Sheryl Crow

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Sheryl Crow was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Now she has a new album. She talked about that and a whole lot more with our guest interviewer, Sam Fragoso. He hosts the interview podcast, Talk Easy. Here's Sam. Since her 1993 platinum debut, Tuesday Night Music Club, Sheryl Crow has won nine Grammy Awards with even more top-charting songs. You may know some of them. All I want to do is have some fun I got a feeling I'm not the only one All I want to do is have some fun Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard If it makes you happy It can't be nothing It can't be nothing If it makes you happy Then why the hell are you so sad? Every day is a winding road I get a little bit closer Every day is a fitting. Her latest album is called Pick You Up. It features seven new songs, which she describes as, quote, commentaries on being human. and wanting connection. They were written by Crow and longtime collaborator Jeff Trott, who she first worked with in the mid-90s back in Los Angeles. These days, Crow lives and works out of Nashville, Tennessee, and was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But amid selling over 50 million records worldwide, headlining tours around the globe, the singer-songwriter from Missouri has also battled sexism, depression, and cancer. Quote, I've always had really high highs and real low lows, end quote. Which, across various genres and decades, she's channeled through the music. Cheryl Crow, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thank you. You have said in the past that, quote, if I'm honest with myself, what art is, is a picture of who you are at any given moment. And so, with your new record, Pick You Up, what does that picture look like? Um, well, yes. I think that whatever you are experiencing, it definitely informs your art. And it's been interesting to age out of pop music, but there's great liberation in being able to just write whatever I want and not be thinking, okay, is this going to get played at radio? Is it going to be as big as my last hit? Blah, blah, blah. For me, this record, is me, at my age, as a mom, asking the same questions that I think a lot of us are asking about who we are at this moment in our humanity. What do we stand for? That being said, it sounds like a very morose record, a very depressing record, and it's really not. It's very hopeful. But there's a lot of questions on it, you know, about kind of where we're at right now and what kind of world we're leaving our kids. You know, I think many people feel these are increasingly isolated times. Yeah. And I'm thinking the first song on your record is a track called Freight Train. Yes. That speaks to some of what we're talking about. Let's take a listen. ♪ ♪ Freight train ♪ ♪ Freight train ♪ ♪ Crying in the middle of the night ♪ ♪ A whistle blows ♪ ♪ I hear it though it's nowhere in sight ♪ ♪ It's always after midnight ♪ ♪ A lonely voice is heard ♪ ♪ Echo through the backyards ♪ ♪ Disappearing without a word ♪ ♪ Disappearing without a word ♪ ♪ I hear you sing for miles around ♪ ♪ While the cool kids dream and the old folks sleep in ♪ ♪ Miles around ♪ That was the song Freight Train off Sheryl Crow's latest record, Pick You Up. Now, it sounds like you have built a pretty tight-knit life back in Nashville. You have horses, children, your band, I think, records at a studio above the barn that you have. Yeah. And yet, I gotta say, that song is a deeply lonely track. Where are you in that? Well, a couple of things. I think by nature, I have a certain amount of melancholy, a certain amount of like, I don't know, loneliness built in. You know, I think most artists do. Otherwise, why would they be doing it? Is that the question? I think so. I mean, I have, I've been really open about my mental struggles and thank God we're all talking about it now and it's not, you know, it's not sort of swept under the rug. But yeah, I mean, it took me a really long time to sort of navigate how to not sink further into darkness when it hits and how to know that it's not a forever thing and to be able to sometimes be quiet or sometimes to write songs to it. And for me, music has been sort of a lifesaver, but it was also the thing that I made my identity. So that was also part of the issue of my feeling like, I love music, but I hate music, you know, like the pressure of it. So I've learned how to navigate it, like how to not use it as an escape, but also to be able to use it as a salve and a system of relief. And that's really what this song is about. This song is like we're all kind of going through this weird thing where we're connected on social media, we're connected through watching reels, and then when we put the phone down, it's like, ugh, I should put my phone back up. Otherwise, what do I do? And that's really what the song is about. You know, it's about, and I remember this feeling. I grew up in a town where we heard the train go by all the time. And it went through twice a day, always at night, and that feeling of a, of a train whistle that always, for me, was emblematic of, you know, middle of the night, darkness, aloneness. And so, that became sort of the metaphor for the song. Hmm. One of the first jobs you landed was as a background singer for Michael Jackson on his Bad Tour. And Jackson, as many people know, was notoriously meticulous. And so, I wanted to play a bit from a rehearsal that you were part of, where you were and where he's teaching you and everyone else how to harmonize on the song, Billie Jean. This is in 1987. Billie Jean, not my girl. She's just a girl. I am the one, my baby. But the kid is not my son. She says, I am the one. He's so great. He's so great. Can you still hit that high note? He's so great. You know, it's crazy. I mean, when I reflect on my life, which I think when you get older, you do do a lot of that and you think, wow. Now that I'm able to look back on it, it is a profound thing to think about a kid who was from a town that was like, the closest city was Memphis. We had three or four stoplights. I mean, it was just a tiny place in the middle of a bunch of cotton fields and then to dream about going on and working for Michael Jackson and people like Don Henley and singing with the Rolling Stones. I mean, I couldn't even dreamt that up. But if you put so much of your energy into something and if you have a modicum of ambition, which I will say I was very ambitious. You know, I never, if there wasn't an opportunity, I created it. And the Michael Jackson tour wasn't, you know, I wasn't supposed to go and I heard some singers talking about the audition and being recommended by Quincy or Bruce Whitty or Ted Timbleton or, and I thought, well. This is when you're working as a waitress at a restaurant. Well, I was working as a waitress but I was also doing a little bit of session work. I was finally getting some work as a session singer. I was on a session with Daryl Fantasy who actually ultimately wound up being one of the backup singers and he was the one that told me about it and I crashed the audition. I said, hi Michael, into a video. I said, I just moved here like six months ago as a school teacher and then, I sang a song by Denise Williams called Free and I got to be free and I got called back and we went from there. You're like what, 26 at the time? 26. You've been in Los Angeles for six months? I've been there about six or eight months and didn't have a passport and the next thing I know we're rehearsing and a month later we're in Tokyo playing for 65,000 people. So when you're watching him backstage waiting for him to go on. in Tokyo, 60,000 people in the crowd. What did you take away from that? You have to remember every single thing about this was new. I mean, I think I'd only been on one or two airplanes in my whole life. So every single thing about this was new. And obviously, going to Tokyo, then going all over Japan, all over Australia, coming home for a little bit, doing a run, and then going to Europe, and then also compound that with rehearsing with a top notch band. It was a crash course in music industry, for sure. How records get made, how records get on the charts. I mean, there were so many things about it that were new to me. And when I came home from the tour, I felt like I had lived in LA and worked for 30 years. It was such a crash course. The music industry. But 88% of it favorable. And the 12% of it? Not so. But there were things along the way that were really problematic. Michael's manager. I think as a young female artist with men in power, it can become problematic. You know, I want to know, did that experience inform not only the music you wanted to make, but the kind of musician you wanted to be in the world? Because you said in one interview recently, watching Michael, quote, It was the first time I started thinking about why some people can manipulate 60,000 people physically. I wondered what you meant by that or what you were thinking about. I look at Michael and I think he is the embodiment of somebody who's, I mean, you have the ego, which is obviously the flawed part, but then you have this other part that is completely anointed in the spirit. Basically, I mean, that he could bring people in a way where it's physical. I mean, it changed the molecules in a whole stadium. People who were just enthralled and feeling music and crying and just, you know, I've always said that there's a fine line between being able to really wield this connection, but also knowing that you're doing it. And I think the moments when you're really lost in it are pure and beautiful. And he had so much of that. And then there's the other parts, too, where it's orchestrated and it's more, you know, ego-driven. And we all have it. And thinking about what would become your first release record, Tuesday Night Music Club, what's the track that best encapsulates the kind of song you wanted to make? What was the first song where you felt like you actually spoke your mind? I think I Shall Believe was probably the one that came the closest to who I was. I mean, there were songs on that record that I really felt like spoke to who I was in that moment, you know? What Can I Do For You? Yeah, What I Can Do For You really addressed the sexual harassment that I endured on that tour. But songs like, you know, Strong Enough were very, you know, very true to who I was. But I think I Shall Believe is really the one that's probably the closest, just because it talks about being broken, but it talks about not giving up on yourself. Let's take a listen. This is I Shall Believe from Sheryl Crow's first record, Tuesday Night Music Club. Come to me now And lay your hands over me Even if it's a lie Say it will be alright I shall believe I'm broken in two And I know you're on to me And I know you're on to me And I know you're on to me But I only come home When I'm so all alone I do believe That not everything is gonna be the way you think it ought to be Seems like every time I try to make it right It all comes down on me Please say honestly You won't give up on me I shall believe. I shall believe. Who has older people, particularly Michael Jackson's manager, trying their best to squeeze any last drop of innocence left in that person. Is that how it felt? Definitely. You know, I was raised in a very close-knit family. My dad was a small-town attorney with big cases that were, you know, steeped in civil rights and all kinds of things. I mean, he was like. Like an Atticus Finch kind of guy. Loved books. My mom, an incredible singer. And they raised us with this ideology of, like, work really hard and be a good person, and things will work out for you, right? So when I went on that tour, and I just, you know, I was exposed to a lot of things that I do think sort of robbed me of my innocence about how everything works. I came home from that tour. First, I visited an attorney to help. And he helped me, like, what do I do? And this attorney said, by the end of the meeting, you should feel. Sometimes you have to put up with a certain amount of things in order to have the kind of success that you want. Put up with what? The kind of. Well, I was being promised that my record would come out in the top ten, that that's how it works. His response was, well, if you look at what they're offering you, sometimes you have to put up with a certain amount of, you know. And so. A certain amount of sexual harassment. Well, basically, yeah. And so I went home from that tour, and I crawled into bed. And about six months later, my mom showed up and said, this is not the way you're going out. And that was the first time I ever got into therapy. And it was a game changer, and it was a life changer. And I'm always kidding to my kids. I'm like, you have a college fund, and you have a therapy fund. I really hope that you use a therapy fund, right? Great if you go to college. That's awesome to you. And I don't know. I came away from it a different person, but I also came away from it the same person, but stronger. I believe it was Bob Dylan who said to you once, quote, you record a song and then spend the rest of your life trying to find the perfect version of it. Yes, that is exactly right. What was the context in which he said that to you? I've had some funny experiences with Bob. I mean, he was one of the first people I got the chance to open up for, and I got to know him a little bit then, and then through the years. But there was one point, I think it was the late 90s, I was going through a really hard moment where I could not finish anything. Like, I'd have all these great ideas, and then I just couldn't finish them. And I had read that Bob had had a really long bout of writer's block, and he had told me, anytime you have any problems, or you just want to pick my brain about anything, call me. So I thought, you know what? I'll call Bob. So I called Bob, and I said, hey, we talked for a little bit, and then I said, hey, I'm having writer's block, and I understand you had writer's block at one point, and he's like, nope, never did. And then he said, well, how long has it been since you finished the song? I said, God, I feel like I've been struggling for like eight months. Oh, that's bad. But he told me, he's like, you know, get your band together and play like an old Muddy Waters song, or play like, he's like, recently I got the band together, and we played, he played a song by Boy George, I believe it was. Come on, come on, come on, come on, chameleon, or something like that. He's like, just jam on it for a while, and then start writing your own lyrics over it, and the next thing you know, you have a song. And, you know, little things throughout my life, little moments like that, have really seriously formed moments, moments that came after them, like getting my band together, and jamming on something, and finding my way through it. So he has been instrumental in a lot of the big moments of my life. We're listening to The Conversation, our guest interviewer Sam Fragosa recorded with Sheryl Crow. Her new album is called Pick You Up. The Conversation continues after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. On a garden neon street Not that I care at all It's been the best part of my losing streak And an homage for what I can't recall Oh, I'm banging on my TV set And I check the odds and I And I place my bet I pour a drink and I pull the blinds I wonder what I find I'm leaving Las Vegas Life's so bright Pumped sweat, blackjack on a say This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to the interview our guest interviewer Sam Fragoso recorded with Sheryl Crow. Her new studio album is called Pick You Up. It features seven new songs, which she describes as commentaries on being human and wanting connection. They were written by Crow and her longtime collaborator Jeff Trott. Crow's best-known songs include All I Want to Do, If It Makes You Happy, Soak Up the Sun, and Every Day is a Winding Road. Can we take a listen to a song off the record, The Globe Sessions? Sure. This is called My Favorite Mistake. Here comes your secret lover Should be unlike any other Until your guilt goes up in flames Did you know when you go It's the perfect ending To the bad day I've gotten used to spending When you go All I know is you're my favorite My favorite mistake That was My Favorite Mistake off the record, The Globe Sessions. That's the album that you have called your favorite record. Why is that? I don't know. I think at that moment where I just picked up and moved to New York City, had had a breakup and had made an offer on a house that I loved and didn't get the house and thought, you know what? I'm just going to move. So I moved to New York. And I set up my equipment in a warehouse in the meatpacking district. And it felt like such a glorious change of scenery, especially while I was sort of licking my wounds. Were you in love at the time? Or was that one of your periods of favorite mistake? I was, but I was newly out. I mean, I was still in love. And case in point, I wrote that song because I was really licking my wounds, you know. And in my defense. But you're not on trial. I always say this. I always say I have loved some amazing people. And then I've loved some other people as well. So and we'll leave it at that. We've talked about like you having high highs. Yes. And low lows. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you tell me what happened in that Boston hotel room? Oh, wow. Yeah. Where you call your manager up. Yeah. I think you're distressed on the road. I was. I think first and foremost, I was really tired. Because when you're always going, I mean, we were really playing five or six nights a week. Like we'd play three nights, day off, four nights, day off, three nights, you know. I think if you're a person who already struggles with mental instability or whatever, becoming that fatigued and also losing your perspective can be detrimental to your mental health. And I remember calling. I remember calling Scooter, my manager, and just saying, I'm in Boston. I don't want to keep going. I don't know what to do, where to go. And so he came, picked me up. We went to New York. And I went to Mount Sinai and got help. I mean, I was just not able to figure out the difference between what it meant to feel alive and okay or what it meant to feel like you didn't want to be alive and okay. And that was a turning point. And it was very helpful, you know. And out of that, you know, came, I mean, I think the Weather Channel was one of the things that came out of that song. It's a beautiful, beautiful song. Oh, thank you. Why don't we take a listen to it? This is Weather Channel off the album Come On, Come On from Sheryl Crow. There's a black dog that scratches my door He's been growling my name Saying, you better get to running Can you make it better for me? Can you make it better for me? Can you make me see the light of day? I got no one who will bring me a big umbrella So I'm watching the Weather Channel Waiting for the storm That was Weather Channel off the record Come On, Come On from 2002. Do you remember writing and recording that one? I don't. It's funny. We were working at Clinton Studios in New York City. And I had been doing some writing with Steve Earle and we were messing around and he left the studio. And then Trina says that I went into the studio and I said, I have a song I want to sing. And I sang it. And I sang it. Playing the guitar and singing it live on the mic. All one take. And I actually did not remember it at all. So when we were mixing, she's like, what about the song Weather Channel? And I had absolutely no recollection of it all. And when she played it for me, I burst into tears. I had no recollection of it. And they had me on a medication. I think it was called Ativan or something. Which evidently I think can mess with your short-term memory. But I didn't remember writing it. And so we wound up finishing it, put a little bit of strings on it and put it on the record. And what are you brought back to? Yeah, I mean, I don't ever sing it where I don't think about that. You know, I think about what it must have been like to stand there and play that song with no lead up to it and no aftermath. That is one of the things about music that I find to be mystical and divine. That sometimes we don't really know where music comes from, you know. But that if we get out of our own way, just like all art, I guess, if we get out of our own way, that sometimes we get something. And that line, I don't feel so human. Did it take leaving Los Angeles and moving to Nashville? To feel human again. Yeah, you know, it's funny that that song, when I think about it, my dad used to talk about Winston Churchill. Having, like, struggling with depression, how you would call it the black dog. And just the fact that that is in the song, and I don't have any recollection of writing it. What did he make of the song? Well, you know, I think he has avoided the fact that he also has distinct bouts of lowness. But now we handle it differently. I mean, I went on antidepressants and that was a game changer for me and it really helped me at that time. And it helped me to lift the bottom, but also lowered the top a little bit, you know, just so I could sort of reenter life. But I think also at a time when everything seemed like it was falling apart, when I got diagnosed and the paparazzi were all over me, it felt like, you know what, it's time to move to someplace that feels more connected to my humanity. And that was Nashville, mainly because I had family around. And it felt like a gentler place to make music than a place that felt very commerce-based, which was L.A. So, Cheryl, you record most of your records on this compound that you have in Nashville. I believe in a studio that sits atop a horse stable. Is there also a chapel on the property? Well, Sam, it's funny you should ask that. Yes, there is. To quote Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come. Yes, there is. And by it, do you mean men? That's the they. Yeah, I'm always like, I'm going to get married in that church. So far, a couple of people have gotten married in that church. Is that true? Yeah, actually, it's true. Yeah. When that happened, were you like, well, I mean, I feel like I should have first dibs on this. I don't want to get married. I'm very, very happy. Okay. I liked what Dolly said when somebody asked her, do you think people should live together before they die? they get married. She's like, I don't think people should live together after they get married. You said, I think you were talking to Bill Maher and you said something funny. He's like, you adopted two children shortly after relocating to Nashville. And you said, quote, I don't know if I was cut out to be married. I just, I want to know, do you think that's true? Listen, I come from, like I said, a close-knit family. My parents are still married at 71 years. And they have a high-functioning relationship. They have years of making each other laugh. I'm sure they have years, you know, where it was a struggle. I think for me, having been on the road so much during my earlier life, that was never conducive to having a working, functioning relationship. But I chose that and I loved it and I wouldn't change it, you know. It is a lot to ask somebody to be in a relationship with a woman who was always gone. And, you know, by the time I moved to Nashville, I, you know, I'm a big believer in talking to God. And we had a little, I'll call it a come to Jesus. I mean, I was like, you know, I'll row that boat across. And if you meet me with a couple of kids, that's great. And if you don't, I'm great with that too. You've blessed me so much already. So, and, she did. Or he did. Or it did, whatever God is. My guest today is award-winning musician, Sheryl Crow, and her latest album is called Pick You Up. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Sam Fragoso. Today, I'm talking with award-winning musician, Sheryl Crow. To go back to the beginning of our conversation, when you write songs like Strong Enough, this is a young person, late 20s, early 30s, in some ways, writing about the road ahead. Like those early songs, there seemed to be like this preoccupation that you had with the future and moving towards it. And now you're here in it, playing these songs around the world that a younger version of you wrote. And I wonder in playing a song like Strong Enough, how that comes together and coalesces for you now that you're in your early 60s. Well, it's funny, you know, early days, you're playing all the hits and you're really tired of playing the hits. You're tired of playing All I Want to Do. And you're like, I have to play this song one more time. When you get older, that is when you learn what gratitude is. And it makes a huge difference in the kind of shows that you do. And, you know, when you get older, I think you spend more time, obviously, reflecting than you do looking at the world. And I think that's looking forward and thinking of all the things that you're going to accomplish, which is not a bad thing. It just is a byproduct of getting older. And I feel a sense of gratitude that I did not have when I was young, because I was always chasing the next hit, chasing the next, you know, what's the next thing. And that's more pressure. And this is more joy for me. You know, every time, in fact, my band and I are always laughing. Every time we go out on stage, we feel like we're getting away with something. Like, are we really supposed to be here? Or did they make a mistake? Like, we can't believe we're still getting to do this, man. You know, it's just, it's amazing, you know. And to get to play songs that people are singing back to us is, you know, dream of dreams. Do you want to play Strong Enough for a second? Sure. I always tell my audience that I have been engaged three times. I've never been married. I've never been divorced. So I still have all my money. It's a very bad joke. God, I feel like hell tonight. Tears of rage I cannot fight. I'll be the last to help you understand. Are you strong enough to be my man? My man. Nothing's true when nothing's right. So let me be alone tonight. Cause you can't change the way I am. Lie to me. I promise. I believe. Lie to me. But please don't leave. That was Strong Enough, off the record, Tuesday Night Music Club by Sheryl Crow. Growing up in Missouri, your dad was a lawyer, Atticus Finch-like, as you said. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But he also played the trumpet. Yes. And your mother played piano. I think both of them were huge inspirations, along with James Taylor and Carole King. Yeah. Is there a song that we could end on, that we could play, that is the track that young Sheryl Crow would go, that's the thing I want to make? Well, it's interesting. I wrote a song about my upbringing. My upbringing was unique in the fact that my parents played in a swing band, and they would go to local areas. And then they would come home, and they would have wine and smoke, and they would play records like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and they would play along. I mean, stand-up bass, trombone, our living room would be filled as if we're supposed to be sleeping upstairs, but we never were. We were always down, you know, laying down. Laying on the stairs, listening. It sounds like this was their own Tuesday Night Music Club. It was their own Tuesday Night Music Club, with the after-party and everything. And I thought every kid grew up that way. So I wrote a song about it called We Do What We Can. And it was, you know, full circle getting to have my dad come out and play on it. He played trumpet on it. Let's close on that track. This is We Do What We Can, off Sheryl Crow's first album, Tuesday Night Music Club. The house set to swing I lay in my bed and listen to everything Cause Leo's in reform tonight His trombone seems so sweet I lay in my bed and listen to everything I lay in my bed and listen to everything I lay in my bed and listen to everything is about a Buenos Aires doctor with Power to Communicate with Ghosts. It brings together two of Latin America's most acclaimed storytellers, Chilean filmmaker Pablo Lorraine and Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez, whose short stories form the basis for the show. Our critic-at-large John Power says that My Sad Dead takes the horror genre in weirdly compelling directions you can't quite predict. Even if you don't believe in them, ghost stories are eerie. They take place on the threshold between our daily world and a mysteriously unknown realm. Now, many movies and books cross this threshold merely to scare the bejesus out of us. But the greatest ghost stories aim to do something more, such as capturing the weight of Mexico's past, like Juan Rufo's Pedro Paramo, or exploring one's own madness, as Stanley Kubrick does in his adaptation of Stephen King's Much Saner the Shining. You find that brand of ambition in My Sad Dead, a new Spanish-language Netflix series centering on a woman who can see and talk to ghosts. Weaving together three short stories by Mariana Enriquez, who's been dubbed the sorceress of Buenos Aires horror, this four-part show was directed by Pablo Lorraine, the Chilean filmmaker who's best known here for movies about Jackie O, starring Natalie Portman. And Lady Di, starring Kristen Stewart. But Lorraine's always at his best closer to home, and here he's made a show whose blend of creepiness, melancholy, sarcastic humor, and political anger is unlike anything else on TV. Mercedes Moran stars as Emma, an antisocial 60-ish doctor who has a gift or maybe a curse. She can see and communicate with ghosts. Forced into retirement, she moves into her family home, and she's the only one who can see and communicate with ghosts. She lives in her family's grand old house to live with her dead mother, who's still present and grumbling as a ghost. Now, Emma can't help the dead resolve their problems, like Jennifer Love Hewitt did on that old show, Ghost Whisperer, but she can calm them by talking to them. Emma spends her days soothing the dead, swapping barbed words with her photographer daughter, who feels ignored in favor of the dead, and going to community meetings. Life gets trickier when her sister and brother-in-law die. She's the only one who can calm them down. She's the only one who can fly down from the U.S. along with their daughter, Julie. That's a terrific Carolina Sanchez Alvarez, whom they intend to stick in a mental institution. Her parents are horrified by her obesity, and loud moans drink supposed orgies with the dead. But Emma feels a bond with her niece. And when Julie escapes, it triggers a series of events in which suddenly, everyone in her neighborhood can now hear the cries of the dead, which drives them mad. When three joyful young women are gunned down in a gang killing, locals call on Emma to help stop the victims' incessant wailing. She grudgingly does this, but also begins searching for Julie. Now, both Enriquez and Lorraine are fascinated by the liminal space connecting life and death. But they're not interested in telling a conventionally scary horror story. My Sad Dead has no lurid melodrama, no shock cuts. Instead, it uses ghosts to evoke the actual material horrors of today's Latin America, where the powerful wound and ignore the powerless. This is a hard thing to pull off on screen, but Lorraine does a terrific job of conjuring up Emma's somewhat alternate reality. The cinematography has a slightly bleached-out, old videotape look, which makes the physical world feel a tad transparent, open to the other side. And individual images are often uncanny. From the camera's smooth glide as it follows Emma through Buenos Aires, to the overhead shots looking straight down at scenes of death and dying. Is this ghost cam? Lorraine shows how Emma's once-fancy neighborhood is turning into a ghost of its former self, hemmed in by soulless architecture, druggie encampments, and housing projects exploding with violence. With her distant gaze and lank, ash-gray hair, Emma looks like a seer, a somewhat irascible one, whom Lorraine imbues with riveting charisma. Where Julie loves her close encounters with ghosts, her smile is a wonder. Emma is worn down by decades of helping suffering spirits find momentary peace. This only makes her angrier at her country's rulers for failing to look after all the Argentine people. In those community meetings, she snaps at her middle-class neighbors for despising the poor, or for letting fear of crime lead them into calls for quasi-fascist policing. I think it's not accidental that Enriquez and Lorraine should be drawn to ghost stories, with their intrusion of past lives into the present. They grew up in countries where thousands were disappeared by military juntas in the 70s and 80s. Both Argentina and Chile are still haunted by their political victims. And you sense this watching My Sad Dead. Emma feels a response to the dead, to hear what they have to tell us. The better to understand our responsibility to the living. John Powers reviewed the new series My Sad Dead, which is streaming on Netflix. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stanishevsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberto Shorrock, Anne Marie Boldenato, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.