What do you do when the music stops and there’s no dancing in the distraction machine? For Jenn Wasner, like so many of us, that was her pandemic year. She had become “incredibly adept at outrunning myself,” so when her life as a touring musician was paused and two relationships ended she realized that picking up the guitar was not going to bring peace. Jenn Wasner’s band Wye Oak, her collaboration with Andy Stack, is connoisseur-grade indie rock and her deep musicality has earned her spots on the Bon Iver and Sylvan Esso touring line-ups. She just released her best solo work as Flock of Dimes and the moving, evocative songwriter that has won over so many showed up in our interview. Even if you’ve never been in the spotlight, we think you’ll identify with Jenn’s poignant, often funny and piercingly true reflections on why we can’t let the outside give us our inside. Plus, you get a surprise detour discussion about the Enneagram. Get to know Jenn better: Flock of Dimes' Jenn Wasner: 'I became incredibly adept at outrunning myself' An instrument of healing with Jenn Wasner and Helado Negro - Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes, Roberto Lange (aka Helado Negro), Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy and saxophonist Joseph Shabason discuss music as a form of healing. Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST, hear uncut interviews, and keep it ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/ Join our free online community (it’s not a Facebook group!): https://www.tmstpod.com/
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
Jenn Wasner on Being vs. Performing
Hi. Laura here.
I stumbled upon today’s guest around 2008 when someone sent me a song called “I don’t feel young”. I played that track over and over and over - I guess I didn’t feel young at the time? - and fell in love with the female vocalist’s atmospheric voice and haunting lyrics.
Jenn Wasner is one half of Wye Oak, the band that recorded “I dont feel young”, and so many others songs that colored those early years of becoming a mother and coming to terms with my drinking. She’s also been part of some of my other favorites, like Bon Iver and Sylvan Esso. AND, she has a solo project called Flock of Dimes that just released a new collection of songs that I think are her best yet.
Jenn is, as they say, a musician’s musician, and I’m so excited to bring you this conversation.
Although I was very acquainted with her music, I didn’t know a lot about her as a person until I started prepping for the show.
I figured out pretty quickly how much we have in common - that we both struggle with slowing down and resting into the concept of “enough”...
that we both tend towards workaholism...
that we wear many different hats and how that can fracture our perception of ourselves as “real artists”, and that we both struggle with the performative nature of today’s culture, especially on social media.
I was definitely a bit intimidated going into this one. It’s the first musician we’ve had on the show and as a music lover, I hold musicians in this sort of Godly, way-cooler-than-me light. But we fell right in.
I’m excited for you to meet her - and then check out both HER music AND the totally amazing playlist she assembled for this episode. You can find the link to the playlist - and all the other ones we’ve created for each episode - on our show website at tmstpod.com
Enjoy.
[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: So, hey Jenn, so good to have you and to meet you. We've never even emailed or talked on Instagram or anything.
[00:00:07] Jenn Wasner: A cold podcast.
[00:00:08] Laura McKowen: A cold podcast.
[00:00:10] Jenn Wasner: It's always really cool. And I, when I hear that someone's a fan and not just my friend.
[00:00:15] Laura McKowen: Right. I was tracing it back and relistening to old Wye Oak stuff. I found Wye Oak in 2007, which was like, this is the time when I found all this music. It was like, I just remember that year so well, and I was also. Newly married and kind of disillusioned about that and just going through a really weird heavy time in my life. And I remember I was working at this ad agency at the time and just listening to If Children over and over and over and over and over again.
[00:00:54] Jenn Wasner: So you actually go way back. Wow. Usually people say like 2012 or 2014, but like that's, that's the earliest it goes really.
[00:01:01] Laura McKowen: I have this memory of sitting in, at my desk at the agency. And, um, there was a video of you. Singing I Don't Feel Young in the back of a Yaris.
[00:01:13] Jenn Wasner: I remember.
[00:01:14] Laura McKowen: Yeah. I went to look for it and it's down.
[00:01:17] Jenn Wasner: Thank God. I don't need to be shilling for Toyota for the rest of my life.
[00:01:21] Laura McKowen: You two were crammed in the back. It must, I think it was in at South by Southwest or something.
[00:01:25] Jenn Wasner: It was very much at south by Southwest.
[00:01:27] Laura McKowen: Oh, okay. You're like, yes, I remember. You were crammed into the back of this tiny Yaris singing that and it was, I don't know. I loved it so much. I, I think I watched that like 600 times, but anyway, that song in particular, I listened to this morning. It was like, oh my God. I just remember. Being in that space that I was in. A whole different life.
[00:02:18] Jenn Wasner: That's so wonderful to hear. It's so interesting because I feel like being a songwriter in particular, it sort of forces you to contend with all of these previous versions of yourself and that, you know, 2007, I mean, God, like who was that? You know, like who was that lady? But at the same time she lived, she, she did what she did.
[00:02:40] And like, she, I guess, like reached people. I think I'm getting to a point in my life where I'm able to through my own shame and embarrassment enough to be able to look back on those things with love and compassion rather than just like, oh God, look at what I was wearing. Or like, that's, you know, I wouldn't write that song now or whatever it is.
[00:02:59] Um, so that's all to say, thank you. And, um, I'm really glad I was, you know, you always wonder who's going to watch this. And like, now I know.
[00:03:07] Laura McKowen: Now you know. It was some 29 year old in Boston whose heart was like breaking in a thousand ways and totally different life. That's when I was still drinking, I was like, that's when my drinking really picked up before I got sober and just, oh my God.
[00:03:24] So yeah. I want to talk a lot about what you just said, sort of the looking back, because you've written about that recently, you know, rereleasing Civilian and, uh, just your work on sort of, self forgiveness, but I have a different way I want to go in because like everyone else, 2020 was not what we expected, but I think you had a particularly stark plan versus reality.
[00:03:50] Can you talk about that as the way in?
[00:03:52] Jenn Wasner: Of course. So I'm a touring musician, obviously I've been touring for the better part of every year for over a decade. It's something that it's become baked into the fabric of my existence. I know no other way. And 2020 was poised to be no exception to that. I was working as much as I always did, which was too much.
[00:04:14] And a relationship had ended. I was embarking upon a new relationship that would later end during the pandemic. And I saw, you know, kind of right at the same time as all of these personal things were happening, my entire professional life, which also encompasses my whole identity and everything that I do and everything that I am, kind of just went away overnight.
[00:04:39] And I found myself here in North Carolina where I live, at home alone, and I didn't have any of the coping mechanisms that I would typically use. I couldn't go and over socialize and be around people all the time. I couldn't go on tour. I couldn't work. The only thing that I could really do was write and, you know, cry. I think what that, what that moment ended up becoming for me, even though I rejected it, I think with everything that I had, I was, I was, I resisted the direction that my life was going, but what I think I realized and what I'm, what I think is an incredible lesson that I'm still sort of trying to, to hold onto now as the world is quote unquote opening back up, is that so much of my anxiety like, my attempts to manage my own anxiety hinged upon this, this illusion of control.
[00:05:35] So like controlling my environment, controlling my schedule, like controlling down to minute, like what I'm doing with every day. When I lost that control or when that control that illusion of control, which I guess I really never had in the first place was taken away from me, I was left to sort of learn how to manage that anxiety in a way that I think is actually a little bit more authentic, because the reality is is that there was never any control to begin with. And it was working for me for such a long time that I thought that I had it right. Like, I really thought that I was, that I had everything just the way it needed to be.
[00:06:13] And I was in the driver's seat and it was all gonna go exactly according to plan. And of course it did not for anyone. And it did not on a number of levels for me go according to plan. Um, so kind of contending with that. I mean, heartbroken, trying to work my way through that grief and to the actual fundamental underlying grief, which is of course way deeper and goes away further back, which is like a whole other story.
[00:06:38] And yeah, I mean, I guess sort of trying to come back out the other side with some sense that I can live something resembling the life I used to live, but embrace the discomfort of not knowing and not being in control, which is to be honest at this very moment, quite overwhelming.
[00:06:57] Laura McKowen: I feel all of that so much. When you were forced to slow down and you, you weren't in constant motion, which is one of my favorite coping mechanisms.
[00:07:09] You, you noticed yourself making a meal for, you know, cooking a meal and sort of these boring moments of life where you realized you weren't performing life, you were just living your life and how wonderful those moments are, but how odd they are too, because you don't have an audience. How do you reconcile those two parts of you, like you need the performer and ostensibly we also need to perform as artists.
[00:07:49] I'm a writer, you're a musician. You have to . Perform outwardly to some degree to promote your work and all that everywhere. Everyone, whether you're artists or not, there's this performative element that seems to be overshadowing, just the living element. But then you, when you taste the living element, it's like, oh right.
[00:08:11] I'm a living person. And these parts of my life, this is where I, I feel like myself and I, it was like a returning in a way. I don't even know what the question is, but can you talk about that?
[00:08:25] Jenn Wasner: Oh yeah. I mean, I think, um, I think that it all comes back to me, because this is something I think about constantly.
[00:08:35] The constant need to be witnessed in all things scares me. That seeking of validation that we all have to varying degrees, whether it's in our one-on-one daily lives or in our social circles, or if you're a public figure, someone who does have a more public way of making a living, like for an audience, that need to be witnessed in everything feels really uncomfortable to me because there's so many parts of my life that I don't want to be witnessed, or I want to be the sole witness.
[00:09:10] I want to protect some sense of what is mine and what is for consumption outside of me. But what's really uncomfortable about that for me right now and I think probably for a lot of people, is that more and more people, even people who don't necessarily rely on social media for their job are being sort of conditioned to share every moment of their waking lives. And, and I think it, it kind of reinforces this need to be witnessed at all times and all things by another person, which I think alienates us from ourselves. You know, you mentioned that feeling of like, kind of being in my life and being my sole witness as a returning. But to be honest with you, I'm not even sure that I ever knew what it was to be with myself or who I was.
[00:09:59] You know, I grew up in an environment with addiction and a lot of codependency and a lot of like really intense, heightened, emotional caretaking for me, as, you know, as a young kid. I think I learned how to focus on trying to control my environment and be safe through managing people and getting the validation, you know, of course I can sit here and attempt to psychoanalyze myself all day and be like, and that's why I'm an artist. And like, you know, uh, of course it is. And also maybe it isn't. I think that I had gone on so long in that mindset of like, if someone doesn't see what I'm doing or what I'm making, or just something as simple as you know, I did this, I did that.
[00:10:45] I went to the store, you know, like even in relationships, it's like, um, the need to share with your friends or your partner. Like, I'm doing this now I'm doing this now I'm doing this now. And like, part of that is like a really nice way of feeling connected to other people, but, but there's like, there's like a line where it becomes about like, not being able to do anything without external validation, without being witnessed in like everything. So for me, it's like, how do I, uh, when I know that that's actually not healthy for me.
[00:11:13] And like for someone who considers herself to be like in recovery from codependency in many ways, like how do I engage with the hecka toxic music industry and every thing that it asks, which is to be able to constantly visible, to constantly compete for like everyone's attention at all times, and still be a happy, healthy, like centered person and still feel like I can be like centered within myself.
[00:11:41] And to be honest, I don't have an answer to that question. It's really hard. And a lot of the time I, when I really like rub up against it in a way that feels uncomfortable, my brain is immediately just like run away, like quit, go hide, which I don't want to do, because this is my only skill. And it's the thing I love more than anything in the world.
[00:11:59] So. Yeah. I don't know. I haven't really figured it out yet either, but I think about it a lot.
[00:12:06] Laura McKowen: I think about it all the time, all the time, because it's a paradox. Why I read is to, to connect to someone's experience, whether it's fictional or to, you know, it's to see something in myself or to learn something that I recognize in myself, or to share an experience that someone has written down, whether it's real or not.
[00:12:29] So the sharing element is part of arts and creating and yes, part of relationships. But I don't know, man, I recently I've had this like very dramatic relationship with social media for that reason, because I was someone who had an entirely different career. I was not a public person online. And then when I got sober, I started writing and all that, and it really shifted.
[00:12:56] And I've relied a lot on my sharing of my life, on social media to have a platform in order to be successful as a writer. And then there's this weird thing where you feel like your entire life becomes potential content. And so there's like a third person, a third entity in your life all the time going, should I share this? Is this material?
[00:13:18] Jenn Wasner: I think for me, my resistance to it is, is partially stubbornness. And, and just sort of like me wanting to put my foot down and be like, I don't want to do it. Like, I don't want to change. Like, I don't want to put on a show for these people and it's partially embarrassment, but I also think one of the things that I've been trying to push myself on with it lately has to do with a concept that I've been thinking about of, usually the thing we judge most harshly in other people is the thing, you know, we fear or judge the most harshly in ourselves.
[00:13:53] And so I think when I see myself looking at someone who's like really doing a great job, like putting together a really curated social media existence. And like, really just like nailing it and I, I feel resentment, like every time. It doesn't matter, even if it's a person that I know and love, like my reaction to that is kind of like an ew gross. Like no matter who you are, which is, I don't think that's how I really feel I feel or how I really want to feel. I think it has to do with my own shame around the fact that I'm, I struggle with it and I'm not good at it. And so I do think that there is a part of me that's like, like, I, I don't think that it's good. And I think that it's like breaking our brains and I think it's part of the reason why our society is so, uh, incredibly fractured and why communication has become so difficult.
[00:14:41] Laura McKowen: Yeah. I, I feel that, and I think where it gets scary is when you really don't know the difference between when you're performing and when you're not. Can you just experience a moment on your own and have that be enough? If you can't, that's that's a scary place. Do you have either friends in the industry or teachers or mentors that have helped you get the right perspective around what constitutes success for you when you, when you spin out, do you spin out?
[00:15:15] Jenn Wasner: Oh, I spin out. I mean, I spin out on the regular for sure.
[00:15:20] Laura McKowen: What does spinning out look like? Like what are the thoughts?
[00:15:23] Jenn Wasner: Um, spinning out looks like for me, I mean, it looks like a number there's a couple of different ways it can go. There's like the creative spinning out of, oh, you're a hack and you've compromised everything you believe in to participate in this industry that is inherently like evil and capitalistic and racist and bad, and like you're bad as a result. And the only good morally good thing to do would be to quit.
[00:15:50] But then what are you going to do for money? You don't have any other skills. You have no job experience. You dropped out of college, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's like one form of spinning out.
[00:15:58] Laura McKowen: That's a, that's a decent spinout. Okay.
[00:16:00] Jenn Wasner: Yeah. Yeah. And like the other form is I think is sort of more like pure, kind of less careerist version of that, where it's just sort of like, I'll never write a song again and all the songs I've ever written, aren't even really very good. And I'll never be as good as Joni Mitchell or like, whatever. I heard it, you know, like that sort of more like the Eeyore version that like, what was me like until you write a song you truly believe in your heart of hearts, you, and that you'll never write another thing again until you die.
[00:16:27] And then it happens and you're like, that happened, but again, no control, no control. To think the thing that I do, that I've done my whole life, that I love so much, that I've worked so hard to get good at, and I still have no control over whether I can do it, when it happens, how it happens. It's crazy. But yeah, those are my two forms of spinning out, happens a lot.
[00:16:46] Uh, I find that more so with every passing year, the way that I want to exist and how I want to sort of like walk that line between art and commerce becomes more and more difficult to hold. Because I don't, I don't consider myself to be an entertainer naturally, and I don't want all the attention and I don't want all of the money.
[00:17:12] What I want is a sustainable life. And what I want is for the things that I make to feel as though they are authentic and that they're reaching the people they're meant to reach and that they are in some way bettering the quality of someone's life somewhere. I often think if I wasn't, if I was, if I didn't have any musical ability, what would I have done with my life?
[00:17:36] And I often come back to like, I'd probably be like a therapist or some sort of like healer, some kind of healing practice, because I really do feel like that is the number one motivation behind the music that I make. It's it's healing for me, but it's important that I offer it up to others to like complete the circle of like, why am I here?
[00:17:57] I do feel really lucky. I have a lot of really wonderful, um, brilliant, supportive and thoughtful friends. I mean, even just the other day, I was spinning out pretty hard. Um, and I had a chat with my friend Meg Duffy who makes music under the name Hand Habits. And they're amazing. They’re such an incredible person and brilliant.
[00:18:16] And, you know, we had the same conversation of like around what does success look like? And I was kind of on this tip of like, I'm going to become gradually increasingly more and more irrelevant and fewer and fewer people are gonna care about what I do and I'm not going to be able to make a living and then I'll just die.
[00:18:32] And, you know, just being able to say those thoughts out loud is really helpful. And, and, you know, Meg and I talked about how crazy it is that, you know, we are among some of the luckiest people on earth when it comes to the opportunities that have been presented to us, to like share our music with the world.
[00:18:49] And it's still really hard. Like I'm still fighting for a way to figure out how to book a tour, that isn't going to lose thousands of dollars. I want a tour. I want to go out into the world. You know, I want to bring my band to all the cities and play for all the people who want to see me. You started crunching the numbers and it's just like, shit's expensive, man.
[00:19:11] And it's like, so it's frustrating to be like, I'm so lucky. I have, I have so many advantages and privileges that so many people do not have. And this still sometimes feels unsustainable or like, it's not going to work. It's not going to happen. It's not going to fly. And I've managed to kind of like make it work for the past 15 years. So when it's like, well, if it's worked so far, you kind of have to like take a deep breath and have faith that you'll be able to keep going, but it doesn't always feel there are days when it feels less possible than other days.
[00:19:45] Laura McKowen: Well, it's back to the control thing. We started this conversation with me talking about your music in 2007, which was 14 years ago.
[00:20:00] And I can listen to it. I can say now that listening to, I Don't Feel Young, that whole album, If Children like that got me through. You did what you wanted to do. You did what you set out to do. So I'm wondering if it's a matter of, cause I know this is true for me, just not being able to really feel that no matter how many people tell you that, because I'm sure there have been hundreds, if not thousands over the course of your career, just not being able to feel that and letting that reach you, you feel the, the despair or the negativity or the negative feedback so much more?
[00:20:40] Jenn Wasner: Oh yeah. No, that's huge. I mean, I think, um, that's part of what about this past year has been so transformative for me, um, is that I think this is the first time with this record that I made, um, which is called Head Of Roses. What makes it different is exactly what you're talking about of like being able to feel into my body the first time, you know, I spent a lot of time this year trying to learn about how the body carries trauma and processes it, and, you know, understanding that this, this numbness that I have is a protective impulse that I developed pretty young to, to shield my sweet, sensitive heart from pain. And I never realized that it, that it was there or that I was, that I was disconnected from the way that I was feeling, because it was, it was working, you know, I was like functioning. I was very high functioning and I was, I was moving through the world and I was, you know, doing the work that I had to do.
[00:21:44] I think in many ways, my workaholism was a distraction from the possibility that I could feel my feelings. But then, you know, this year hit and I couldn't, I couldn't resist. It was, there's there was, there were no distractions from that experience anymore. I definitely agree with you that, reissuing Civilian, and I'm thinking a lot about that time of my life.
[00:22:02] And in many ways, that was like a real peak. That was a peak of our career, you know, with me and my bandmate Andy in Wye Oak, that was like the moment where things were getting kind of zeitgeisty. And we were like getting a lot of feedback and popping up in a lot of places. And I was miserable and I didn't care. I didn't feel any of it. That was probably the saddest I've ever been and healthiest I've ever been.
[00:24:30] What a gift to get the things you wanted and realize that it's not it. You know, what an incredible gift to be like, well, what now? Because some people don't get the, you know, they don't, they're just constantly thinking that they can reach that place instead of going where you need to go, which is like in here listener I'm pointing to my heart in here, you know, it's, it's, it's inside.
[00:24:58] Laura McKowen: Yeah. But until you experience that, it's just words. Like, I think it was Jim Carrey. I've brought this up before who said my wish is that for everyone is that they get everything they wanted. So they realize that's not going to make them happy. It's not where it, where it's at. Right, there is no, it, there is no it,
[00:25:19] Jenn Wasner: I love that quote. Yeah. And man, did I learn that lesson this year? And it has been, I mean, of course it's been a very, very difficult and very, very painful year and a half at this point. And for so many people to varying degrees so much worse than what I've, what I've dealt with. I've led a very privileged pandemic existence in a number of ways, but you know, everyone's dealing with this collective trauma and fear and grief.
[00:25:51] It's been hard, but to have everything that I thought was the, you know, the framework of my satisfaction and happiness kind of collapse and like have the rug completely pulled out from under me and to think, oh, well I guess this means I'll be miserable now forever. And then to have slowly a completely different experience than the experience that I was expecting to have, where I just kind of revealed layer after layer of myself to myself.
[00:26:23] Laura McKowen: How did you do that? What, what happened? Like, like slow it down a little bit, because I feel like this is really important. Cause you were going to go on tour, right?
[00:26:32] Jenn Wasner: Yeah. I mean, I was supposed to go on tour with all of the bands that I tour with. I was supposed to tour with Wye Oak, I was supposed to tour with Bon Iver, I was, you know, I had a whole year. That's the nature of my work is that it's pretty diverse. Like I work for a lot of different people and I also make my own music. I mean, it happened very slowly because for months I was just miserable and it was woe is me and my life is over.
[00:26:52] Laura McKowen: And like at the beginning of 2020?
[00:26:55] Jenn Wasner: Yeah. Like a, you know, March through June. I mean, I'm a big creature of routine. I didn't stop making my to-do list. I, and I still do this. I make a daily to-do list. And even if the things on the to-do list are like, wake up, meditate, eat lunch, you know, even if it doesn't necessarily need to be written down and checked off, like the sense of structure feels really important to me. So I, you know, I made a schedule. It usually involved. Yeah. Like I, I had a meditation practice and a yoga practice. Exercise is really important to me, yoga in particular because, um, I have a really amazing, uh, yoga teacher who I adore, who, um, has given me an incredible gift of understanding yoga to be a practice that is not aspirational and not about exercise, but it's more about like the spiritual experience of like feeling pleasure in your body.
[00:27:53] I usually would take a really long walk. I spent a lot of time alone. I journaled I read a lot and I played music. And another thing that I did a lot of this year was I, you know, I feel like the workaholic part of my brain was like, this is your opportunity to get better at guitar. It's your opportunity to get better at all the things people pay you to do.
[00:28:14] But I didn't do that. I spent hours and hours and hours playing the drums, a thing that no one pays me to do, no one will ever pay me to do, but brings me so much joy. And like it's so physical, you know, it's like a full body experience to, to lose yourself in that, you know, to turn your brain off so that you're just kind of using all your limbs, you know?
[00:28:35] So I just kind of like, I learned to give myself things that felt good and not feel guilty about it. And in doing that, I learned what felt good, which is just sort of like, okay, what do you like, what do you like other than like, trying to micromanage other people's emotional experience? What are your hobbies and interests?
[00:29:00] Laura McKowen: What are you doing again? Emotional manipulation. Yeah. As you're talking, I'm like, this is what it's like to get sober. Yeah. This is what it's like. And, and I joked at the beginning of the pandemic, I'm like, oh my God. It's like, everyone's in a meeting now. Okay. So, so I get it. You, you kinda dropped, dropped into your body in a lot of ways.
[00:29:22] Jenn Wasner: Yeah. And, and my body sort of started to learn that it was safe to feel often, you know, I think when, when trauma is ongoing, you know, your body never like lets its guard down enough to actually feel your feelings. For awhile like, you know, I'd be going about my business and then it'd be time to do my meditation practice and I'd sit down and I'd start breathing.
[00:29:46] And then within 30 seconds I'd be crying, you know? And I couldn't have necessarily gotten there just by going about my day. I would have just been, I would have been in my head and not in my body, but you know, that had happened for many, many days in a row. And it's it's, this is the thing that's tricky too, is that like I had the luxury and the immense privilege of so much time, which is a gift that like not a lot of people have access to.
[00:30:14] Laura McKowen: Or not a lot of people choose either. You know, they, they, they wouldn't choose it, even if they had it, right.
[00:30:19] Jenn Wasner: Choosing it is one thing, but like, it's just a privilege thing. Like a lot of people just, they have to work, they have to be out in the world.
[00:30:25] Um, it's a different, it's a different scenario and I, I do work, but unfortunately I had managed to kind of recalibrate much of my work to be from home. And also I had some savings, so I was able to get through it.
[00:30:38] Laura McKowen: I want to just turn a little bit so we can get to, um, some of the specific things that you've written about and this new album you weren't planning on creating this album in 2020.
[00:30:50] And, and you did, I think a way into this conversation is to just talk about two songs that I'm curious about and it's specific lines in them. You did two songs that you've released anyway from live from Betty's. What is Betty's?
[00:31:05] Jenn Wasner: Betty's is, is my home is paradise. It is, so my friends, Nick and Amelia have a band called Sylvan Esso, and they started a recording studio and sort of community space.
[00:31:19] Um, that's in the woods, uh, just a little bit away from where I live in North Carolina. And it's a beautiful space and it feels so open and peaceful and contained during the pandemic, I went there pretty much every day. We had a daily outdoor let's not go and lose our minds kind of happy hour called wine time that where we would sit on the porch and drink wine and look at the trees and sort of be in the presence of other people. And so that space in many ways has come to feel like, more like home to me than almost any other place.
[00:31:55] Laura McKowen: What a gift. And Betty's, what's the deal with the name?
[00:31:58] Jenn Wasner: Um, betty, uh, it was Nick's grandma.
[00:32:01] Laura McKowen: Oh, okay. I love it. Yeah. Shout out to Betty. We love Betty. There's two songs that you released live at Betty's.
[00:32:12] The recent Flock of Dimes album that you did Head of Roses and the two songs, well, the first one I want to ask you about is One More Hour. Which is stunning, by the way, I've listened to it like 12 times in the last 24 hours. It's gorgeous.
[00:33:12] The part of the song is, and I could do anything, but I wander in the world of you. Can I forgive myself for falling back into it. I'm paying attention now. I know there's nothing for it. If I could have anything, I'd take one more hour.
[00:33:30] Jenn Wasner: Yeah, that about says it, huh? Yeah.
[00:33:35] Laura McKowen: What is this? What is behind this song?
[00:33:37] Jenn Wasner: I mean, it's sort of a, it's a double edged, uh, sadness, sword. Um, part of it is part of it is mourning the loss of the world. And part of it is mourning the loss of a specific person, but in both cases, it is about the projection of fantasy of longing that was preventing me at the time from being present in my life.
[00:34:05] And I do think that having those moments of grief are really, really important, not just for people, but for like ever all of it. You know, it was mourning. It felt like at the time that I was mourning everything at once and in many ways I kind of was. And so it was just a, it was a song of like, of grief, of like letting go of mourning of missing of longing.
[00:34:26] And it was in many ways about a specific person. But I think in, in large part, it was also about the world itself, my life, the people that loved the thing that I love to do all of it, you know, and just thinking about the things that I took for granted. And like, I think there's also a line where like, the first chance I get I'll be running, you know, like it's so easy to sit in your house and be like, oh man, like, you know, next time when it's, when it's, you know, like we all did like, man, when I can go out to eat again, or I can go to the movies again, just you wait. And it's like, now we sort of can, or maybe, maybe not, but like I almost kind of don't even want to it's so confusing.
[00:35:08] Laura McKowen: It's so weird that push pull of like there is no going back to normal that that's gone and I've been working from home for a long time. And I liked a lot of the slowness of it. Again, very lucky, very privileged situation in the pandemic, not being a frontline worker. Okay. So the one line that I want to ask about, cause you talk a lot about forgiving yourself and other places recently and including a post that you wrote or piece that you wrote called, Don't Read This about rereleasing civilian. So you said can I forgive myself for falling back into it? So what, what is that? What's the forgiveness about there?
[00:35:55] Jenn Wasner: I mean, I don't think anyone's ever shamed oneself into growth.
[00:36:00] Laura McKowen: Correct.
[00:36:01] Jenn Wasner: You know, I think shame keeps us stationary and keeps us limited. And I think that real growth comes through accepting all the parts of yourself. Even the ones you don't, you might not love that much. Um, and looking at them with compassion and understanding why they're there and that where they came from, you know, and I am a person who, I held myself to an unspeakably unreachably high standard of perfection of optimization. Nothing was ever enough.
[00:36:33] I wasn't ever working out enough. I wasn't ever writing enough songs. It wasn't ever, you know, any moment that I wasn't capitalizing on the potential of was a moment I felt guilt. Yeah. It's dark. And I think a lot of people live their lives that way because that's partially conditioning and partially just a reaction to how difficult it is to be a person in the world.
You know, I think a lot of this sort of like self love, self acceptance stuff that you start, like, you know, on faith you're like, I think this is something I need to work on, but when you first dip your toes into it, it feels kind of silly. It feels uncomfortable, it doesn't quite fit, but it's one of those things that I think, um, I've grown into.
[00:37:20] And it feels real to me now. And I understand it in a way that I didn't before. And it's like you said earlier in this conversation where you'd be like, those are just words to someone until they experience it for themselves. It's tough because you know, you've, you go through an experience like that and you want to try and share it with people, but there's just nothing you can really do.
[00:37:40] Like people have to kind of come to it. They have to feel into it in their own time.
[00:37:44] Laura McKowen: I think the best thing you can do is write a song like that. I tried to, to write about what I've learned about that. And it reaches someone at the right time. They experience it. They have a moment of experiencing, not, not just thinking about it or hearing the words and they can experience that little bit of grace within themselves, that you also have to reach a point where it's just not going to work for you anymore to beat the shit out of yourself. You know, it, you have to just hit, you have to really hit the wall with that. Cause it'll carry you a long way.
[00:38:17] Jenn Wasner: Well, and it can't be conditional. Yeah. It can't be conditional. Like I think that was me. It was like, oh, well I'll love myself just as soon as I am X or, you know, like just as soon as I do this or just as soon as I look like this or, you know, then I will absolutely love and accept myself.
[00:38:33] Yes. It never ends. That's that's a dead end. You know, it can't be conditional. I am not a perfect person. I make mistakes. I hurt people without meaning to, you know, I have to love myself as the imperfect, flawed person that I am right now and I have to give myself the same grace that I give, I try to give the people I love.
[00:38:53] Right. You know, I try and talk to myself the way that I've talked to my friends and people I care about.
[00:38:58] Laura McKowen: There was a great Guardian article about you, profiling you. And it was really. Thoughtful and detailed and layered, and I will link it up in the show notes so everyone can get it. But you said that you had long confused self compassion with self optimization.
[00:39:19] Jenn Wasner: That's it. And it was like, yeah, it was like, self-love meant to me, it meant like out exercise seven days a week, you know? Not like, do you want to do this? Does this feel good in your body? Do you have the energy? Like, can you be okay if you don't or are you just going to shame yourself? I had it backwards. I had it all backwards for a really long time.
[00:39:41] Laura McKowen: And that's the thing. You have to have it backwards. We have to get lost. And then, and so lost that it work for us anymore. It sounds to me, I don't know how old you are. I think you're in your thirties.
[00:39:52] Jenn Wasner: Yeah. I'm 35.
[00:39:54] Laura McKowen: Yeah. I mean, I think you're right on time. I'm going to be 44 this month and I think this is one of the extraordinarily beautiful things about what can come with age is this running out of our self-defense mechanisms, which we beat the shit out of ourselves for, and also carry us a long way running out of those, those, this sort of container empties finally, and you're forced to find another way. And it's terrible news at first. It's terrible news.
[00:40:23] Jenn Wasner: Yep. It's there's no way that it's not going to be excruciatingly painful, right.
[00:40:27] Laura McKowen: That's right.
[00:40:34] Track that you released from live at Betty's is Two, called Two. And it starts. I want to be good and I want to mean it. Yeah. I, I stopped the song right there, which is like 10 seconds into the song, like, oh, okay. I have to ask her about that.
[00:40:54] Jenn Wasner: Oh, I love it. I love it. I feel like so few people actually pay attention to the lyrics. I put so much work into them.
[00:41:01] Laura McKowen: No, that's why I loved it. I don't feel young because it's really actually almost a little bit hard to hear all the lyrics in that song because of the way that you arrange the song. And I, and that's part of what makes it so atmospheric and beautiful, but you have to really listen.
[00:41:17] And this, this, the song, the lyrics in that song are just, it makes me cry when I think of it because they're gorgeous. They're stunning. You know, as a writer, I just I'm in it for the words. So I want to be good and I want, and I want to mean it.
[00:41:35] Jenn Wasner: Yeah. I mean, I think that there's this obsession for me, there has been this obsession with being seen as good. Uh, and that is not, man. I'm going to just go ahead and get real culty on you. So my friends and I are into this, um, this sort of, uh, personality, um, I don't even know how to describe it. It's called the Enneagram.
[00:41:57] Laura McKowen: Oh my God. You don't know. I know this. I have got years and years. Okay. What are you? Let's start. Let's go.
[00:42:03] Jenn Wasner: You want to take a guess? You want to maybe look to the title of the title of the song. You just,
[00:42:09] Laura McKowen: You are a two, okay. Okay.
[00:42:11] Jenn Wasner: I am a two. Yeah. I actually had a running joke. I have a running joke with my friends who I talk about the Enneagram with, that, um, when you look at my record, it's just twos, twos, twos, twos, everywhere.
[00:42:21] And, and then like the, the, like the chorus of that song, you know, to me is like, wow, what Enneagram type are you?
[00:42:27] Laura McKowen: I don't think the Enneagram has cult-y.
[00:42:29] Jenn Wasner: Some people do, but I don't. I love it. I think it's an incredible framework.
[00:42:32] Laura McKowen: It's an incredible, it's old, it's an ancient spiritual framework it dates back and it's, and it's also for the people who are scientific and mathematical.
[00:42:41] Nine is this . Extraordinarily meaningful number in mathematics right.
[00:42:46] Jenn Wasner: You know, you know, so wait, what are you? Will you share seven type with me?
[00:42:50] Laura McKowen: Yeah, I'm a seven.
[00:42:52] Jenn Wasner: Oh, you're seven. I have a really good friend. One of my good friends in my group is a seven.
[00:42:57] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Yeah. I'm a seven, uh, very, very, very seven.
[00:43:02] Jenn Wasner: I've been into this for a while and my friends are all into it with me and it's been really helpful, honestly.
[00:43:07] And I'm a two and, you know, the sort of reductive title is helper. So there's a lot about giving and helping and caretaking. Um, and I, but goodness, right. Getting back to goodness, I think it, you know, the, the vice of the two is pride, and twos want to be seen as good. They want to be seen. It's almost like the perception of goodness is as important as the, the actual goodness itself.
[00:43:32] And I remember listening to one of the guys who I like a lot. His name is Russ Hudson. He has a really good audiobook.
[00:43:38] Laura McKowen: Yeah. I've met Russ I've hung out with him many times.
[00:43:41] Jenn Wasner: I am so star struck. I listened to his most recent audio book and the chapter about twos he says there's nothing angelic about pretending to be an angel.
[00:43:51] And so much of the growth path is for me, I think is about like accepting that I'm flawed and accepting my humanity and letting other people see it. You know, letting people see my humanity, parts of myself, that aren't just not trying to paint this picture of this like perfect, good altruistic, completely unselfish human being, which is really just a form of manipulation at the heart of it.
[00:44:17] Right? Like that's the thing about the Enneagram that gets you. It's just like, you're like, oh no, they see my bullshit. That's my bullshit. You know, you're doing it even though you don't want admit to yourself that you're doing it. And so a big part of, I think, you know, that going back to what you originally asked, you know, I want to be good.
[00:44:34] I want to be seen as good. I want everyone to think that I'm good. I don't want to be flawed. I don't want to be imperfect. I don't want to let the cracks in the armor show. I want to actually like, believe in the things that I say rather than just say them, because I think that they're what people want to hear from me, which is people pleasing, which is, you know, another form of emotional manipulation.
[00:45:02] Laura McKowen: You had to do the full explanation was that's coming from the lens of an Enneagram two. And it's like, got it. Yeah. I want to be good. And I want to mean it.
[00:45:13] Jenn Wasner: This is great. Cause I was really, usually I have to sort of be careful how I talk about this. I think some people really reject to the idea of being reduced to a type, but I feel like Enneagram is extremely expansive once you dig into it, but, but like people will either warm up to it or not depending on how you present it. And no one likes being told how they are.
[00:45:33] Laura McKowen: No, I know exactly what you mean. Like anything we, if you go on Instagram and you search Enneagram, it it's awful because it's all pretty reductive and that's not useful. I found it helpful the most helpful in understanding relationships with other people. Like my boyfriend, like my friends, like my child, and it's fair that some people reject it, but I think any framework that for me, it helped me have more compassion for myself and the w what motivates me, why I do what the shit that I do. And it all comes from this beautiful place of just needing to get needs met and needing to be okay. However, you survive to make things okay for you.
[00:46:16] Jenn Wasner: Yeah. Whatever, whatever you need. Yeah. However you need it to get through the world, whatever you developed to protect yourself. I mean, I think one of the best things that I've learned from the Enneagram is that the same action from a different person means a different thing than it would mean if it were you, you know, and people are projecting meaning and telling themselves stories about people's behavior based on what it would mean if it were them, but it doesn't mean that because people are different. And I think just even such a simple premise as that has helped me move through the world, not making assumptions and telling stories about people's behavior based on just assuming that everyone thinks and feels exactly the way that I do.
[00:47:00] Laura McKowen: Right. And that if they just got it, that they would, you know, and yeah. It depersonalizes things which does decrease suffering, can get decreased suffering significantly.
[00:47:10] Jenn Wasner: It can decrease suffering. Yeah. And it's, yeah. It's like, it's a framework. It's either for you or it's not. I think people get caught up on, um, like with stuff like this, or like with astrology or like, they get really caught up on like, whether it's like real.
[00:47:23] And for me, I'm just like, well, if I'm learning something about myself, and others. I don't really give a shit if it's like, what does that even mean? Like, if it's giving me a context in which to like better understand myself in the world, then it's real enough for yours truly. Like, that's what I need it for.
[00:47:42] Laura McKowen: I agree. It's like archetypes, you know, you can argue whether archetypes are real. Could they be scientifically proven? No. We understand ourselves through story and in story, there are archetypes.
[00:47:54] Jenn Wasner: But what else is a song other than a story that we tell ourselves to better understand ourselves? Yeah. I mean, it's like, that's all I do.
[00:48:01] It's all I do. It's all I care about. It's just different, different versions of that practice of like telling yourself, like unpacking the stories that we tell ourselves about how we are and how we move through the world and how we relate to each other.
[00:48:11] Laura McKowen: And that's why I love music. It can be so singular in the way that I listened to the songs this morning and I was in 2007 as that version of me and it brings, there's so few things that can do that.
[00:48:25] Jenn Wasner: I mean, I think music is magic because it can be both, because you can express yourself with words, but you can also use the power of sound to reach someone, to like circumvent people's defenses and like reach them, like hit them where the healing needs to be.
[00:48:42] It's like definite emotional sorcery, the kind of music that I make, at least.
[00:48:47] Laura McKowen: This has been so great. It's different to go in totally cold, not having any real interaction with someone. And I loved every second of it. I just related a lot. So it made me very excited to talk to you and it didn't disappoint.
[00:49:02] Jenn Wasner: It's been a real treat. Like I said, I was very honored and touched that you reached out. I think what is most exciting about having it career in music is not necessarily trying to get as many new fans as possible, but like keeping the ones I have. And so when I feel like I'm doing that, like when I'm like, oh, the people who are also very loyal and, and are here for the things that I have to offer. And that means I can't even begin to say how much that means to me. I don't know what I'd be doing if that wasn't the case. So thank you for being one of those people.