Deep Talk About the Songwriting Process.
In-depth interviews with songwriters about their songwriting process. That's All. No talk of band drama, band names, or tour stories. Treating songwriters as writers, plain and simple. By Ben Opipari, English Lit Ph.D.
Recent Episodes
July 28, 2025
Mary Chapin Carpenter
"Songwriting is about being awake to something you've never thought of or a way of thinking about something you've never experienced before," Mary Chapin Carpenter says on the pod. The five-time GRAMMY winner has a poet's way of thinking about songwriting. And on those rare occasions when she's stu…
July 22, 2025
Indigo De Souza
I'm a huge Indigo De Souza fan, so I had a great time on this episode! We went deep into her songwriting process and discussed, among other things, how moving from western North Carolina to Los Angeles changed her songwriting...
July 16, 2025
Jade Bird
"I'm realizing how neurotic my process is as I'm talking to you," Jade Bird said, laughing, during our conversation. Indeed, Bird is pretty particular about her writing ritual, which can be intense: she usually takes a walk a...
July 10, 2025
Purity Ring
At some point I told Megan James and Corin Roddick, who compose Purity Ring , that this was the bizarro episode: I'd mention something that a lot of songwriters do, and they told me that they actually did the opposite. But th...
July 8, 2025
The Swell Season
Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová of The Swell Season feel no need to write every day. They both wait patiently for a spark. "I have no worries if I don't write anything. I'm available 24/7," Hansard says. "I never noodle, nev...
June 30, 2025
John Gourley (Portugal. The Man)
"I'm always chasing that ADHD thing: whatever it tells me to do, I just do it," John Gourley of Portugal. The Man told me. This episode hit hard. I used to be a middle school special education teacher. I taught kids with severe learning disabilities, and most also had severe ADHD. A big misconcepti…
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