David: This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.

[MUSIC - Brandy Clark: She Smoked in the House]

She smoked in the house

Burnt holes in the couch

Lipstick circled butts in the ashtray

David: In 2020, The New Yorker published an article with the headline No One Is Writing Better Country Songs than Brandy Clark Is. Those songs have been performed by the likes of Reba McEntire, Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, LeAnn Rimes, all the biggest artists in country music. Brandy Clark herself is one of the top songwriters in Nashville often co-writing with Shane McAnally. Growing up in the State of Washington in a town of just a thousand people, Brandy Clark's first musical partner was her mother.

Brandy: I never realized that everybody's mom couldn't play a bunch of instruments. My mom, we always had a piano and I remember some of my earliest memories of her, she played the harp and the hammer dulcimer, she could just pick up an instrument and learn it. If there was a song on the radio that we loved, she could play it. She played by ear really well, and then later on, we were in a band together. A lot of my first songs I wrote with my mom, I did have a knack for that and the original songs that our band did people have gravitated towards, so that was really what got me to move to Nashville.

David: After making it there as a writer, Clark's first album, performing her own material was called 12 Stories, a record that staff writer Emily Nussbaum describes as a masterpiece. Emily is a fan of country music, and she sat down with Brandy Clark to talk about her newest album, which is called logically enough, Brandy Clark and it's been nominated for five Grammy Awards. Here's Emily.

Emily: Let's talk about your move to Nashville, you moved there when you were 22, you went to Belmont, what were you thinking about doing professionally at that point? Being a songwriter, being in the music industry, being an artist solo at best?

Brandy: Yes, I definitely wanted to be a solo artist at that point and what happened to me was you move into place, and you make friends. I started to see that my friends that were getting traction as artists, they cared way more about, which you wouldn't know this today because I just came from a TV appearance, they cared way more about hair and makeup than I did and that seemed to be more of what mattered, was what you looked like. I cared more about learning to write songs.

I wasn't going to skip a writing appointment to go get a spray tan and friends, I had no offense, we all choose what's important to us, they were into doing that and they were getting traction. They were getting record deals, they were being successful, so I started to think, "Maybe I'm not an artist." Maybe that whole aesthetic thing is so much more important than I ever realized but I love music so much. I loved getting better as a songwriter, I loved people.

This is going to sound crazy but it's true, I loved people telling me my songs weren't good enough because it made me want to get better and want to study great songs and learn how to get better. That's what motivates me, is doing something musically that moves somebody. That's where I was really motivated.

Emily: How much did your sexuality play a role in any of your decisions at that time? I know you've talked about yourself as being a late bloomer.

Brandy: It definitely played into it because about the time I moved to Nashville, I did realize that I was gay, and I got into my first relationship. I didn't think those two things could coexist, which was being in a relationship that was authentic to me and being a country music artist. That played into it massively, I would say.

Emily: Could you tell me about the environment? Did you get that as advice from people? Did people say you can't come out and be an artist you have to do other things or was it more in the atmosphere?

Brandy: It was more in the atmosphere because I was a long ways from coming out at that point too, and also wasn't good enough at my craft where anybody would have cared enough to say, "Don't come out of the closet, you could ruin this." I wasn't there as an artist, for sure. It took me living a little to have something to really say as an artist, but I definitely didn't think that those two things could be together.

Emily: Could coexist.

Brandy: Yes.

Emily: How old were you when you met Shane McAnally who's been a frequent collaborator with you?

Brandy: I was in my 30s. Man, let me think of exactly how old I was. I'll tell you what, it was an amazing day the day that I met Shane, and some of it had to do, you know you mentioned my sexuality, some of it was that. I saw him and I was out of the closet by then, but I saw him, it's one thing to be an out-of-the-closet lesbian. It's another thing to be an out-of-the-closet gay man, living and working in country music. I thought that was so brave. From the moment I met him, he was who he was.

I was living my life out loud but when I met Shane, I thought, "You know what? You're not living it out loud enough. Just be who you are." I remember he said something to me one time. Then I did get the opportunity to make a record and things started to happen and I said, "Shane, do you think it's going to matter that I'm gay?" He said, "No, you're too good. It won't matter." That really stuck with me.

Emily: That's beautiful. [chuckles]

Brandy: Yes.

Emily: Let's talk about your album, Brandy Clark. It's your fourth album, it's the first one that has your name on it in that way and I know it was originally called Northwest, how did it change to be called Brandy Clark?

Brandy: I wanted to call it Northwest because Brandi Carlile when she approached me about making this record, she said, "I see it as your return to the northwest," because we grew up close to each other. Didn't know each other but same side of the state and I loved that. I never really dove into talking about the Northwest specifically, so went to the Northwest and wrote a song called Northwest and was like, "This is the album title." When I would tell people that they would say, "Well, you know, that's Kim and Kanye's a child, right?" I had never--

Emily: Never occurred to me.

Brandy: Me neither. The first time someone said that I just thought, "Oh, they like bad TV, as do I," but when four out of five people said it, I thought, "Okay, this is not really, really a good thing." No offense to North West, the child. As we started working on the record, it just was so me, it felt so me that I wanted to call it Brandy Clark. Working with Brandi Carlile did bring me home, not just to the northwest but home musically, for me and so it felt like of the four albums, this one is the most authentically me.

Emily: Well, let's play a song from the album just this absolutely stunning song called Buried. Could you tell me a little bit about it and then we can have you play it?

Brandy: Oh, thank you. Buried, I wrote this with Jessie Jo Dillon, and I think that we all have somebody that will love to tell we're buried that we're usually not with. Her and I sat down one day, and we started it from the top. I had the working title, If You Don't Love Me Anymore, and all these things that we you're going to do. That song changes a lot in studio because Brandi really challenged me to change the second verse. It used to say, "I'll read Lonesome Dove, I'll start doing yoga." She didn't like that yoga line and I did, and I said, "Well, why don't you like it?"

She said, "Well, because I just don't even believe you do yoga." I said, "Well, I don't." She said, "Well, then why would you put it in a song?" There were some little things like that, that changed, and she said to me, "I know you're calling this song If You Don't Love Me Anymore, but I think you should call it Buried." It's the last word of the song, it's such a powerful title, it's really what it's about and so that's how the title changed, some lyric change. More things changed on that song lyrically than any song I've ever written in studio.

Emily: I have to say that kiss me on the dance floor line to me, and I don't know whether there's an overread, that actually does feel a little bit about being with somebody who's not out. I don't know whether--

Brandy: For me, that is what that was about. Wanting to be with somebody who's proud enough to be with you in the open.

Emily: Let's have you sing the song. The beautiful Buried.

Brandy: Okay.

[MUSIC - Brandy Clark: Buried]

I'll fly myself to France

First-class New York to Paris

Get drunk on wine and dance

With someone who ain't embarrassed

To kiss me on the dance floor

Yeah that's what I'll be there for If you don't want me

If you're beyond me

If you don't love me anymore

I'll read Lonesome Dove

Fall asleep to hallelujah

I'll take some trippy drug

Makes me forget I even knew you

I'll paint the floor to ceiling blue

Believe me baby I got things to do

If you don't want me

If you're beyond me

If you don't love me anymore

I'll be an over you achiever

I'll make you a believer

That I don't love you either

I'll meet somebody else

Probably get married

I'll keep it to myself

But I'll love you till I'm buried

Emily: It's unbelievably beautiful. Literally, I have chills running up back of my neck. I also find that song so beautiful because it's like a trick ending, but not in a gimmick way. It actually is very, very devastating. Tell me a little bit about the vocal for this because it's a very quiet, quiet song on it. The album itself is a quiet album in many ways other than the first track.

Brandy: This vocal, I had been in Salt Lake City working on Shucked before it went to Broadway. Brandi and I were working at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, California. I got a phone call from our producer of our musical and he asked me if I could step out and talk to him. I did and he told me that we were losing a cast member to another show. Somebody that was in the DNA and I cried. When I came back in, Brandi was like, "Hey, let's do Buried." I said, "Oh, I just got some news. It's not terrible, but it's shake me up."

She's like, "No, no, we won't keep your vocal. Let's just do it," which was really smart of her. I was in this very vulnerable, sad place to sing it. The engineer turned my mic up so hot that I had to whisper, "Sing it." That's where all that comes from.

David: Songwriter and performer, Brandy Clark, talking with The New Yorker's, Emily Nussbaum. More in a moment.

[MUSIC - Brandy Clark: Buried]

I'll fly myself to France

First-class New York to Paris

Get drunk on wine and dance

With someone who ain't embarrassed

To kiss me on the dance floor

Emily: What choices did you make musically on this album about the sound of it? Or did you make mutually with Brandi as a producer?

Brandy: We made choices together for sure. She was great for me to work with because I could talk to her like another recording artist. I could say, "I want it to feel like this." It wouldn't necessarily have to be musical language. We wanted it to be live and it is for the most part, all live. Brandi had said to me, because I feel like for a long time, I've straddled country in Americana. She said, "I think as a producer, I can pull you over into more of an Americana vibe on a record." That was a conscious choice.

Emily: Could you tell me what that means? Because I was surprised this album is nominated, correct, as an Americana album. Tell me from your perspective, what's the difference between country and Americana?

Brandy: Well, and just so I'm clear on it, it's nominated across both.

Emily: Right. It's nominated as Best Americana album but Buried is nominated as--

Brandy: Best Country Song.

Emily: And Best Country Song and Best Country Vocal.

Brandy: Yes. Well, you know, I think with Americana, to me, it means more acoustic instruments, less electric instruments. Although there are some electric instruments and it's dirtier. There's nothing slick to me about Americana. That can be hard for me because there were things that Brandi and the engineer fought me on to keep that were imperfect. That's tough things for me.

Emily: Can you give me an example?

Brandy: Well, they're very vocal. That was a really great example. What helped me was when people would hear it, they'd be like, "Don't change a note." I think the Americana space is less about, well, it's definitely less about anything that might commercially work on radio, even though I do get Americana radio play. I just think Americana is good music. That sounds really vague, but it's a pretty broad genre.

Emily: It's complicated. Because I did this whole article about Nashville, they would ask everyone to define the categories, and some people would define them in ways that had very little to do with the music. They would just say, "Americana is more diverse. Americana is liberal country. Americana makes less money because it's not connected to country radio."

Brandy: I have heard Americana is country music for Democrats.

Emily: Yes.

Brandy: I have heard that, which I really liked that.

Emily: I want to talk actually about another song on the album that I also love. Tell Her You Don't love her. I know that that song changed a lot in production as well. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

Brandy: I think that to me, to have a song on a record that's not bashing another woman, that is literally like, "I love my friend and you don't. You need to tell her. Stop keeping her hanging."

[MUSIC - Brandy Clark: Tell her you don't love her]

Tell her you don't love her, even if it's a lie

Make it sound true

Break that spell she's under, even if it feels mean

Do what you got to do

Don't leave a doubt, don't break her fall

Don't see her out, don't tell her you'll call

Tell her you don't love her

If you ever loved her at all

Brandy: To me also, that came from a really real situation that was really going on.

Emily: Yes. I think it's beautiful, and it comes from this interesting emotional angle that's indirect and has this edge of anger in a way that's earned but not directed at a person hurting you.

Brandy: Yes. I've been in love with people that other people had to say to me, "Look, you're never going to get it together." I think it's an important song for that reason.

Emily: I'm interested in that experience of being a songwriter, and I think a lot of people listening to this probably don't understand what it's like to be a music-row songwriter. What is the daily experience of that job compared to the job that you're doing now?

Brandy: Well, for me, it never really stopped. I was always looking for song, I still am always looking for song ideas, but you've got to go in every day at 10:00 AM with a list of ideas to fire off at somebody else and see what resonates. It might not be your idea, it might be theirs. If you're writing with an artist, you're writing for them. That was always a delicate balance of with my experience, and I even see it in myself as my own artist. Artists usually like their ideas. When I look at my albums, most of the titles were my idea because it's what I feel close to.

As a songwriter, you put on your hat to be in service to their idea. Sometimes you compromise on things that if they weren't in the room, you wouldn't. We're trying to write the best song we can write for the world. If we were sitting there with an artist, we're still trying to do that, but we're trying to do it through their lens. I think songwriters who are really good at that are really good at staying out of the way. I mean that positively. They're really good at pulling the best out of others and helping an artist get their vision out fully.

Emily: You're behind a bunch of songs that other songwriters did that became classics, including Mama's Broken Heart, Better Dig Two, Follow Your Arrow.

Brandy: Yes. [MUSIC - Kacey Musgraves: Follow Your Arrow]

Make lots of noise

Kiss lots of boys

Or kiss lots of girls

If that's something you're into

When the straight and narrow

Gets a little too straight

Roll up a joint, or don't

Just follow your arrow

Wherever it points, yeah

Follow your arrow

Wherever it points

Emily: Was it ever hard to have somebody else do the song instead of you doing the song?

Brandy: No, not with those three because those are three great examples. Follow Your Arrow, Shane, and I wrote that with Kacey Musgraves. That was always for Kacey. We wrote that with her and for her. Mama's Broken Heart, I love to play that every once in a while. It gets a crowd rowdy, but I never was connected to it. I don't have any of those stories where it's like, "Ooh, it pains me that this person recorded that song."

I also believe songs end up where they're supposed to, especially if they're songs that are hit songs or get some critical look because I have songs that have been recorded that weren't hits, but that people know and it's like, "Okay, that ended up where it was supposed to be."

Emily: Back when you made 12 Stories, what was the psychological adjustment like from being a songwriter for other people to being a frontwoman?

Brandy: Well, it was a slow one. I feel like I've just with this record fully made it. That was one of the things that Brandi said to me. She's like, "You think of yourself too much as a craftsman." Even in interviews like this one, I've mentioned other co-writers and she was like, "You've got to stop doing that." She's like, "You got to stop talking about me so much," which I'm not going to do. Sorry to tell you, Brandi Carlile. I will always bang her drum. She's like, "It's about you. You're the artist." I think that was a big shift.

This is the first album where I've had so many songs that are really about me. I no longer write songs thinking, "Now, would Lee Ann Womack want to say this?" I used to always have that voice in my head. I use Lee Ann Womack because I always wanted her to get my songs, but I don't do that anymore. That adjustment took some time.

Emily: Thank you so much for coming by. It was great. Thank you for playing for us.

Brandy: Oh, thank you.

David: Brandy Clark's new record, her fourth solo album is called Brandy Clark. You can read Emily Nussbaum at newyorker.com. That's our episode for today. We've got one more from Brandy Clark recorded in our studio at One World Trade Center. This one is called Pray to Jesus. Thanks for listening.

[MUSIC - Brandy Clark: Pray to Jesus]

We live in trailers and apartments too

From California to Kalamazoo

Grow up get married and when that one ends

We hate sleeping alone so we get married again

Don't want to be buried in debt or in sin

So we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto

Cause there ain't but two ways

We can change tomorrow

And there ain't no genie

And there ain't no bottle

So we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto

We love to complain about what we can't fix

Mostly mothers in law traffic and politics

We tell our kids how hard it was back when

Same way our parents did to us back then

Thought we'd be different but we're just like them

Yeah we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto

Cause there ain't but two ways

We can change tomorrow

And there ain't no genie

And there ain't no bottle

So we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto

We load our kids up in our new used car

And after church, we hit the mini-mart

Behind the counter up there on the wall

It reads 200 million on the power ball

Six little numbers that could change it all

So we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto

Cause there ain't but two ways

We can change tomorrow

And there ain't no genie

And there ain't no bottle

So we pray to Jesus and we play the lotto.

Like a bumper sticker, like a poor man's motto

Times are tough and our time is borrowed

So let's pray to Jesus and let's play the lotto

 

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