Remi Wolf is a singer and songwriter originally from Palo Alto, California. She’s been releasing music since 2019. She performed at Coachella in 2023, and has toured with Olivia Rodrigo, Lorde, and Paramore. Her second album, Big Ideas, came out in July 2024. I talked to Remi about how she and her collaborators wrote and produced the song “Soup.” How they used 80s gear to make 80s sounds, and how a fun anthem quickly turned into something pretty vulnerable.

You can buy or stream “Soup” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
solomonophonic – co-writer, bass
Knox Fortune – co-writer, synth
Carter Lang – producer
“Walking on a Dream”
Electric Lady Studios
DrumTraks
Korg M1
OB-8

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Sam Smith is a Grammy and Oscar-winning singer and songwriter from London, England. Their first album, In the Lonely Hour, came out in 2014. It went quintuple platinum in the US, and the biggest hit from that album is the song “Stay With Me,” which has over 2 billion streams on Spotify alone. For this episode, in honor of the song’s 10th anniversary, I talked to Sam about how “Stay With Me” was made. I also talked to Sam’s frequent collaborator, Jimmy Napes, who is an award-winning producer and songwriter as well. The two of them tell the story of how the song began, and how it turned into the hit that it became. And then, years later, how it changed again.

You can buy or stream “Stay With Me” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Tourist – co-writer, piano, organ
Earl Harvin – drums, percussion
Simon Hale – strings arranger, conductor
Jodi Milliner – bass
Elvin Smith
“Lay Me Down”
Disclosure
“Latch”
RAK Studios

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Fenne Lily is a singer and songwriter from Dorset, England. She released her first album in 2018, but I didn’t find her music until 2023, when she put out her third album, Big Picture. The album she released in between those two was one that got a little lost in the lockdown, when all her touring plans around it got canceled. All of that plays into the story she tells in this episode, about making her song “Lights Light Up” from that third album. I spoke to Fenne in front of a live audience at WBUR CitySpace, in Boston. Coming up, you’ll hear how the song evolved across different versions of demos and then in the studio, where she recorded it with Grammy-nominated producer Brad Cook.

You can buy or stream “Lights Light Up” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Joe Sherrin – guitar
Kane Eagle – bass
James Luxton – drums
Phil Cook – keys
Lucy Dacus
Saint Cloud – Waxahatchee album

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