today’s audio is a demo of my song, “the business of show” that i made in the summer of 2020. i was deep in the writing of what became my 11th album, KISS OFF KISS, though i didn’t know it at the time. that summer, i was simply showing up for my weekly songwriting game and not getting too in the weeds about what i was writing. i remember the prompt was “SHOWERED INTO ORDER” which means i have no idea what. but as i wrote, i started to think about how it’s so validating to receive applause. it does something to us. we stand up a little taller, a smile might part our lips. for me, it makes everything feel right. and orderly.
the song ended up being about the first moment i knew i had a crush on the person that KOK is about. the moment when i realized that i was very excited, too excited, to see them after the show. i raced through my post-show business just so we could… talk. that’s usually how i know. when there is someone i just cant stop talking to.
as a side note, when i decided this song belonged on KOK, i took out the awkward phrase “showered into order”. i think it used to sit in the spot where the lyric now says “of a spotlight’s glare on me”.
for every song on KOK, i made a pretty complete demo where i play all the parts. it’s just how i do things. it helps me see the big picture of the song, and eventually, the album. it’s also lots of fun.
when we went to the studio to make the record, we started by using the guitar, bass, and drum parts i had written on the demos, then changing or embellishing them as needed. i thought it would be fun for y’all to hear how “the business of show” changed in the studio. and, in a twist, if i remember correctly, because the demo and the studio final were in the same key and tempo, i think we used the demo vocals for the final.
the end of september marks the one year anniversary of KOK’s release. starting last week on social media, i’ve been posting a few behind the scenes photos from the making of the album, the video shoots, and from tour. it’s been an interesting exercise to revisit the album and its release, bringing up feelings that have been buried for the last year.
behind the scenes of the “Go Along/Get Along” video
for many reasons, the fall of 2021 feels like a hundred lifetimes ago. there is of course the phenomenon of pando-time, which i think we all take for granted now. but remember in the fall of 2021, we had yet to experience omicron, we were still in the throes of delta, the deadliest time of the pandemic still lay horrifyingly ahead. people were still wearing masks (!) and still trying not to get covid. how times have changed. last week when i flew home from my first week at the university of chicago, i could count on one hand the people i saw wearing masks at midway.
secondly, of course, carl arrived in december of 2021 and completely changed my life. my exercise routine, my sleep schedule, my travel have all changed fundamentally because of my giant puppy. fun fact: carl and i have the same birthday. the exact same day! and in two weeks, he will be 1, and i will be 45.
the final reason that the release of KOK feels so far away to me now is the most fundamental, i have truly left behind the mindset and hustle that are required to make a record, release it, and tour it. my artistic life has taken on a different shape. i am working on a few long form composition projects that may or may not ever see the light of day, by my choice. i’ve got a routine and regular production schedule around this newsletter podcast. and as i mentioned, i just finished my first week at chicago making a new experimental musical. to be in a room making theater with fantastic collaborators is a sublime pleasure and vastly different than hauling your shit around in a van and hoping people come. it is vastly different from scraping out your insides, making them danceable, then hoping people will pay attention.
typical morning at the studio…
… self-explanatory and available in my store
this last bit is the part that feels most foreign now and was most painful a year ago, the defining experience of releasing and touring KOK: the vulnerability hangover. whether you call it this or not, we’re all familiar with the feeling. maybe at a party, maybe at work, maybe with a friend, you drop your armor, you jettison strategic thinking, and you share something incredibly personal in an environment that may or may not be appropriate. the next day you wake up and you wonder - was that a mistake? can i take what i said back? have i taken something precious to me and made it less so? no matter how you answer any of those questions, you can’t put the tree back up in the forest. somebody heard it fall, and the vulnerability hangover strikes again.
hey yall! popping here to take our usual break. if you’re enjoying what you’re hearing , why not tell a friend? sharing this podcast essay thingy with other folks is the best thing you can do to support it.
also, if you aren’t already, please consider subscribing. subscriptions start at $5 and are a simple way to continue to support my writing and music when i’m not on the road. we’re coming up on a year of this substack, so if you subscribed a year ago, i hope you’ll consider re-upping for another year. thank you for your support!
and finally, i’ve got just a pair of in-person shows left this year, both in massachusetts. please check my website for details. however, there are quite a few productions of MISS YOU LIKE HELL arriving this fall and into 2023. please consider going to see one of them. it’s a great way to get to know and support your local theater communities.
let me say immediately, that sometimes these moments of vulnerability are profound and good for us. maybe even good for those around us. sometimes, by being vulnerable we cut through some bullshit that was holding us back. sometimes by being vulnerable, we help those around us to know us better and vice versa. sometimes by being vulnerable we foster connection. or we prove to ourselves that the world isn’t as scary a place as we imagined. we are brave, we are forthright, we are honest.
and yet. and yet!
you often see artists pitch their work as their “most vulnerable yet” or that the artist has put their “heart on their sleeve”. sometimes, it’s funny to me when people say this as if it’s unique or special. isn’t that what all art does? the very act of art is vulnerable. and if not the act, then certainly the showing of the art. but then i remember that i have found ways over the years to protect myself and shield my tenderest parts from being truly vulnerable in my art. this has been mostly self-preservation. in a public life, you cannot survive unless you hold something back for yourself. and as a singer-songwriter, people always assume your work is biographical, so over the years i have had some fun playing with this expectation.
yet, when i wrote the songs for KOK, we were in the first pandemic summer, with no blueprint for a way out. i was deeply enjoying the idea that i might never tour again. i wrote songs to please myself, with no thought to their audience. i was frank, i was petty, i was self-lacerating, i was specific. about a sexual relationship. which i think for obvious reasons, i have declined to address this clearly in my past art. a clever pun here, an obscure metaphor there. the tales were always there but they were blurred.
not so with KOK. in hindsight, a vulnerability hangover was inevitable. but of course i couldn’t see it at the time. when i decided to turn my summertime demos into an album, i was excited to work in a real studio again with a producer i had long wanted to collaborate with. we busied ourselves with amp sounds and drum parts and who would play what. i was focused on the technical demands of singing these songs, the musical challenge of creating backup parts and harmonies on the fly. i love that stuff. and it keeps me from feeling the feelings that i had when i wrote the songs.
not feeling a thing. nope. not a thing!
the full magnitude of my ignorance only came to face me when i had to start performing these songs live. for as heady as the studio is, being onstage is the opposite. you cannot be anywhere but there and you have to deliver every note and every word with the intention you had when writing it. if you do not, everyone, including yourself, will feel the deadness and drag.
i never imagined performing these songs and who the audience would be. these personal, explicit, very queer songs about my sex life. as it turned out, most of the time, these songs got played to rooms of people, fewer than everyone hoped, who weren’t expecting this amount of forthrightness. i don’t think you have to be queer to appreciate this record, but you might need to be ready to be uncomfortable. regardless of all that, i was not ready to make you uncomfortable. i grew up in the same complicated culture as my audience. sex, and queer sex for sure, are still sites of shame for people, including myself. trying to be funny about something like sex and being met with silence is excruciating. it’s no one’s fault, really, but let me tell you, it was the mother of vulnerability hangovers. a big bell i rung that could not be unrung.
as the magnitude of this struck me, with the release of the record imminent and a 30 date tour still ahead, i got pragmatic. i wrote a script that tied the songs together with humor and honesty about the vulnerability hangover. i made jokes. i warned the audience that there would be cussing. i tried to make them my co-conspirators in the awkwardness we were about to experience.
once i wrote this script, i did my show word for word the same every night. i’d never done this before, preferring to wing it or keep myself on my toes with a new setlist. but performing KOK as a script really helped me not feel like such a raw nerve or object of bewilderment to my audience.
i also started closing my eyes when i sang the KOK songs, especially when the audience was minimal, as it often was. this was also something i had also never done before, as it goes a bit against my personal ethos of being alert and connected and present onstage. but at some point when 8 people (or less) are staring at you as you try to sing about sex, you have to find a way, any way, through.
these strategies, time, and plenty of shows eventually dulled my terror with performing these songs. by this past spring i was even enjoying playing them and could appreciate their craft again. and as i revisit the album this fall, i am reminded how much i love this record - how it sounds, what it says, who i am on it. it was who i was then and i needed to share it. i also feel more than ever that my favorite way for you to engage with these songs is in these recorded versions, in all their sonic glory. that way you can laugh with me, rock out with me, relate with me, connect with me about all the personal and uncomfortable things, and i don’t have to be there.
x erin
ps - your requisite #carlcontent
what do you see big boy? half-eaten rabbit carcasses on the ceiling?? mmmm!
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
lizzo’s flute has an instagram!!
who knew there is competitive stone-skipping?
this article about hunter biden’s digital life and who has access to it will make you ill, but it’s very much worth reading.
maybe you’re like me and wondered why the pittsburgh steeler’s unique logo is the way it is. now i know. or maybe you are not like me.
it’s always a good season to be blessed by Prince.
wanna cry? pujols hits his 700th. i’m not a fan of The Machine or the cards, but i like a historic home run moment.
ok, here’s more long form cray cray. wow.
welcome to libra season!
sometimes i think it would be nice to be taller. but not like this.
i would cycle 800 miles for a croissant. wouldn’t you???
girl, i could have told you that claw clips were back!
UPCOMING SHOWS
Oct 14 - Pittsfield MA
Colonial Theater supporting legend/sister Susan Werner
TICKETS
Oct 30 - Cambridge MA
Atwood’s with Mo Pepin supporting
TICKETS
***
Nov 3 - 13 - Santa Barbara CA
Miss You Like Hell at Out Of The Box Theater
TICKETS
Nov 10 - 19 - Wilkes-Barre PA
Miss You Like Hell at King’s College
MORE INFO
Nov 17 - 21 - Richmond VA
Miss You Like Hell at University of Richmond
MORE INFO
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023
Jan 19 - Feb 19 - San Jose CA
Miss You Like Hell at City Lights
MORE INFO
Oct 14 - Nov 11 - Seattle WA
Miss You Like Hell at Strawberry Theatre
MORE INFO
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
vulnerability hangover