Episode 316 - Glen Hansard

Hello there and welcome to So The Jaker on Songwriting. Brian and Simon here and joining us for episode 316 is an acclaimed Oscar-winning Irish singer-songwriter, known not only for his fine solo work but also his frontman of influential rock band The Frames and one half of folk duo The Swell Season. The Dubliners brand new album Don't Settle, Volume 1 Transmissions East, recorded live in Berlin in the spring of 2025, season re-visit songs written under all of those musical guises from a catalog spanning well over three decades. We're delighted to welcome the excellent Glen Hansen to the show. Glen was born in 1970, the second of four kids and grew up in Ballymund on the outskirts of Dublin. As a kid he was exposed to a lot of traditional Irish music and rebel songs before the life-changing moments he was bestowed with a cassette copy of more Bob Dylan's greatest hits by his girlfriend's brother. He spent the next couple of years shut away in his bedroom playing Dylan's songs on his uncle's guitar and drawing further inspiration from the likes of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, James Taylor and Fairport Convention. A somewhat wayward youth, he quit school at 13 at the encouragement of his headmaster who'd spotted Glen's musical potential. By 15 he was already a stalwart of the Graffton Street busking scene, about the dawn of the 90s, his by then undeniable talent, had earned him a recording deal with Ireland, at which point he assembled the frames. They released their debut album Another Love Song in 1991, the same year Glen made his acting debut as guitarist outspan foster in Alan Parker's classic 1991 musical comedy The Commitments. And that wouldn't be as less the appearance on the big screen, in 2007 he starred opposite his swell-season partner Marquetta Egglover in the indie drama Once, written and directed by original frames-basis to John Carney. A tender and impossibly charming love story about a Dublin busker and a Czech immigrant shot on a miniscule budget, the film proved the surprise success. Glen and Marquetta end wide-spread praise for both their affecting performances and their songs, ultimately winning an Academy Award for Falling Slowly. Once was later adapted into a Tony Award winning stage musical Glen and Marquetta have also made several records together as the swell-season, the most recent of which was last year's forward. With half a dozen frames albums under his belt, our guest commenced his solo career in Inist with 2012's Rhythm and Repose, while other stailing efforts include 2015's Diddy-Ramble, 2019's This Wild Willing, and 2023's All That Receased is West of Me Now. If you're a first-time listener to the SodaJaker podcast, we'd love you to follow, rate and review the show at your pod provider of choice, explore our vast archive and support us at SodaJaker.com/donate. Before we move on, our thanks to Steve for his help setting up the interview. Right, we hope you enjoy this conversation with the Marvelous Glen Hansard. So, don't settle volume one, transmission's east, it'll be out by the time people hear this. Yeah. It could have just been a best off, that couldn't have, but you've gone so much further. Reinterpreting the songs and adding that live performance elements, it's so kind of fresh and energised, we thought. Well, I did a gig, the first time the Brian and Rick came to see my new management, while I was playing a show in Holland, in the Hague, and there was about two houses and people there, and it was in one of these lovely kind of amphitheaters that were built, maybe by the government, kind of a modern amphitheater, very nice venue, and it began to really lash down about six songs into the set, but I said, "Why don't you guys just all come on to the stage?" Because the stage was huge, there was like lots of space around us. Well, a bit of a thousand people came on the stage and just sat down around the band, and it created the most beautiful atmosphere, and suddenly what was kind of a bit of a weird gig turned into one of those kind of almost lovines where everything just felt really intimate and great, and we played out the show, and afterwards the guys were like, "Wow, we came to the show thinking that you were going to be like, "Well, we thought you were going to come see the guy from once, you know, you're going to sing some songs and acoustic guitar, which we were happy about, but you were a rock band and those songs you played, God, they really landed, they really came across, and then Brian said, "I made a playlist of your records from the set list that you played that night, and I went on the plane home, I listened to the playlist of your records." And he said, "They're good, but like, now I know that there was something special going on with the gig, and so you're definitely a live act, and those songs, they deserve to be heard in the context of what you do on stage. So I had a thought, there's a great place in Berlin, and it's in the round, and what you did that day was inadvertently in the round, and then accidentally in the round, why don't we go into that place? We could do it on your birthday, we could do it on a day that's special to you, and we could record all of these songs and not do a best job, but do a retrospective of your whole career or in front of an audience." So that's where the idea was born, and we did it on my birthday, my 55th birthday, and I had the time of my life, I loved it, everything just felt really intimate, we had a controlled environment, and basically made a studio album in front of an audience. Yeah, it's a very immersive record, because some live albums don't really succeed in putting the listener in that environment, but this one really does, maybe it's because of the way it was recorded in the round and stuff, but to listen to it, you really do get a sense of the atmosphere. Yeah, you do, and we recorded it over two shows, because I'm a real believer in the live thing, meaning that you tie it down to an arrangement, of course there's an arrangement, and of course the band all know what's coming, but we always reserve the right to just go with the moment, and so sometimes what feels great on the night as a live version of a song doesn't necessarily translate into a recording because you have to have been there. So we gave ourselves two nights, and so we got the best of the songs. If you were to go for the version of the song that maybe went over the best on the night, it may not be the best song on the record. It's a funny thing, like for instance, for a long time I've done a cover of Van Astro Weeks by Van Morrison, just me and a guitar. It's something that hung over from my busking days, I love that song, and I would do it on stage, but I've never been able to put it on a record because it's so wild. It's so about the energy of that moment that it ends up sounding quite unmusical when you try to put it on a record. And you did it with no vocal overdose, no retakes, no editing. Are those constraints kind of the key to getting that intensity of performance? You saw it's all laying it all on the line essentially? Yeah, I mean, you always give yourself the option to, if you get a lyric wrong to punch a lyric, but generally speaking the rule that I would stick very much to is, if the energy's there and you're singing a little bit out of you, like it's that Dylan thing of like you listen to those early records, people playing wrong notes, things around a tune, and it's just that thing of like, no, we don't go in and fix it because every little fix is a nail in the coffin. You know, it's a bit like you allow yourself four things, you know, you say, okay, if there's four things on this record that I really can't stand, and it'd be so easy to fix, I'm gonna let myself do it. There was a lyric in a down-and-our-need that I got wrong, and I fixed it. It was literally like it was one word, but I fixed this because it really annoyed me. And there was a verse I was singing in that song that I just kind of didn't feel as connected to, so I cut that verse out. So there are edits, but there's not much, you know, there's really very little. Your body works pretty expansive now, isn't it? So did you have to come up with some rules about how to distill it down, you know, in terms of deciding which songs made the cut on this volume? Expansive, but not expansive. No, do you know what? I didn't. I just wrote a setlist based on what I would be doing at that time. I mean, let me look at it. I hardly do anything from the swell season, and it's not because I consciously left that off. It's just because that wasn't in my gig at that point. I think the only songs from the swell season are when your mind's made up and one of us must lose, but that's not a conscious decision. That's just on the night I just was like, oh, I'll do this song or I'll do this one. And also, I do write a setlist, but it happens pretty much every concert that I don't stick to that setlist. And I'm so lucky with the band I have been playing with these guys for so long, that I can go anywhere I want on the stage, and that's the energy you're trying to create is that when people come to see a concert or come into a live event, they're coming to something that's happening in front of them. Not something that's been rehearsed within an inch of its life, and it's the same show every night, everywhere they go. What you would love to think is that every time you go on stage, you've at least got a good showing, you've at least got something decent or if there's a mistake it'll be right there for everyone to see I'm a big fan of putting your hands up and saying it's just live music and things happen in live music amps break and guitars go out of tune and lyrics get forgotten and the audience have an influence there's the band there's the audience there's the room all those elements combine another element which is the night itself whatever that is going to be there's a lot of songs now almost 56 now there's a lot of songs and I just wanted to go out and do a kind of a nice cross section of what I'm enjoying playing because songs don't always last you have a time with them and then some songs will mean something to you forever and so they're the ones you end up playing there's a handful of songs there fit Corraldo revelates songs that I'll always play as long as I can sing because they're always going to mean something to me yeah I was going to ask about fit Corraldo actually because that goes back to kind of early frames yeah albums and do you find that a lot of that original feeling is kind of still accessible to you to some songs stay exactly in that moment and others maybe evolve into something else exactly exactly that I mean if you go with the notion that the song sings you then you can always go back to your old songs and inhabit them some people say to me like how can you sing falling solely like how can you still sing that song over and over and over and the truth that a matter is you're not singing it it's singing you you're inhabiting it you get into it you put it on like a like an outfit and also you're listening to the song through the audience's ears not your own ears so you're not going oh I'm so bored singing this you're no you're showing up and you're being present and you're singing the song and you're experiencing it like everyone's experiencing it you know a song like fits Corraldo was such a strong feeling I mean I was signed to island records when I was 18 by Chris Blackwell it was a huge moment to my life we made a record it wasn't a great record it was fine I mean I don't want to diss my first record but it was a very confused affair I probably would have made a fairly decent folk record had I not discovered the pixies halfway through making the record I took acid and went on the roof of a car park and discovered a surferosa and and it did have an impact on my first record probably a negative one Gil Norton did a great job on us Al Clay did a great job I had wanted Steve Albini to produce that record but probably what would have been a better record is I had just made a country record anyway I made the record I made Blackwell left and then we got dropped and I went to New York and it's funny the record label did a weird thing they said we're gonna drop you but we we're gonna send you to New York to work with a couple of songwriters to see if maybe that works out and of course I took their money and I went to New York and I spent the month there and I didn't meet anybody I met none of the songwriters I wasn't interested and I had the most amazing time I wrote all these songs and all the songs were basically fuck you songs like revenue sometimes they need a revelation Fitzgerald though you know Fitzgerald is all about pulling the ship over the mountain it's like I'll fucking show you as no one's gonna tell me when my fucking time is up you know so with that in mind those songs I can still really get my teeth into them and I can still really mean them and I still remember that kid and I still remember how he felt and his energy And you've breed life into your version of Carrick Vegas as well haven't you that's a song that's been sung by a lot of people isn't it you know I think even Peter O'Toole and Richard Harris Oh yes so is that a different kind of challenge no I mean those are the songs I grew up on I mean I would have sang that song on the night completely and prompted I think I did it as an intro to another song I'm called McCormick's Wall which I don't know of his on there actually maybe McCormick's Wall didn't make the record and Carrick Vegas did only because I was like yeah it's a standard and the thing with standards is if you can sing a standard well that's the bar if you could write a song like Carrick Vegas you are in the A game and I'm sure the person who wrote Carrick Vegas I'm not sure who wrote it it's dispute with redress Scottish or Irish it's an old song but those are the kind of songs that endure I remember seeing prints in Madison Square Garden and for about a half an hour before Prince Kim on stage it was just James Brown live footage big screen James Brown at the height of his career playing his hits on stage and then Prince Kim on and of course the attitude was you have just seen the master I'm better you know you could easily take it as it was a tribute to James Brown no no what Prince was saying was I just spent half an hour of James Brown at his best no I'm coming on and so doing a song like Carrick Vegas and it'd be your set is a bit policy actually because what you're doing is you're saying I'm gonna sing a bunch of my songs and then I'm gonna drop a fucking standard and it's gonna sit comfortably in the middle of all of that you dope but you know I just have such great respect and I've also got a very personal connection with that song but I've just got such great respect for those standard Irish songs I'd love to make a record of them one day you've always had this ability to get to the hearts of a song though and something like Didney Ramble which is also on this collection yeah that's one with a much more personal angle I think it was written about your dad yeah Didney Ramble my dad's favorite bar or his local bar was the Ramble in and so we used to call it the Ramble in stumble out he spent a lot of time with the Ramble in and so when he passed it was like I wanted to write a tribute song to him that just felt like something he'd like a drinking song if you like but also it's a heavy song because my dad wasn't really around emotionally it was kind of a broken lad you know and so the song is a bit like it's reaching out to him and just saying look all's forgiven you know we love you and my dad loved to sing he loved two things he loved to drink and he loved to sing my dad was a boxer he was one of those men he had been a champion boxer when he was young he had had a family young you know he was he was angry he was a classic kind of you know bit lost bit angry and I loved him you know just before he died I went and got drunk with him and that was actually the closest I've ever been to him I met him in his arena if you like and we had a lovely hang and again Didney Ramble is based on that old sort of you know the old jazz tune Didney Ramble I kind of wanted to pay homage to that too because you know I was paying homage to Curtis Curtis you to play trombone in our band unfortunately he passed away but Didney Ramble as an old jazz standard I liked using that title and I like putting my slant on it and bringing Didney Ramble into Dublin that's something of a challenge isn't it to capture the truth of that experience and maybe the truth of what a person is like but also protect them in the song whilst being honest as well exactly it's a big one for me I mean I sing it I mean it you know Didney Ramble didney Rome didn't he wander so far from home he would disappear for days and he would drive home with these other men and these other men would end up living on our couch for two weeks we had a bit of an open house people would kind of come and my dad would say this is Tony he's gonna stay here for a couple of weeks when he gets his head together and we just we'd get to know Tony and we used to always refer to these men as our drunkels because they weren't exactly family but they were close you know and he was kind of a kind man he was known on the local bar as Jesus Christ because he'd always buy people points you know they got a amount of points you know he was a good man for the rounds and at the same time you know a bit lost and just an angry man and a tough man and we used to visit our family in Birmingham every year and you know there was a kind of a toughness around that working class Dublin family that moved to Birmingham that I found really hard and I found really tough we're from a rough neighborhood ourselves but our summer is in Birmingham God they really opened my eyes just started seeing my dad in that environment it was something you know like I I love them but he was definitely a he was a drinking man. I did me a rainbow and then she wronged me and then we wonder so far from home and the delivery on that song is pretty intense isn't it as is um don't settle as well do you ever sing with that intensity jaw and the right in process is that part of the right in process is it something you bring in later when you perform in it not at all if you even listen to the album version of don't settle I'm just singing a song the intensity is not something I intend like people often say to me you're a really intense singer about Jesus Christ you're always shouting and I and I go well it may be it's a hangover won from the busking days where you had to always project but I also think it's to do it the emotion of the song calling something open you and again as I said the song sings you you don't necessarily sing it you're not in control in that moment you're trying to give your lyrics the best chance to live so yeah there's an intensity in that song that when I played on stage I just tried to serve it as best I can do you still take your songs apart But when you're writing and sort of explore every possible avenue, I've heard you say that you sometimes will almost try and break something in the song, like you take something out that you like and see if it still holds up and this sort of stuff, would you still do that now or was that more of a kind of early way of experimenting? No, I'd still do it. I mean, of course there are easy avenues of the brain and the word heart and the word love, they tend to show up a lot in songs and they're very song-rightery words. So when I find myself singing them, there was actually Damien Royce who said it to me, he said, "You sing heart and love a lot." And I said, "Well, you sing about love and heart a lot, but you actually don't mention it a lot." He says, "Yeah, I do it consciously. I leave those words out because those words are the easy avenues." And he said, "Every time you sing the word, replace it with a word that is really uncomfortable for you." So like, you know, every time you use the word heart, replace it with a word that's really nasty. And you'll see what happens. He said, kind of watching yourself for those easy words to keep falling out here. And so I do that. Yeah, I do it because when a lyric feels easy, that can be a great thing and when a lyric feels easy, it can be just laziness. So I am looking at it, you know, and sometimes if the lyric feels easy and it feels lazy, but it's the right lyric, if it's the truth, it's going to land because if you're singing the truth, it'll always land even if it's schmaltzy. Something I can't stand in songs is when I hear the left brain, when I listen to a great songwriter and I hear that person who spent way too long on that line. And it just turns me off. I'm not interested. The great songwriter is to sit somewhere where it sounds easy and yet the lyric hits you, you know, it lands. And that's where someone like Joni Mitchell is a master. I met Joni once and she said, "Just make your life rhyme. That's it. That's the job. Sing your life and make it rhyme. Sing your truth as a challenge." And now in the past, you've built songs out of improvisation and jamming. I think Albu, you be me, was one that arrived that way. How much of your work begins like that these days and how do you know when one of these jams is worth keeping? Lesson, less actually. Lesson, less of my work is starting off that way these days because I'm tending to do a lot of my writing, especially since having a kid. I'm doing a lot of my songwriting just alone. Whereas I love being with a band, I love being with a group of people and just letting stuff come and flow and catching stuff, maybe catching on your phone or remembering something after a sound check and being like, "Wow, I want to go back to that. What was that thing? Got that had an energy." With that record in particular, this while willing, I met three Iranian brothers in Paris and they played Iranian traditional music and beautiful musicians, the kosher of Esch brothers, beautiful guys. And I invited them to the studio without having any idea what I wanted them to do. And they came to the studio with me, which was a four-hour drive from Paris. I also booked a couple of electronic musicians, friends of mine that I really loved, don't Murphy and Dave Carey. And so we went into the studio and we just, I just said to like one of the lads, I built something there, I just built a sound and the Iranian lads were great because they were like, "Listen, all we want to know is what the lyric is because we don't play to the melody, we play to the lyric." So I was coming up with a little bit to song, it was forcing me to come up with ideas quicker. And I was like, "So with this one, I'll be you, me, me." And it's funny actually, it's a funny story because in that song, my friend Dave came up with this amazing beat. He was like, "Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo." And I was saying, "I was from a cassette." He said, "This is an old cassette beat. This beat is from the session that Bowie did with Queen." And it was an old cassette bootleg of a going around this song with this beat on it. And he said, "No one will ever know, like it's a deep coat from the demo. I know I love the idea that I was singing over something that had come from a drum machine in the session with Bowie and Queen." I just thought it was like finding something in an antique store. It has energy and you pull it into your world. And so I started just playing this very simple riff over it. You know, anyway, we ended up getting the song and I explained the lyrics to the Karsha rest brothers and they played on it. And then for some reason, I was listening to the radio, but a month after that. And I heard my song on the radio. I just said, same sound exactly. And I went, what the hell is this? And it was a queen song, but it was like the first song after a big sell and album of all time. And I said to my mate, Dave, oh, no, you've landed or seen it because the song has been recorded and mixed. And then we had to go to Brian May and ask him, could we use it? And I ended up giving him like 50% of the publishing and like 10 grand in cash. It was awful. Next time somebody brings a cassette loop in, I'll be like, oh, Jesus, you know, fair play to Queen though, they let us use it. How about you and me, and not me, and just me, and we've found it? A lot of the songwriters we talked to, they say that they tend to write gibberish and most of the lyrics that they come up with are nonsensical at first. So it's interesting that you were coming up with stuff that had to mean something in that case quite early on. Well, for those guys, I just wanted to give them what I was getting at because they were like, when you climbed the hill of vision, what does this mean? And I was like, well, you know, when you've kind of achieved your goals, because again, I'm just letting stuff come true sometimes. It's left brain, right brain stuff. I let the right brain, meaning the creative side, just come up with things and vignettes and feelings. And then as I'm hearing myself saying, I go, oh, no, I know exactly what I'm actually saying here. It's like trusting the body to speak. I mean, I was a huge fan of early REM, where you listen to Skype, go into an emotion, like hair shirt from green was one of my favorite songs. I used to busk it. I actually got to ask Michael about that song because I always thought it was gibberish that he had somehow pulled into sense. And he said to me, oh, no, no, no, those lyrics were absolutely written. They were very specific, you know, and I was like, oh, gosh, one must trust the body. If you open your mouth and don't edit, the body will say what your mind is probably afraid to. Yeah, we have heard that as well, the idea that the subconscious is sort of giving you stuff, but you have to kind of sift through it for what the truth might be. Exactly. And you've got to get out of your own way, because if you stay in your own way, you'll insist everything makes sense. And if everything makes sense, the song has no life. There's no blood in it. The blood is what's important, not the truth, not the great lyric. What's important is, does it live? Is this song alive? Does it have a beaten heart? If it has a beaten heart and there's basically no lyrics, have at it. If it has great lyrics and no beaten heart, which do you prefer? I know which one I prefer. So I don't put too much stock in its sounding smart or intelligence or I have a big believer in allowing yourself to be dumb. I don't think you're much instance of the moodling either, are you? So does that mean when you pick up an instrument, you're very deliberately looking for a song to happen? I mean, I pick up the guitar at home when I'm in a certain mood. I very rarely play, actually. I generally speak and prefer to play with people. But sometimes I'll pick up the guitar and just noodle away on it. But it's something I'm always going after a song. Songs just are really in in some ways. And then a couple of times I've been given a job of writing a song. Like, you know, some of the one stuff we were given the job of writing a song for a scene. And the scene goes like this. And I need a song to do this. But you're still mining from what's there. You're still mining from what might be. Kind of hanging in the back of your head or might be an old idea. Like I had a moment recently where I burned 40 years of lyrics. I am photographs. I just burned them because I just thought, you know what? I had so many journals like back from 1983. And I took them all. I went, you know what? I looked at them. I had a quick flick through them all. And I put them in the fire. And I felt so free because I saw everything that's good in my career. Every good line I wrote in this journal is in a song. The rest of it's just nonsense. So I just got rid of it all. It was brilliant. It was so freeing. And got rid of a lot of old photos and books. And it was great. And notes that people give me letters that people sent me. And some of it I already regret burning. I've kept the last five years of my journaling. But the freedom to just burn all that stuff and get on and be like, wow, okay. Now I'm not burned with that. Now when I pass away, my wife doesn't have to deal with all that shit. It's gone, you know. Wow, that's brave. It's good. I have to say recommend it because it leaves you about only what you're thinking now. And I know you're a fan of a nice notebook, aren't you? I hope you didn't burn any of the premium ones. No, I've got the collection of these. There's these ones I found in Germany that have a lovely steel binding. But I love stationary. He doesn't. I'd love to open a stationary shop or an antique shop if I ever. Because I used to fix bicycles too, so that would be another avenue. A bicycle shop that's all exquisite stationary, that'd be a good idea. And the stuff that's in the notebooks is it like snippets of poetry or prose? Or is it mainly song lyrics specifically? No, not at all. It's everything. It's like diary entries, stroke, rhymes, stroke phone numbers of people that you said you'd get back and touch with. Or, you know, it's your brain. It's just your brain for that year. And there's a lot of lyrics in there. I really liked that idea that Leonard Cohen would have if the song has four verses, right ten. And we'll them back down to the four that work for you. Like I have a song right now called "On Diamond Hill". That's a very. simple songs, two verses. But if you go through my journal, there's probably 20 pages of that song, and they probably all start with the same lyric, but they all change as I go, and then I open the new page, and I start writing the song again, until I nail it, and then four lines are appearing through every draft, and then six lines are appearing through every draft. But the thing is, I never have the final draft written on my notebook. For some reason, I'm really lazy that way, or maybe it's some kind of spooky thing I'm not wanting to nail the song. The only time I put the actual proper lyric is when I put the lyrics on for the album cover, I type it out, and I go, "Oh, there it is finished, but you'll never find the finished lyric in my notebook." It's always leading right up to the point where I actually finish it. Am I right in thinking that you learned some right techniques from your wife, who's a poet? Yeah, no, I've some poets. You know, because like I left school young, I didn't study, I wasn't like, I was pretty good in school, but I didn't care. I didn't know, but things like alliteration, or half rhyme, or emotional rhyme. Sometimes the thing doesn't have to rhyme. You have to feel it. If you feel it, then it rhymes. So she got me into poetry in a different way, or would read poetry to me. Her father was a famous poet too in Finland, and also she woke me up to the idea that the English-speaking world has its heroes. Yes, it has its Shakespeare, and it's Bob Dylan's and Watner, but every language has those characters. So the world's full of great, great artists. The English-speaking world just kind of only wants to see its own, but in fact, there are so many. And so it just kind of opens you up. You know, it's not that my wife would criticize, but she might say, "I really like that. Just stick at it a bit more. Just give it a bit more." Because you're really close to something great there. And I have to say, I really appreciate that, and sometimes I disagree. Sometimes I say, "Nope, it's enough. It speaks for me. I like it." Language is so interesting in that way, isn't it? And as you said, what might be technically great might not be emotionally great? 100%. There are a lot of great technical writers. And I know this from songwriters that I've enjoyed, but I listen to the lyrics and I just go, "Now, too smart, too clever. Just give me, like, give me Hank Williams. That's the middle ground. It's the pay-on of pain." And a clever lyric. "Just be clever enough to be good. Don't try to be great in your rhyming scheme." And I fall victim to it, too. Sometimes I can't resist wanting to be a little technically smart in a lyric, but actually, music isn't hygiene, as my great friend said. It's not hygienic. It's dirty. Music's dirty. It's what happens when you say a certain word against a certain rhythm, against a certain melody. Music's about this weird cojoining of feelings and spirits. Poetry is just the word, so it needs to be watertight. Whereas music, music is this kind of mess. It's like super-rate film over a melody. And that's why visuals and music work so well together because songs are a very visual thing. They're a very. Actually, sometimes I think videos kill music, because, you know, you've got your own visual for a song, and then the artist or the video maker puts their interpretation on it and ruins it for everybody. You know, if I listen to Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, it's a very particular place I go to that I can't describe, but it's a very particular factory, I mean, where all those noises and the. There are some songs that just put you in a place that it's so gorgeous. And then you want to just tank that artist from the bottom of your heart for the rest of your life because they've found a place in you that you invented, but they created. Is it true that you don't believe in being too fluent on your particular instruments? Well, again, it's for the same reason, it's about avoiding being smart. Like, I mean, I'm such a huge fan of grey guitar players, but Angus Yong was my first hero. Like, Angus is my confirmation name. He was my god, but it's about that thing of being technical. I'm nervous if I get too good at an instrument, I'll stop being natural on an instrument. I'd most prefer it to hear someone as a natural musician than a grey musician. And maybe some people are grey and natural. Best to look at them. I don't think I'm one of them. Like Mark Knothler. Mark Knothler is grey and natural. Some people we talk to, they find that they can take long breaks in their writing. They don't need to kind of write for maintenance if you like or to keep their skills sharp. Where do you sit on the spectrum? I think it's good to keep the hand warm. I think it's good to try to just be right and something. You know, it's a bit like if you're drawing and you don't draw all the time, you will lose your line. And I think a songwriter also has a line. And so, yeah, I'd be in the corner of try to be right and something at some point. I always find that the scariest part for me is when I just finished a record. I finished an album of new songs. And once that happens, I go follow. There's nothing in me. I've got nothing. I don't pick up an instrument for months. I get to the end of that line and I'm done. I go quiet for a few months. And then I start getting ideas again and I trust it. But it does go away. It goes away and comes back. You mentioned before about once and maybe having to write specifically to a scene. Does that mean that you can just kind of turn it on if you need to and can just respond to a brief? Yes, to an extent. But what I'd be drawing on to do that is something that pre-exists. Like, if you put a guitar on my hand and said, "Mam walks into a shop. Dog is left outside. Dog waits. Man never returns. Here's the song of the dog." I probably wouldn't be able to write you that song straight away. But if you said to me, that's a scene. I'd go into my thoughts and I'd go, "I'll wait for you. I'll remember a song of mine. Then I'll just move the lyrics around and make it about the dog. I could even emotionally make it about the dog and it'll make sense. Because lyrics are funny things. They're just energy. They can kill you or they can put your lights on. They just exist. It's where you put yourself emotionally in that spot is what makes the song work in that way or not. So, songs are funny that way. There's a lot of leeway with music and words. An awful lot of leeway, actually, that you can allow yourself. So when John said, "Okay, so the two characters and ones go to a recording studio, the engineer guy's not that impressed with them. He thinks they look like a motley crew of characters and he's like, "Oh God, I've got to spend the next two days with these." Then you have to play a song that blows his head. You have to play a song that's really good. And that really goes there and shows him that you're a good songwriter. Now, there's a brief. That's a tough brief because he's telling you to start off a bit shuddy and then get really good. And so, as I get, there's a song I'd worked on with the frames a couple of years ago. Maybe this down, the down, the bone, down, the bone. So it's in five, four, but it's a bit sloppy at the beginning. And so, if you ever want something and you can't call, then I'll come running. When your mind's made up, when your mind's made up, there's no point trying to change it, which in itself is a simple little thing where the song kind of becomes something is when you lean into, when your mind, and then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. When you're my, when you're my, and then you go. And that's the bit maybe where the studio guy goes, "Shit, well, if anything, they're intense." As in, like, he's committed to it, and he means it anyway. And we had basically 24 hours to connect, write the song. So the second verse in that song in the film is re-wrothed because we didn't really get a chance to finish it. But the energy was there and so the song lands. Yeah. I mean, all those songs hold up so well from that film. Oh, great. It's incredible. You could have had that whole Oscar category to yourself that you think. That's great. Thank you. That's very sweet. You had to say. There was a kind of a nice turn of fortune in that film because the songs were kind of meant to be just like a minute of the song or whatever. But John realized pretty quickly that because we were non-actors, our acting wasn't great. I mean, it wasn't bad. Well, you know, we weren't delivering the dialogue maybe as strongly as he had hoped. And he had a bit of an epiphany where he said, "I'm gonna leave the whole song in. I'm caught back on the dialogue in this film." So if you look at once, there's very little said in it. There's a lot of songs, a lot of singing, and there's a lot of lyrics, and there's a lot of meaning in the lyrics. But there's very little actual dialogue in the movie, and it was kind of an inspired choice by him because it meant that the songs basically did all the heavy lifting, which I was really happy about and marked out at two. Did that collaboration with Mark has to teach you anything new about the prusseness? Oh, I mean, that. Lastly, the one thing about Marquetta is she is one of these absolute naturals. She'll find a harmony to anything I sing. And again, she's not a super technical piano player, she's quite a simple piano player, but really good, very intuitive, has an amazing ear for like a top-line melody. She can write chorus melody really quickly, and lyrically, she's like a dog with a bone. She can just go after a lyric and go, "What if you say this and I remember one of the first questions she said to me when first I'll play music?" She's like, "What's this song about?" And I was like, "Well, it's about this." She was like, "Did this happen to you?" And I was like, "Well, I mean metaphorically, like what do you mean metaphorically? What does that mean?" And I was like, "Well, you know, I mean, mehark or broken, but did this happen to you?" And I said, "No." She said, "Well, why are you singing it?" And I was like, "Well, it's artistic license. You're allowed to speak a bit more broadly." But Marquetta is very direct. She tends to sing very directly. So she's really good in a situation like, "You've got 24 hours to write this lyric, or write this song, because she'll follow through on the lyric idea really quickly." You've also talked about your childhood as the well-fear writing, so she can sort of keep drawing from, does that ever feel like it's running low or does it keep sort of revealing new depths? Well, I mean, when does your childhood end? That's a good question. I had a fairly dramatic upbringing and a lot of ways moving around a lot. And I would say, "A stormy home." If you've ever read "Shuggy Bane" by Douglas Stewart, I recommend this. I met Douglas Stewart on the street and I get in the hug and I just said, "Wow, thank you for writing." I mean, not my life, but just thank you for writing that book. It was just so, so powerful. Also being a bit of a wild kid, myself, I was kind of getting into trouble, known to services is not the term. You know, actually, my uncle was a big inspiration for me. There was a bit of prison time and the guitar got left in my house and I learned how to play and I was fortunate. Once I discovered the guitar, my days of being known to services were over because I disappeared into my room and I learned how to play guitar. And I never looked back. I certainly found what it was I really, really wanted, which was to play music. I just picked up this book, Leonard Cohen's Death of a Lady's Man, on your recommendation. Oh, wow. Well done. I'm going to recommend two pieces for you. There's the end of my life in art. That's one piece I'd recommend you read. And then how to speak poetry, of course, which is a wonderful, wonderful piece of writing. You take a lot from literature, don't you, and books, and it kind of accumulates in you, doesn't it, and comes out in your songs? Well, you just take it from where you find it. You take it from where it hits you. You know, as a 22-year-old, it was lost and just dropped by all in records. I saw Fitzgeraldo on the TV, it was on Channel 4, and I remember, even when the end credits were up on the screen, writing down as many of the names as I could remember, and going to my extrovision, the local video store, and saying, "Do you have this film?" Because I don't, he caught like half of it, and they rented it for me, and I got Fitzgeraldo on I remember. That was one of those films that really spoke to me. Here's a guy who's so determined, so single-minded. And I really needed that because I was so lost at the time that that film hit me between the eyes. So you take it where you can find it. I mean, Leonard's a great inspiration. I mean, he's lived a full life, and he's written about it. That's a particularly great book, though. What he does is he writes a piece, and then he answers the piece. He reviews his own writing. So each piece he writes, he goes back to it some years later, and reviews it, and it's all in that book. I don't necessarily agree with the man he is in that book, but I love the honesty of it. It's powerful. Yeah. And wasn't there a line from, was it Hemingway that you've used when you've been stuck? Oh, yeah. Well, Hemingway said, if you're stuck and you can't write, just write one line that's true. Just write something that's true, and everything else will come out of that line. And again, songwriting, it can be a lot of focus, it can be a lot of rhyming, rhyming, and then you say one thing in that song that is actually true, and suddenly this song has muscle, it has protein, it has energy. That song is now a living thing because you've just opened up and said something, and that's the drug. That's what we're following. It's accumulative for you. This learning. Do you feel like it produces better songs, or every time you start out, is it just as hard? Is it always for us? It doesn't necessarily accumulate better songs, and again, you're never competing with yourself. I mean, I kind of consider myself having maybe four different kinds of songs that I just keep rewriting, and I keep rewriting them and trying to get them better and better. Because I have chord progressions I go to, I've got rhythms that are natural to me, I've got grooves and things that I'm attracted to, and I do try to break out of it, and I do try to break my habits, but at the end of the day, I'm just trying to write ten good songs. That's my life goal. I want to write ten good songs, and if I write ten good songs, I am done. That's it. It's like building a piece of furniture, if you built a chair that will serve people beyond you. That's the craft, and it's not about being rich. It's the greatest component you'll ever get as if someone plays your song. I learned your song because I like it. That's it. That's your riches right there. That's up and over, wow, you're strong, wow, we all fall together, wow, our stars become That was Glenn Hanson talking to us about his songwriting process and his new live retrospective, don't settle volume 1 transmissions east. He's a songwriting oracle that guy isn't he is yeah so much wisdom and nuance about how to do the work much as I expected really yeah me too and I loved what he said about choosing Carrick Ferg as to sit alongside his songs to almost like a statement about the quality of his work yeah I love the idea that he just thought well yeah of course a standard will work fine in this set and it does as well it's a brilliant strategy isn't it it really is I hadn't thought about princes use of James Brown in that way either really no no make I would have thought doing something like that would be more about just like acknowledging the influence and the admiration rather than setting this standard that he wants to surpass yeah it's really interesting and how about in Ben and all those old song books he must have been like Fahrenheit four five one in Glenn's backyard but yeah that's certainly something contrary to what we've heard from a lot of other guests yeah and we ourselves are forever keeping folders of stuff and archives of ideas and voice notes aren't we yeah and I guess it demonstrates a hell of a lot of confidence to just go right all the good lines have been mined they're all in songs those songs exist and I don't need the burden of the archive anymore and that's quite freeing I guess yeah brave isn't it and obviously that's not going to work for every songwriter is it well no but it's just so interesting how this art form can encompass these drastically different approaches we love it don't we that it contains all these contradictions yeah Glenn obviously has a sensitive brometer for not overwork and ideas or being too clever as well I'm not telling them in good stead hasn't it I think and he's taking a lot of guidance and advice from great writers too whether it's Joni Mitchell or Ernest Hemingway or whoever yeah he just exercises great judgment all around really doesn't he and obviously that paid dividends on wants to yeah and those songs had to ring a truth to them didn't they and so did the film yeah it's kind of Glenn's songwriting philosophy in film reform really that film in a way isn't it you know get to the heart of the matter in an unforesee concise way and it's in perfect but more believable because of those imperfections if the reason the film so charming isn't it and probably why it was such a big success people really connect with that kind of authenticity absolutely so thanks to Glenn for that brilliant conversation don't set all volume one transmission's east is out now cheers to Steve for setting that up and we'll be back with you soon take care bye bye