Maren Morris is a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum artist. She’s also won multiple country music awards, including CMAs for Female Vocalist of the Year, and Single of the Year in 2020, but her feelings about the country music industry are kind of complicated, as she discusses in this episode. She breaks down her song “Humble Quest,” which is the title track from her third album. It was produced by Greg Kurstin, who’s won the Producer of the Year Grammy more than once. The album came out in March, and hit #2 on Billboard country chart. But before “Humble Quest” was a title, Maren had to figure out what the words meant to her, and that’s where the song began.

You can buy or stream “Humble Quest” here.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

footnotes
Jimmy Robbins
Laura Veltz
Rich Hinman
Cardi B
Dua Lipa

Rick Astley is a singer and songwriter from England, whose debut single, “Never Gonna Give You Up,” became an international smash hit. The song came out in July 1987 and won the BRIT Award for “British Single of the Year.” It hit number one in 25 countries, and Rick Astley was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist. And then, 20 years after the song came out, it became a new kind of phenomenon, when the meme Rickrolling was born. Last year, the music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” passed a billion streams on YouTube. The song was written and produced by the production team Stock Aitken Waterman, who became hitmakers for artists like Kylie Minogue, and others. For this episode, I spoke to Rick Astley, and songwriter and producer Mike Stock, and the two of them tell the story of how “Never Gonna Give You Up” was made.

You can buy or stream “Never Gonna Give You Up” here.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

footnotes
Ian Curnow
Dee Lewis
Coral Gordon
Fairlight
Linn 9000
Rick’s high school band, FBI
Rick Astley on Top of the Pops, 1987
“Never Too Much” by Luther Vandross
Rick’s cover of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by The Temptations
RCA Records
Motown
Luciano Pavarotti
Bananarama
Mel & Kim
Dead or Alive
“Hotel California” by The Eagles
Never Gonna (emote)– Fortnite

Kevin Morby is a singer and songwriter based in Kansas City. He’s put out seven albums since 2013, including his most recent one, This Is a Photograph which just came out on May 13th, 2022. For this episode, I talked to Kevin about the title track from This Is a Photograph. It’s a story about his family, the pandemic, and memories of times that have happened — and times that haven’t happened yet.

You can buy or stream “This Is a Photograph” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

footnotes
Waxahatchee
Silver Jews – “We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing”
Sam Cohen
Nathaniel Rateliff
Cochemea Gastelum
Alecia Chakour
Nick Kinsey
Roberto Durán
Stax Academy