Sarah Bareilles on Come See Me In The Good Light, Andrea Gibson, and Finding Her Way Back to Music

0:00 [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are. [SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, welcome to another edition of Kyle Mirth with, it's the interview series presented by WFPK at WFPK.org, consequence and the consequence podcast network, thanks for making it in we here for check it out the series, please do hit that subscribe button while you're hanging around.

0:40 [SPEAKER_03]: So you can get great new interviews just like this one sent your way every single week, Spotify, Apple Podcast, NPR, WFPK.org, [SPEAKER_03]: consequence YouTube for the video versions or anywhere you get your podcast from you can subscribe to Kyle Meredith with and please do leave the series of rating and review wherever you're listening from.

1:01 [SPEAKER_03]: We've had some great guests drop and buy lately including Gaden Mata Ratsu [SPEAKER_03]: He plays Dustin Henderson on Stranger Things. [SPEAKER_03]: We talk about the final season of the Netflix show. [SPEAKER_03]: Felicity Jones and Kerry Condon dropped in to talk about train dreams. [SPEAKER_03]: Their movie would Joel Ederton on Netflix.

1:19 [SPEAKER_03]: Abe Silvia, the showrunner and writer of Palm Royale discussed their second season on Apple TV. [SPEAKER_03]: Pearson Foday, who you've seen. [SPEAKER_03]: And the wrong Paris and a very merry ex-miss that's playing now on Netflix. [SPEAKER_03]: He dropped in. [SPEAKER_03]: We also talked with Audrey Nuna.

1:37 [SPEAKER_03]: She's one of the voices of the K-pop Demon Hunters band, Hunterx, Penelopean Miller, and Erica Christensen. [SPEAKER_03]: We're here to talk about after all the new indie film that they're in. [SPEAKER_03]: And Florence Welch, lead singer of Florence and the Machine. [SPEAKER_03]: Discuss her latest record, everybody's screen.

1:54 [SPEAKER_03]: That's what you get when you subscribe to the Kyle Mirath with podcast. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's me Kyle Meredith today. [SPEAKER_03]: My guest, the great Sarah Barrellis. [SPEAKER_03]: It's been a bit since Sarah's been on here. [SPEAKER_03]: But she's back to talk about executive producing the new Apple TV documentary comes to me in the good light.

2:12 [SPEAKER_03]: It follows poet laureate Andrea Gibson and their wife, Megan Foley, as they navigate an incurable cancer diagnosis with humor, honesty, and love. [SPEAKER_03]: Sarah [SPEAKER_03]: During her own period of grief pulled her toward the project at exactly the right moment how she and brandy Carlisle turned one of Andrea's poems into the film's original song Salt and sour and sweet and why collaborating on Andrea's words was unlike any songwriting she had ever done before She also chats about her upcoming album.

2:47 [SPEAKER_03]: It's her first since amidst the chaos in 2019 [SPEAKER_03]: Plus, Sarah is going to reflect on the healing power of comedy, while revisiting girls 5 ever, and hints, and hopes for more stories with the group down the road, all that and more. [SPEAKER_03]: As we talk about the documentary, come see me in the good light.

3:11 [SPEAKER_03]: It's Kyle Meredith with Sarah Barrellis. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so envious of your role. [SPEAKER_03]: They do the heavy lifting for me every time, like, so much better to look at this than, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you really put Prince right in the sweet spot there too, so. [SPEAKER_03]: It was literally built around him, honestly.

3:29 [SPEAKER_01]: My God, it's great. [SPEAKER_03]: How are you? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm good, I'm good, how you doing? [SPEAKER_03]: I'm well, it's good to see you, it's been, I was thinking it's been six years since we last spoke. [SPEAKER_01]: All right, to touch people once every six years. [SPEAKER_03]: That's the thing, that's what everyone knows about you, obviously.

3:44 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a brand. [SPEAKER_03]: It's you've got that market cornered. [SPEAKER_03]: I believe that's no, but seriously, this project that you're a part of this time Come see me in the good light. [SPEAKER_03]: What what an incredible film right what a Beautifully heartbreaking beautiful film that is more So so so you're the executive producer that's the place to start.

4:09 [SPEAKER_03]: How did you how did you get involved? [SPEAKER_01]: This feels like a total cosmic gift. [SPEAKER_01]: I ended up at Andrea's show in Colorado. [SPEAKER_01]: I happened to have been in Colorado during the time where they had those two shows that ultimately ended up being, I think, their final shows.

4:28 [SPEAKER_01]: They're featured in the film. [SPEAKER_01]: I went as a fan. [SPEAKER_01]: I was a fan of Andrea's. [SPEAKER_01]: I was a fan of technotarrows. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I went and got a ticket and just [SPEAKER_01]: happen to also run into Glenn and Doyle and Abby Wabak while we were there.

4:43 [SPEAKER_01]: So I had done their podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: We were not, you know, we didn't know each other that well, but it's like, I think I'm looking at you across the show right now and then then we spoke to each other and we talked about, sorry, my dog is no barking. [SPEAKER_01]: Um, we talked to each other about our love of Andrew's work and, um, and then a couple weeks later, I got an email inviting me to join the executive producing team for this film.

5:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't know there was a film, I didn't realize any of this was happening. [SPEAKER_01]: And it just felt like a tremendous gift when I got introduced to Andrew's work. [SPEAKER_01]: I just been going through a lot of grief in my own personal life, lots of friends and some other personal issues going on and I just have found their work to be so medicinal that I felt like any any way to have proximity to what Andrea was doing and anyway to like use whatever I have to help amplify their work was was a fast and furious yes.

5:49 [SPEAKER_03]: do you knew the weight of what the story would be? [SPEAKER_03]: Did you know that at the time? [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know until we were in sort of conversation around, you know, sort of like the nitty-gritty that, you know, when they started filming, they weren't Andrea Hadzad D'Arian, you know, you're going to film my death.

6:08 [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know the ends and outs of their diagnosis were exactly where they were in their health journey, but I knew that it was hard. [SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't really deny how palpable the resonance of Andrea themselves, but also their work was and continues to be in the world, especially being out of shell.

6:32 [SPEAKER_01]: I'd never been to a [SPEAKER_01]: poetry show. [SPEAKER_01]: I'd never gone to a spoken word show and it felt like a full-out rock concert. [SPEAKER_01]: It was like people were crying and, you know, saying lyrics back to Andrea on stage as if they were, you know, singing their favorite song.

6:50 [SPEAKER_01]: It was transcendent. [SPEAKER_01]: It was unbelievable. [SPEAKER_03]: They were one of those personalities, right? [SPEAKER_03]: That's just... [SPEAKER_03]: We, we were talking earlier today here and and and had brought up the entry had been here at WFPK here in the little came in one day head of a show and everything and for all the studios that we have here like that one still talked about you know just for this stuff that you're you're saying.

7:15 [SPEAKER_03]: And but then to go into it, you know, it was reading the production notes and maybe it was TIG or Orion, it said, you know, trying to figure out what to call this and I think they landed on a comedic love story about mortality, which is a pretty perfect. [SPEAKER_03]: the summary of it.

7:36 [SPEAKER_03]: So you get involved and eventually you do realize what this is all leading up to and then they say, can you write a song? [SPEAKER_03]: Is that, is that how it happened? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was sort of presented early on as a possibility. [SPEAKER_01]: I think they had always Ryan White, the director in Andrea, had always conceived of doing an original poem for the film.

7:58 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I think, especially once Brandi Carlyle and I were on the team, it felt like a pretty perfect baton pass to see, like, is there a world where Andrea's work gets? [SPEAKER_01]: to sort of live on in this other form to like to what it's sort of an interesting parallel of like watching them sort of transform and then watching their work transform as well.

8:23 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, after I watched the film for the first time, I was just [SPEAKER_01]: like speechless at the power and just how moving I found the intimacy of this portrait of Andrea and Meg's love and also Andrea's just ability to be devotional about life that finding that even in great pain there is still great beauty and in great tragedy there can still [SPEAKER_01]: So I just was really moved by their work and very quickly started kind of doing the jigsaw puzzle of this moving around the couplets and seeing what would rhyme and trying to make I knew Andrea wanted that end of the film, you know, that to people to leave the movie theater uplifted and hopeful because Andrea was all about.

9:21 [SPEAKER_01]: you know inviting people into their higher selves. [SPEAKER_01]: And so it felt right to write something romantic and hopeful and also sort of earthbound and gritty and you know hopefully we threaded the needle in their honor. [SPEAKER_03]: And we'll be right back right after this. [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back.

9:42 [SPEAKER_03]: It's Kyle Meredith with [SPEAKER_03]: When it's so interesting, you know, even taking out some of the contexts a little bit about how you write a song because here you are in a collaboration, not just with Andrew's words, but with Brandy as well, usually a collaboration, you know, you're starting from square one and that wasn't really the case with this.

10:01 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I don't know if there's much more to say about how the puzzle pieces come together, but you know, it is, again, an interesting way to write a song that I'd love to hear about. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was, it was interesting to sort of embark on that process that type of process because that, you know, that's not how I usually work.

10:19 [SPEAKER_01]: I also usually I'm writing my lyrics. [SPEAKER_01]: So it was interesting to start from this template where, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: there was a lot to work from and a lot to draw from. [SPEAKER_01]: And to be given like cart launch of just like, here's a bunch of incredible poetry. [SPEAKER_01]: What can you make from it?

10:40 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was really exciting. [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, brand. [SPEAKER_01]: I think I sort of did like a first draft and then sent it to Brandy and got her feedback and and she always has [SPEAKER_01]: really sage advice and wise kind of perspective. [SPEAKER_01]: So it was really helpful and then it was pretty quick.

11:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It was really, it was a fast collaboration and then we were scrambling to get it into Sundance. [SPEAKER_01]: So we got one version of the song done for Sundance and then we eventually got brandy on the song which was always the goal. [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, we both get to sing Andrea's incredible words and it will live on, which is just a beautiful gift.

11:24 [SPEAKER_03]: You all sound perfect together, by the way. [SPEAKER_03]: It's one of those things. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, how is it? [SPEAKER_03]: That not happened yet. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's uh... She is not hard to sing with. [SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell ya. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Where was that for you?

11:37 [SPEAKER_03]: You had mentioned a little bit. [SPEAKER_03]: So I do want to back up because the last time we talked to, as I said, was six years ago for your most recent record. [SPEAKER_03]: And you talked about this a little bit. [SPEAKER_03]: Another interview, too, is like you had been in a darker place.

11:51 [SPEAKER_03]: So had you already started writing before this? [SPEAKER_03]: Was this one of the things that kind of brought you back to writing? [SPEAKER_01]: I had started writing before this, um, it was, yeah, it's, you know, seeing Andrea and Colorado produced one of the songs, not just Salt and Saran and Sweet, but there's another song on my upcoming record that, um, feels...

12:15 [SPEAKER_01]: deeply important to me. [SPEAKER_01]: That I don't think would have happened, how do I not gone to see their show? [SPEAKER_01]: I feature Andrea on that song. [SPEAKER_01]: I had asked them to read an older poem of theirs, and so I've got Andrea's voice on the record, which is really meaningful.

12:33 [SPEAKER_01]: But this whole record is just [SPEAKER_01]: it's really my attempt at processing grief. [SPEAKER_01]: I've personally gone through a lot of loss personal loss over the last five years and I think the pandemic as like the larger context for just like [SPEAKER_01]: what the fuck happened, you know, like I think I've been one of those people that has not quite known what to say about what we're witnessing until now and it's become maybe my most personal record.

13:07 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I feel right that Andrea is a part of it. [SPEAKER_03]: It was thinking back too, because when we had that conversation, of course, no one knew what was on the way, right? [SPEAKER_03]: We didn't know where we were going through, and you were talking about, you know, working with T-bone and kind of the bucket list stuff, you never said this by the way, but I sort of got this feeling at that time.

13:29 [SPEAKER_03]: I remember thinking and talking about it, and that maybe this was going to be the last record for a while. [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know if that's just me projecting or whatever, but without knowing what you were going through, I wasn't really surprised that there was time in between until I learned about that stuff, you know, because selling records is hard, and you have this whole other life, you know, with film and television and Broadway and everything.

13:55 [SPEAKER_03]: Like, you know, hindsight's anything could happen in hindsight too, but do you think there would have been a follow-up record or was that sort of put on the back burner? [SPEAKER_01]: Gosh, it's so hard to imagine at this point, I just was so profoundly changed as we all were by going through the pandemic.

14:17 [SPEAKER_01]: I just don't, yeah, everything, all my perspective shifted. [SPEAKER_01]: And it stopped feeling so urgent to like, [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, add a record to the mechanisms so I can stay like, I just don't give a shit, you know, and I mean, like, what I really care about is making things I love that matter to me and apparently I just work very slow.

14:41 [SPEAKER_01]: I just can't do it that quickly. [SPEAKER_01]: So I just, I don't know, I guess, especially having law, I've lost now two of my very best friends over the last five years, and especially in light of mortality. [SPEAKER_01]: It just like who cares, you know, who cares. [SPEAKER_01]: I just care about making [SPEAKER_01]: music that matters to me and my deep hope for the music is that it resonates and I bring comfort to someone else and and I don't know yeah beyond that it's really it's so far out of my hands I can't even begin to like you know try to have any control over that it's illusion of control anyway and we'll be right back right after this welcome back it's Kyle [SPEAKER_03]: to do a record that is processing grief.

15:34 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, does the record bring you out to the other side? [SPEAKER_03]: Do you find the other side and then start writing the record? [SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, I think it's a little bit of both. [SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, it's that thing that music does, which I think poetry does too, which is why I think Andrea, I found Andrew's work to be so medicinal, is like music is also a medicine.

15:56 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that having a place to put some of these just really big feelings and huge life changing experiences, [SPEAKER_01]: even to scratch the surface of that and place it somewhere has been really helpful. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I'm still, you know, I think as so many of us are like processing grief.

16:19 [SPEAKER_01]: I think that we're culturally at a moment where I theorize that like that's a lot of what we see going on is that people don't know what to do with their pain and so it comes outside ways. [SPEAKER_01]: And so hopefully [SPEAKER_01]: tool to help, you know, touch your own pain and know that you're not going to disintegrate beneath the weight of it, that, like, you can hold it.

16:48 [SPEAKER_03]: What an idea, mass grieving as a society, without anyone putting the magnifying glass on and saying, this is exactly what happened, I mean, I didn't really thought of it like that. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, how long does it take? [SPEAKER_03]: You know, a decade? [SPEAKER_03]: You're right?

17:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I think what it takes is community. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we're up against a huge hurdle because culturally we are not only, we're given so many opportunities to stay alone and on our screens and not in space with other bodies that I think grief in particular is an incredible teacher around this.

17:35 [SPEAKER_01]: So to really like metabolize the experience you need other people and so maybe we're just being taught how much we need each other. [SPEAKER_03]: That's saying they're buying to this or, or don't, but there's the, the, the future is rate Kurt's while who had made some predictions about by 2030 one or two, we would be more of the utopia sounds hyperbolic, but, you know, more towards that society that a lot of us dream about because we would have to go through something and that was before we went through something, you know, so, definitely seem like we're still going through something.

18:13 [SPEAKER_03]: Bye. [SPEAKER_03]: You have a few years to get there. [SPEAKER_03]: If you're just sort of delts, I'm a hopeful person. [SPEAKER_01]: I believe in the goodness of people more than not. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think there's still a lot of wonderful people doing wonderful things in the world. [SPEAKER_03]: You're self-acluited by the way, and we've talked a lot about music, but even something like Girls Five I've had, and the comedy that you put out into the world, you know, now really considering at a time, I love these past few years.

18:43 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Kudos to you for making one of the funny issues that has existed. [SPEAKER_01]: I agree. [SPEAKER_01]: I can't I can't take no credit for it. [SPEAKER_01]: I that actually, you know, we shot the first season in the fall of 2020 and my best friend had just passed away. [SPEAKER_01]: And that forever will be like one of the more sacred experiences of my life, not only because it felt so incredible to get to go to work with other people.

19:11 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like we were all, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: basically on house arrest like no one could leave their houses and so we got to go to work with other people every day. [SPEAKER_01]: It was just such a gift. [SPEAKER_01]: But then I will never, it taught me how unfrivileged comedy is, how important, how, again, medicinal it can be and it was it's life saving at that time for sure.

19:35 [SPEAKER_03]: I had Renee, Renee Lee's ghostberry on recently because she put out a record which you wrote a great song for and I badgered her about there needs to be more story, there needs to be more story to those characters and she mentioned something about maybe at a mall in 10 years we can get a reunion.

19:53 [SPEAKER_01]: We're just getting older and older and older. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm into it, I'm just doing it. [SPEAKER_03]: And malls keep going further and further away but still you find one. [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, man. [SPEAKER_01]: What's great? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm into it. [SPEAKER_01]: Assign me up. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll sign the contract today.

20:07 [SPEAKER_03]: Just need the story and the people. [SPEAKER_01]: Ah, that's fine. [SPEAKER_01]: We'll figure it out. [SPEAKER_03]: Think it happened. [SPEAKER_03]: In the meantime, salt then sour then sweet is such a beautiful song. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm already playing here in town and I cannot wait to hear what the rest of this record sounds like.

20:25 [SPEAKER_03]: So, the next year thing, are you allowed to say any of that? [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I'm hoping it's next year. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I have to I've got a couple more days in the studio next week. [SPEAKER_01]: It feels like there's I feel like the record at this point is still like missing a song, but I don't know what it is yet.

20:38 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm still kind of trying to get it all ship shape. [SPEAKER_01]: But um, yeah, my major goal is to get it out next year and get on the road and go start singing songs for people again. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, hopefully we can talk about that record then, too. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Congratulations, uh, come see me in the good light, being a part of this whole thing.

20:58 [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, what a wonderful project. [SPEAKER_01]: So I agree, thanks so much for highlighting it. [SPEAKER_03]: My thanks to Sarah Burrellis. [SPEAKER_03]: You can also find our previous chat that we alluded to in 2019 in this series as well to search for Kyle Meertith with Sarah Burrellis. [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks to you for checking out the episode.

21:15 [SPEAKER_03]: Hit that subscribe button before you get out of here. [SPEAKER_03]: So you get new interviews just like this when every single week. [SPEAKER_03]: It's Spotify, Apple Podcast, NPR, WFPK.org, consequence, YouTube for the video versions or anywhere you get your podcast from. [SPEAKER_03]: You can subscribe to Kyle Meertith with.

21:29 [SPEAKER_03]: And please, to give this series a rating and leave her a review while you're at it. [SPEAKER_03]: After that, you can head over to wfpk.org. [SPEAKER_03]: Right to a show, Monday through Friday, starting at 6pm Eastern, 4 hours of classics from the 80s and 90s, you get the best in new music, their bonus interviews, lots of music news as well.

21:48 [SPEAKER_03]: In fact, one of my recent shows featured some classics and favorites. [SPEAKER_03]: from Julianna Hatfield, Pixie's Robin Hitchcock, Giant Sand, Elton John, St. Paul in the Broken Bones, O'Crow Medicine Show, Rianna Giddens, Jessica Lee Mayfield, Pearl Jam, John Coltrain, Leon Bridges, Nora Jones, David Bowie, Prince, and my interviews with Amy Berg who did the new Jeff Buckley documentary.

22:11 [SPEAKER_03]: Jewel and actress Elizabeth Perkins from big and weeds, etc. [SPEAKER_03]: That's what you can hear when you tune in weeknight, starting 6pm, Eastern at WFPK.org. [SPEAKER_03]: Consequence has your music and film news, you can also find me on any of the social media sites, the addresses always at Kyle Meredith, please do like and follow along.

22:30 [SPEAKER_03]: And that does it for another edition, I'm Kyle Meredith Al, see you next time. [SPEAKER_02]: Consequence podcast network. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Kyle. [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are. [SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org from Louisville Public Media.