Porter Robinson - Get Your Wish

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh Herway. Porter Robinson is a Grammy-nominated artist and DJ from North Carolina. In 2014, his first album hit number one on Billboard's dance chart, and he was named MTV Use Artist of the Year and one of the top DJs in the world. But then he got stuck. He didn't release his second album for seven years until April 2021. In this episode, he talks about what he was grappling with for all those years and how all of it became part of his song "Get Your Wish". My name is Porter Robinson. I first started touring internationally at the ages of 18 and 19. I was just like a nerdy kid in high school and I had been making beats on the computer purely for fun with no expectation of success ever. But Friday afternoons, I would get out of school and I would go get on a plane and I would do a show that Friday night. I do a show Saturday night at Fly Home Sunday and people were writing about what I was doing like the first whiffs of success that the adults are proud of you. I would be lying if I said it didn't shape my identity in some serious ways. I really was addicted and I was really wrapped up in the kind of sense of self-worth that I got from that. "Get Your Wish" was written around this time where I was basically saying like, "I'm not sure that I want to be successful at music. I'm pretty sure that the attention that I've gotten so far has been bad for me. But I wanted to make music so badly. It's a real place of comfort for me to just be touching an instrument because it's so much easier for me to toy around on the piano than it is for me to have a conversation with somebody. So just a ton of my time at home is spent sitting in front of the piano and it generates a lot of ideas in the end for me. I put on this metronome app on my phone and I placed my phone down on my piano and I just played this incredibly syncopated thing. That was on the 15th of October 2018. The piano where I record almost all of my demos is my mom's childhood piano that she had growing up and it's the first piano I ever saw in my entire life. The way that I placed my phone down onto the piano it created this "tick to call." I have probably 2,000 voice memos that begin almost identically of me putting my iPhone into this little slot on this piano. So I hear a similar sound to that all the time. But that sound just sat perfectly over the metronome and just kind of became the overall groove for the whole song. As I simplified the rhythm and simplified the chord progression into just the two chords, it felt like something that was going to be a lot of fun to write to. You know, especially with this altered voice. I put on this pitch manipulation thing and once I gave it this very feminine, cute character, it really helped me. I felt like I could say anything. It felt like I was wearing a mask and I could really tell the truth about what I was feeling because it was too scary for me to sing openly with my real voice. So putting on this mask of this voice processing effect, this was a step towards being able to be as open-hearted as I want to be. I'll make it right again but it's no use. You said my hunger grows and grows. The first verse goes, "I'll make it right again but it's no use," you said, "as my hunger grows and grows." It's like a desire for validation or attention or success. I think you can feel the shame that I feel around it in the way I'm talking about it. The pre-chorus goes, "When the glory tries to tempt you, it may seem like what you need. But if glory makes you happy, why are you so broken up?" I knew from years of having been on tour and having played the big festivals and done these massive tours that I was still left feeling pretty unfulfilled and I was really sad. I realized external validation is a cup with a hole in the bottom and it can never be filled. There's never enough. In this song I'm asking, "What is it that we're actually hoping is going to happen here?" Clearly it's not going to be that if I get to the next level of fame and success, that's going to be the thing that fixes all these problems. When it gets to the chorus, the image in my head is like somebody maybe screaming into a mirror. It's like somebody trying to fully reckon with themselves and like shake themselves awake. Like what do you actually want? ♪ I know, I know ♪ In this chorus it's like if I scream this loud enough at myself, then I might come up with an answer. The second verse of this song was a total struggle because I felt like if I didn't answer the question that was set up by the chorus, then the song was just a big nothing. Like why am I continuing to do this if I know that this ultimately won't fulfill me? And then I just started to think about like what my favorite music has done for me. I thought about "Daff Punk" and "Bonnie Verre" and I came to this answer that I'm making music for the other "me"s out there, people like me that rely on their favorite artists to get through a hard time. That allowed me to just suspend that question and just kind of allowed me to move forward. ♪ Don't say you lose, just you can't get through ♪ I had not only for yourself 'cause that's your role, the work that stirred you soul ♪ ♪ You can make for someone else ♪ Because I was no longer paralyzed by the question, did you get your wish, did you get the thing that you wanted? Once I finally realized the answer is no, but that's okay, the world opened up. ♪ So tell me, tell me when you walk on a road ♪ ♪ You can't get through this perfect, but can I tell me say? ♪ ♪ I know, I know ♪ I got excited about the idea of using loops again after many, many years of feeling like that was taboo. And the first time I threw a swingy loop on there, it was one of those things where I was like, "Oh." ♪ As a music producer, when you first start, you're basically just arranging loops. And then you come to a point where you feel like you've graduated from that and you sort of take pride in arranging your own rhythms and arranging your own samples. And I think that there's a third level where you realize that none of that stuff matters. And at this point, you'll just use anything if it works. This loop is something that I guess it's not really meant to be heard on its own, but when played in combination with the rest of the drums, it just adds something. It's a little bit of like, I found out within the last year or so that in perfuming, when people make perfumes, fragrances, things like that, it's not unheard of for them to add to 1% of the mix, a little bit of fecal odor. The idea is that it gives it more substance and it really can't be consciously registered. Now obviously nobody wants to be like buying poo-centred cologne. But when it's just suddenly layered in there, you're saying these drums are your poo of the song. Yeah, yeah, this is the strum loop is the 90s like fecal of it or get your way That sound is a field recording it's a meadow/forest sound and to me nature is kind of like this stand in is this metaphor for health being mentally healthy and physically healthy and trying to find some sort of well-being One of my absolute favorite sounds in the song is the piano solo. It's just like six or seven notes in the last chorus. It's this upright piano sound and it goes like what I love about it is that in that section of the song everything is pumping to the kick drum I just let that piano sit on top of all of that not get pumped by the kick It feels so human to me. I don't know just this little bit of expression that doesn't get pushed around by anything else. I just love that sound and something about the way that harmonizes with the vocal and sits on top of the rest of the track is like my favorite moment of that song No one's heard me sing that song in my natural voice before and maybe I'm being down on myself But I think my natural voice is pretty unremarkable. I'm not like a singer singer. I'm not trying to win any singing competitions It's part of why I leaned on this high-pitched voice character so much is because I felt like I really needed to sing and my normal voice timbre didn't really do it for me But as I filled out the Get Your Wish chorus it just felt a little better when there was a small little hint of my natural voice in there Because part of the journey for me towards becoming as vulnerable and as honest and sincere as I hope to be Is going to be like being able to sing for real to say the things that I want to say sort of unmasked My own desire for like attention and success and love from strangers. It feels like a monster that I manage Who doesn't desire love, you know what I mean? Who doesn't feel good when somebody tells them that they did a good job It's part of me and it's not my favorite part of me and I fear it at times So my story that I'm cured of Wanting attention that I'm cured of creative block That's just not real life But I think of trying to get closer to being the person who you want to be. It's like I see it as an upward spiral as long as you're generally Moving in the right direction. That's something you can feel proud of And now here's Get Your Wish by Porter Robinson in its entirety [Music] [Music] But if glory makes you happy, why are you so broken up? So tell me how it felt when you worked on why Can you get your wish for me to the surface? I couldn't say I know I know so tell me I know when you worked on why Can you forget that you're always ready? Going through the surface because we stay I know I know [Music] Don't say you're the best just yet get up and away I had you know me for yourself Because that's your moment the work that's that you saw You can make for yourself What did you do? I just hope you're full And obsession will let you down But don't you waste this under your face It will still appear in the dark so tell me [Music] [Music] [Music] Visit songexploder.net to learn more You'll find links to buy or stream get your wish And you can watch the music video This episode was made by me with editing help from Teenie Liebersen and Casey Deel artwork by Carlos Lerma and music Clarence by Kathleen Smith Song Exploder is a proud member of radio topia from PRX A network of independent listener supported artist owned podcasts You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm You can follow me on twitter and instagram at RishiHairway You can also get a song exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt I'm RishiKhairway Thanks for listening [Music] [Music] Radio topia from PRX