantage for me. And you know, also looking back the contradiction, and you so aptly put it at the beginning of this interview, was that I was funny and I could laugh at myself, and I was self effacing and self deprecating, and but yet the music was searing. It was piercing, and it was about uncomfortable things and unrequited love and lost love and yearning for love, and I didn't know what else to write about. I was a young woman in search of, you know, something to do with love. I was desperate to figure it out.

Erica Ehm  28:13  
Well, when you think back, art is something that stands out. If you're the same as everybody else, you're not memorable. You're not doing something new. And I don't know where you got the courage, because at the beginning you weren't doing that, and then something happened, and suddenly you were not Jan Richards anymore. You were Jan Arden and you were a poet, and you were unique. You were different. You were unabashedly original, and that's why Alan Reed and Canada fell in love with you, because you were different. Different is hard?

Jann Arden  29:00  
Yeah, I think it's so hard not to be yourself that when you realize that, when you're just yourself, you breathe a sigh of relief, and when you start thinking to yourself, why not me? Why can't it be me? My God,

Erica Ehm  29:17  
if my sister is listening to this, she's probably freaking out, because that's my mom used to tell us all the time. My mom said the same thing, why

Jann Arden  29:24  
not you? Why not? So our mothers were probably cut from very similar, very similar swaths of beautiful embroidered fabric and all the things that they did in their lives. And you and I have both lost our moms now, and I'm sure a lot of the people listening and watching our show right now have also lost a parent or a loved one. And you know that's where music comes in, too. When you think about moments in your life, pivotal moments in your life, you think about it, you sit back with your family when someone dies, and you think, what music should we play? What did mom love you? Yeah, and it's one of the first things you think about when you have a memorial service. It's one of the first things you think about when you have a band at a wedding, or a song that you walk down the aisle to, or when they're putting the casket in the grave, music. And we don't give that enough credit. We don't really think about the weight, the width and the massive coverage that music has on human life, and I think about that every day, like of how important it is and how empty our world would be. It's all connected, and once we we really understand that and what it does to our brains and minds, I think we're going to be healthier for it. You have to be yourself. You have to unabashedly, just be prepared to be you and don't apologize.

Erica Ehm  30:49  
So when you choose to do an album of covers that aren't you at the beginning, they're someone else's songs. What makes a cover, a Jan Arden song? How do you make it your own? It's not just your voice. I know it's not. There's something that you bring and Russell, I

Jann Arden  31:15  
was gonna say Russ, has a lot to do with it. We've worked together for so long, and I think you tend to write a bit even when you're doing a cover, the parts that you're choosing to play, even though it's that guitar part from Wicked Game. You know, you can't do Wicked Game without playing that bendy guitar refrain that comes into the lead break and but Russ, Russ knows what to he picks very carefully that he cherry picks this part is really integral to this song, and we need it because we need people to be comfortable. Oh, good. It's there, the lead, the solos there. And I don't, I don't go very far from melody. I make it my own. But I'm not a fancy singer. I'm very economical, and I don't do a lot of fancy little turnarounds or trills or it just was never my thing. I can do them. I choose not to.

Erica Ehm  32:07  
I think that you do on this record. I think your vocals are extraordinary,

Jann Arden  32:15  
but they're super simple, really. Like, I'm just not doing fancy moves. Like, I don't know how to explain it, Chris, you're not Lera is right? Yeah. So they can go up there and they can turn it around and bend it and and I, I'm, I'm more Karen Carpenter, like, God forbid, I'm nothing like Karen Carpenter, but that's the kind of singing that I aspire to. It's a really simple. Here's the melody, here's the lyric. I'm not gonna screw around with it. I'm not gonna twist around and do back flips in the air. I'm gonna sing the damn song.

Erica Ehm  32:49  
Okay, let's talk about There she goes, there she goes, there she goes again. So it to me, it's like a really Boppy, fun, wacky pop song that kind of makes me think of the Beatles,

Jann Arden  33:04  
six pen, six pence, none the Richard did a really great pop song. Actually, I hit with it, yep, with that girl. So there's a bird like little voice.

Erica Ehm  33:14  
And then you found out the

Jann Arden  33:17  
song is about heroin addiction. There she goes. There she goes again. You know, racing around my brain, my in my veins. It's about heroin addiction. Russell told me that. So did you know that? No, no, I thought it was a love song. It is a love song, but it's the love of drugs.

Erica Ehm  33:38  
When you listen to it, it's like, oh yeah, I can hear that. And the same thing happened to you with waterfall. So we all

Jann Arden  33:50  
see wonderful, you know those, those wonderful women in the 90s that had hit after hit after hit, beautiful black women and and waterfall, of course, was this infectious pop smash internationally, all over the world. Don't go chasing waterfalls. And it was just this groove. Well, it turns out that the song is about HIV AIDS, and it's about a mother losing her son. Don't go chase in waterfalls. Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to. When I read the Lyric, when I looked at it, when I was singing it in the studio, I just, I was just so struck by how clever productions can be to create this happy, snappy landscape of music, all these notes and a great drum groove and harmonies, and the message was definitely the fallout from a catastrophic disease that ravaged the planet for 15 years, and gay men in particular. So yeah, it's it's hard to believe I did not do the rap on this song. There was a one. Rap, the young lady that did all the rap stuff in TLC, I'm a white woman from the prairies, you know, I don't want to be disrespectful and even think that I can pull that off. So we just did a really neat Instrumental Guitar thing and left it at that. But I still felt like the song was important to do

Erica Ehm  35:20  
so it's interesting that I wonder, would this song have been more effective, not your version, but the the TLC version, if the music inferred some sort of a darkness, because when they have, when you have lyrics with really happy music, how do you get the message across? Because isn't the music part of the message.

Jann Arden  35:50  
I think you nailed it. I think it is the the gun that shoots the bullet the music. I think it's the syringe that shoots the drug the music is the vehicle that you carry everybody around in, and that's your message, right? So you know music has long been when you think about a band like you two, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, when you know musicians have for centuries, sung about really difficult things war. They were the storytellers. They were minstrels. They went from town to town. Musicians are still going town to town. They're getting in busses and panel vans, and they're singing their songs, and they're entertaining people, and they're packing up and they're moving to the next place. So really, our livelihoods and our jobs haven't changed in 1000 years. We're still doing exactly what we did, even though people have radio stations and record players and streaming and they still want to stand or sit in front of a band and hear it. So yeah, you. Productions are very clever. They disguise some really happy things. Sunday,

Erica Ehm  36:58  
Bloody Sunday didn't do sounds like gunshots at the beginning Sunday, Bloody

Jann Arden  37:06  
Sunday. It that thing penetrates you, but so many songs that you listen to REM was so that band was so clever about having a really piercing message wrapped inside rock and roll Nirvana as well. Kurt Cobain wrote some scary shit in rock and roll Metallica. When you think of all these bands there was Metallica wrote lullabies wrapped up in these power guitars and heavy duty drums. And it's so clever what music does and how producers choose to wrap a Lyrica. When

Erica Ehm  37:46  
people are choosing these songs for this record, how much do you think about your live performance? Because you're an exceptionally talented Live Performer, and you tour a lot, you play a lot, so your set list is really important,

Jann Arden  38:05  
you know. And a few of these probably aren't going to work that I won't be doing just because they're really backup vocal heavy. And by that, I mean there's like 40 voices doing parts, but I there's, there's five or six songs on here that are going to lend themselves super well, like the boxer, would be a wonderful song to do live, but of course, I'd want to drag Kyle with me everywhere I went, so I may not end up doing that one on tour this time, but it's always at the back of my mind. Erica, it really is, but I can picture you doing

Erica Ehm  38:41  
the one from Sia, I could picture you owning the stage. And that song, by the way, makes me think of insensitive. Yeah,

Jann Arden  38:51  
it's so torn down, and the messaging is so haunting.

Erica Ehm  38:56  
I was listening to it almost from the perspective of my daughter, who's 21 because it's such to me, what so many young women are feeling these days, and have always felt, because it's a difficult time when you're a young woman. And this song, to me, really captures that that so well. I thought it was interesting that you, as an older person, are singing this song. I feel like it's really intimate song. Okay, it's almost nine, or it is nine o'clock. You've been up since five o'clock in the morning doing promotion.

Jann Arden  39:36  
I've loved this so much, and I'm so thrilled. We want to remind people, once again, Erica and I that the whole record when we when we say goodbye in this conversation, please stay on the link. They're going to restart the live the record in its entirety will play through so you can sit, you can lay in bed and put your headphones on and listen to the entire record. I would buy the cassette myself. Personally,

Erica Ehm  40:00  
you literally are selling a cassette. It's so funny. Erica,

Jann Arden  40:04  
I keep saying, you guys, I love that you're doing a cassette. I said that to Universal Records, but I said, who's got a cassette deck? So this is the cassette, and it's pink.

Erica Ehm  40:16  
I wish I could find your old cassette. It's downstairs somewhere. And I do have a cassette player. I bought one at Value Village. It was five bucks. Okay, before I let you go, let me see, oh, my God, what format? So it's cassette, because

Jann Arden  40:32  
cd, cd and vinyl, your LP, not an eight track. Gosh, you know, why aren't they bringing back an eight track? The most confusing. Who thought up eight track, who thought, I know what's going to be a really great idea, an eight track. It's the dumbest that guy got fired since

Erica Ehm  40:51  
we're going back in time, and you've had such a fascinating career, genuinely fascinating and rich, full of creativity and authenticity. You had a very difficult youth your earlier years.

Jann Arden  41:18  
Yeah, my dad was a raging alcoholic. So what would you tell

Erica Ehm  41:23  
the younger person who just released an album, and Eric M had the cassette, so that's 1993

Jann Arden  41:32  
Why would you tell no idea what I was in for? I think I would have told myself to be, be where you are. Don't get too far ahead of yourself. It goes by so fast and and I've said this for so many years, be yourself. You don't have to adapt to anybody. I remember being on David Letterman. It was always a dream of mine to get on that show. And I was on the show, and they had this marketing department in Los Angeles dress me and get me clothes and back comb my hair. And I remember being so utterly disappointed in myself for not sticking up for myself because it wasn't me. I had this Donna Karan shiny blue suit on that I still have in a box somewhere, and it never happened again. I never ever allowed anybody to dress me or print me up or do anything that I didn't want to do. I thought this is going to be on my terms if I'm going to do this. And you don't have to be 40 or 50 or 60 to make decisions like that. I want to tell all you people out there, no matter what your job is, do it on your own terms and stand up for yourself. If there was ever a time in history to be loud, throw your shoulders back, be heard, be opinionated. Be an ally. Stand up for trans people, stand up for marginalized people. Stand up for indigenous people, and by that, I mean be a friend, be an ally, be someone who will go to a protest and stand their shoulder to shoulder like it's important, whether it's through your music or through your work or through fundraising that you do or your social media, make sure you yell loud enough that people know that you're with them. It's a really important time in your life, even if you feel unsure, but if you're like, oh, but you know, my family's on my Facebook page, and I don't know what they would think if I did that, if I put up the trans flag or or a rainbow flag, or if I put up something for do it be you, be be unabashedly yourself. And I think that's what I've done, and I think that's why I've had the career that I've had. And the same goes for you. You know, Erica just opened for freaking glass Tiger, and I'm like, What are you doing? And it was like a multimedia opening set for glass Tiger, where you were getting standing ovations. So you know it takes one to know one. You look at your career and things that you've done and and things that you've allowed yourself to do, it's pretty damn cool. I know, yeah, and

Erica Ehm  44:13  
what are we gonna do next? Right? I know that's what I think about all the time, and that's why I have so much respect for you, and that's why we're all here to celebrate you tonight. Jan Arden, you are a gift to us in in honestly, so many ways. Yes, the cassette,

Jann Arden  44:31  
I just appreciate all your support, everyone that's listening and everyone that's come to the shows over the years. I appreciate you so much. Erica and and we'll see you guys out there. We will sing out there mix tape. Here we go. My love letter to all of you. Thank.