Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My next guest, Marc Ribot, has spent a lot of time in music studios with artists ranging from Elton John to Tom Waits to Elvis Costello and Robert Plant. Today, he's in WNYC's music studio to perform live from his new album, Map of a Blue City. It's the veteran guitarist's first album of vocal music, and it's been three decades in the making. He'll be celebrating the album's release with a show tonight at Roulette in Brooklyn. He joins me now to play a few songs. Hi, Marc.

Marc Ribot: Hi.

Alison Stewart: Would you start us off with a song?

Marc Ribot: Certainly will.

[MUSIC - Marc Ribot: Elizabeth]

Take back your black leviathan

your “Tiger Tiger burning [burning] bright”

And let this gentle creature

breathe through earthly lungs another hour.

That’s how we prayed around your bed.

As your frail heart beat out its last tattoo

Until the morphine could no more

And we sat weeping in our impotence.

So Yitgadal v’yitkadash.

That’s just the way it is V’yitnasei.

And so we laid our fathers down.

Where swiftly flows the gentle Garden State.

Oh parkway, river of lost souls

Commuting onward through eternal night

Remember one who drove like you

And now lies dreaming in Elizabeth.

Alison Stewart: You're listening to Marc Ribot. The name of that song is Elizabeth?

Marc Ribot: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Could you tell us a little bit more about it?

Marc Ribot: Elizabeth refers to the town in New Jersey, Elizabeth, New Jersey, where-- The song refers to the experience of being with my father when he died. I hope it speaks for itself, but, yes, that's what it's about.

Alison Stewart: You grew up in New Jersey, right?

Marc Ribot: Yes, I did.

Alison Stewart: In South Orange?

Marc Ribot: Born in Newark, Orange, and eventually South Orange, yes.

Alison Stewart: Where'd you go to high school?

Marc Ribot: Columbia High School, the Cougars. That was the name of our football team, by the way.

Alison Stewart: My mother taught at Columbia High School for 30 years, Mrs. Stewart. She taught biology.

Marc Ribot: Wow. I think I was probably cutting that class.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Marc Ribot: I wasn't a very good student.

Alison Stewart: I warned you when we asked before. We were joking before. I was like, "I'm the daughter of a public school teacher. I'll keep you in line."

Marc Ribot: When I was leaving there, I remember the guidance counselor, when he heard that I actually got accepted into a college, he said they must have lowered their standards.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Got to love guidance counselors. What about being from New Jersey inspires you to write?

Marc Ribot: You mean like mad New Jersey stung me into poetry-

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Marc Ribot: -or something like that? Well, I don't know. Hey, look, the boss is from New Jersey. He writes some good tunes, so why not me?

Alison Stewart: [laughs] I understand the songs on this album date back to the early 1990s, right?

Marc Ribot: Way back. Some do. Some are more recent.

Alison Stewart: Where have they been hiding?

Alison Stewart: Well, in plain sight, really. I think when-- maybe it was in the press release or something, when it said I've been working on it for 30 years. That's a slight exaggeration, the working part. It originally started out as some demos that I figured, "Okay, I'll record these tunes and then get some rock star to cover them and I'll make $ million." Then I eventually realized they were probably too weird for anybody to cover them. Then I started to try to put it out myself. Anyways, whenever I encountered an obstacle, I quit for three years and then eventually picked it up again.

Alison Stewart: Three years, specifically? [laughs]

Marc Ribot: Each time, it added up after a while, but eventually, Hal Willner heard some of them and liked them, and we did a series of sessions. For reasons, I can't explain because I don't quite understand them myself. I didn't want to put out what we had recorded. I loved some of it and others I didn't love. I decided to think about it for a while, and the while turned into 10, 12 years. I did the classic thing that I'm always advising other singer-songwriters who I work with not to do, which is don't fall in love with your demos, but I had done that.

Anyways, the whole thing got shelved so many times and picked back up. Eventually, a producer, Ben Greenberg, heard them and he told me, "Look, you should put this out." I said, "Yes, but does it all fit on one record?" He said, "Yes, I'll make it fit." He's really a brilliant producer, and he did, I think.

Alison Stewart: You said that the songs were maybe too weird for other people to sing. Why are they weird?

Marc Ribot: I don't know. Ask the other people. On the other hand, if you know any rock stars who want to record them, you know my number.

Alison Stewart: Do you think that you wrote them knowing that you would sing them one day?

Marc Ribot: I didn't have any choice. [laughs] There I was, there they were. There was my Pro Tools, so I sang them.

Alison Stewart: You mentioned that Ben Greenberg was a good producer. Good producers bring out the best in their talent, whatever the talent is. What did he bring out in you?

Marc Ribot: He convinced me not to throw it in the garbage. That's what he brought out. Also, he did miraculous technological things, which, like I say, made these sessions, half of which were recorded in my bedroom and the other half of which were recorded in a very professional studio like this one, made them sound as if they were all in the same place, probably by making them all sound like they were recording it in my bedroom. Still, that's something.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking to Marc Ribot about his new album, Map of a Blue City. He'll be at Roulette tonight for an album release show. He's performing in our studio live. The title of the album was inspired by your daughter?

Marc Ribot: Yes. When she was like eight, she was really into urban design, and she would draw these maps of cities. She'd have the park and the child-friendly restaurant, and she'd draw the buildings and know who lived in them and their names of their dogs and cats and stuff. One day, she was working on a drawing that was all in blue magic marker. I said, "Why are you making a blue map?" She said, "Because it's a map of a blue city." I thought that was too good to let go.

Alison Stewart: Could we hear another song?

Marc Ribot: Yes.

[MUSIC - Marc Ribot: Death of a Narcissist]

I always believed

In the love of my life

I would find my reflection

My one true redemption.

So I searched all over the world

In every beautiful mirror

And in every reflecting

Pair of eyes

Looked way up the mountaintop

Way down in the beautiful valley

In the cold, deep well springs of suburbia

Many times I thought I found her

Many times I was disappointed

But I never stopped looking for the love of my life

Then one day I found

The love of my life

And I stared into the deep

Pools of her eyes

And I saw, yes I saw

I could see I could finally see

Revelation reveal the deepest secrets of our souls.

But this did not make me happy

In fact, I was disgusted

So I ran away

And I never looked back

So when you see me standing here

I’m really running

And when you hear me sing the song

I’m really running

I lead a life of quiet desperation

And that’s the way it is

As long as time

And time itself keeps running

Keeps running

I'll keep running baby.

Keep running.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Marc Ribot. The name of that song is Death of a Narcissist?

Marc Ribot: Yes.

Alison Stewart: It's different on the record.

Marc Ribot: Oh, yes, it's very different. Everything is completely different on the record. I have a horror of doing the same song the same way twice.

Alison Stewart: Why is that?

Marc Ribot: Oh, I don't know. Did you ever see that movie Nashville?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Marc Ribot: Remember the first scenes where-- what's the actor's name? He's so great. He plays as the country singer in that. You hear him doing eight takes of this horrible tune, trying to crank up the same emotion in the same place. I don't know, it's everything that's terrible about music in that one scene. I just didn't want to be him.

Alison Stewart: You are playing a guitar, though, that looks like it has been played before.

Marc Ribot: That's true. In fact, the guitar is from, I think, 1928 or something, but most of the damage on it is from the 30 years in which I've owned it. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Tell me a little bit about that guitar, because you said it's one of your favorites.

Marc Ribot: It's a Gibson. It's a HG-00. HG stands for Hawaiian guitar, which is from the Hawaiian guitar craze of whenever it was, a long time ago, but it was turned back into a guitar from-- It was originally a Dobro. It's turned back into a guitar. I don't know why it's my favorite, but it is. I played another one that was same year, same make, and I didn't like it at all. This one's got that something.

Alison Stewart: It sings a little bit.

Marc Ribot: Yes, it does. It definitely does.

Alison Stewart: When you were writing these songs over these years, did they always have vocals that went with them?

Marc Ribot: Yes. My process in working on these things is like, I get more and more upset about something, and then just at the point where I could be writing it as an angry letter to the editor or to some unfortunate other person, or I could jump out the window, then it might come out as a song. The music and the words kind of appear at the same moment.

Alison Stewart: When you decided to sing for this record, what did you notice about your voice?

Marc Ribot: I noticed it was terrible. [laughs] That's what I noticed right away. An impression that was quickly confirmed by-- what was the name of the critic who wrote-- Because I actually haven't seen--

Alison Stewart: Critic Schmittics.

Marc Ribot: Yes. I mean, where would we be without them?

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Marc Ribot: Was it-- Anyways, since I can't remember his name, I would love to remember his name. A typical review, because I've sang a bunch of tunes with Ceramic Dog or my other bands that I've recorded. Usually, there's a vocal or two on there. One review that was kind of typical said, "Whoever told Ribot he could sing should be shot." [laughs] Now here I am singing. I don't see myself as a singer, for that matter, a guitarist. I see myself as somebody who wants to say something, and this happens to be the closest weapon at hand.

Alison Stewart: Do you like performing?

Marc Ribot: I do. I think I'm happiest when I'm playing guitar in someone else's band. I don't have to talk or sing or even look up.

Alison Stewart: How do you work on your performing? Because it is just you.

Marc Ribot: Well, I kind of don't.

Alison Stewart: Don't?

Marc Ribot: [chuckles] No. Sometimes I try to play the songs enough so I can hopefully remember most of the words. Before this, I was touring, and I tour a lot instrumental on this guitar solo and play for 90 minutes. On a good night, I don't even talk. I like doing that quite a bit. In fact, a lot of people talk about stage fright. I kind of have non-stage fright. That's the only time that I actually feel safe.

Alison Stewart: Is it hard for you to sing?

Marc Ribot: I don't know if it's hard for me to sing. It might be hard to listen to, but it's easy to sing. It's almost pretty much the same as talking, except you try to have some kind of pitch.

Alison Stewart: I want to ask you about a couple more songs on the album. There's a Carter Family cover on the album and a poem by Allen Ginsberg as well. How did these two songs-- Songs, yes. Why did they wind up on the album?

Marc Ribot: Well, you'll have to ask Ben Greenberg that. We started with a bunch of tunes and we whittled them down to the ones that are on there. In fact, there was another one that was supposed to be on there, which was a version of a Serge Gainsbourg tune, La Noyée. That whittling was done by-- Oh, it was Warner Brothers Pictures, God bless them, would not give us the rights. Some nameless bean counter at Warner Brothers Pictures decided that they didn't want my version.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Marc Ribot. First of all, I like the sound of your voice.

Marc Ribot: [chuckles] Well, thank you. So does my mom.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Is there anything you want to tell us about Map of a Blue City before we go?

Marc Ribot: Well, be the first kid on your block to own a copy. I'm glad I did it finally. I'm grateful to-- Well, I wish Hal was here, Hal Willner was here to thank and Ben Greenberg is here to thank, and also Mary, my manager, who kept pushing to make it happen.

Alison Stewart: Marc, thanks for joining us.

Marc Ribot: Thank you.