Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth

This week, I wanted to go back and revisit the episode that I made with Iron & Wine in the fall of 2022 about the song "Flightless Bird, American Mouth." And there are a couple of reasons. One, there’s a new Iron & Wine album that’s coming out this month, called Hen’s Teeth. And secondly, I actually have a song of my own that’s coming out today, the same day as this episode, and it features Iron & Wine on the track. It’s called “Stray Dogs,” and it’s the first song from an album that I’m releasing in April, called In The Last Hour of Light. And this Iron & Wine episode of the podcast is what actually led to our collaboration on the song. I’d been a huge fan of Iron & Wine for two decades, and this live taping, which happened in Wimberly, Texas, at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio, was the first time that I got to meet Sam Beam from Iron & Wine So before we go back and listen to the episode itself, I thought it could be nice to talk to Sam about how this episode happened, and then how that led to the making of “Stray Dogs.” For more, visit songexploder.net/iron-and-wine https://songexploder.net/iron-and-wine.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

• 0:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'm going to be on tour, playing some shows this fall. I'm going to be in London on Wednesday, November 18th. I'm going to be performing solo at Rough Trade Records on Denmark Street, and I'm going to be in conversation about my music moderated by one of my favorite actors and writers, Matthew Bainton. And a ticket to the show also gets you a copy of my album on vinyl or CD. And in December, I'm going to be on tour supporting S. Carrie. We're going to be playing a bunch of shows in the Northeast US. So I hope to see you in one of those places. You can find all the details and get links to tickets at songexploder.net/live. That's songexploder.net/live.

• 0:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode is sponsored by Tidal. If you're an artist or if you know somebody making music, you should know about Tidal Upload. It's a way to share and sell music without the usual barriers. You can upload your music directly to Tidal at no cost. You decide how you want to release it. You can share it publicly with Tidal listeners, or you can keep it private until you're ready. Or you can sell your music directly through Tidal Upload. Your music will also be considered by Tidal's editorial team for their playlists. And if your track is selected for their spotlight program, you'll get $1,000 bonus and you'll be on one of their marquee playlists. And now, Tidal has dropped its platform fee to 0%, which means you keep more of your earnings there than on any other platform.

• 1:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Visit tidal.com/songexploder to create an account and start uploading your music for free. That's tidal.com/songexploder for zero platform fees on every sale. Your music, your earnings.

• 1:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Thanks to Quince for sponsoring Song Exploder. I have this Quince cashmere sweater that's become my go-to in the fall. And it's one of those pieces where, as soon as I started wearing it, I couldn't really remember what I used to wear before I had it. It's the Mongolian cashmere quarter-button sweater in black. And those kinds of staples are what Quince is known for. Jeans, t-shirts, jackets, sweaters, and actually, a lot more, too. And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. Their 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $60. Find your next fall favorites at Quince.

• 2:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. It's now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know that it was Song Exploder. You'll be supporting the show.

• 2:57Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This week, I wanted to go back and revisit the episode that I made with Iron and Wine in the fall of 2022. And there are a couple of reasons. One, there's a new Iron and Wine album that's coming out this month called Hen's Teeth. And secondly, I actually have a song of my own that's coming out today, the same day as this episode, and it features Iron and Wine on the track.

• 3:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

  It's called "Stray Dogs", and it's the first song from an album that I'm releasing in April called "In the Last Hour of Light." This Iron and Wine episode of the podcast is what actually led to our collaboration on the song. I'd been a huge fan of Iron and Wine for two decades. And this live taping, which happened in Wimberly, Texas, at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio, was the first time that I got to meet Sam Beam from Iron and Wine. So before we go back and listen to the episode itself, I thought it could be nice to talk to Sam about how this episode happened and then how that led to the making of "Stray Dogs." Sam, do you remember what your thoughts were leading up to the day when we met?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Oh, well, I'd heard some of your podcasts, you know, some of the song Exploders. And so I would try to keep up. And when you're very familiar with someone's voice, but have never seen their face, you know, it's always interesting to put the voice back into the mouth, the real mouth, and your voice fit right back into your face. It was cool.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were talking about bands that we liked. And it was interesting to hear how familiar, and having never met you, how familiar you were with my writing. It was a nice surprise.

• 4:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  One of the things that was really special for me that day was to tell you the story about my mom in 2003, when she'd come to visit me for the first time in LA. And I'd been listening to your first album so much. And my mom, you know, she enjoyed some of the music that I listened to.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's a huge post-punk fan, I'm sure.

• 4:51Hrishikesh Hirway?

  She was like, Fugazi only in the car.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  I get it, Rishi. Yeah, love it.

• 4:58Hrishikesh Hirway?

  But I said to my mom, I just, I love this album. You gotta hear this song. And I played her "Upward Over the Mountain", just thinking that she would, you know, really enjoy it.

• 5:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  But then, to my surprise, she started crying. And I'd never seen her have that kind of reaction to music before.

• 5:25Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And when we met, it had been a couple of years since she'd passed away. But that's just a really precious memory to me. And, and it was very special for me just to be able to tell you that you had been responsible for this moment of connection between my mom and myself. So it was really, really special to get to do that taping.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Right back at you, buddy. It was fun.

• 5:44Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And then something happened, which doesn't happen too often on the podcast, which is that we stayed in touch.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. I came into town with my daughter that time, and we all went to lunch. And, you know, I just find it like better to have more friends than fewer.

• 5:57Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah. And then a few months later, I texted you and I said,

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:01Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'm currently panicking a little.

• 6:05Hrishikesh Hirway?

  In a couple of weeks, I'm going back to Blue Rock in Texas, where we did our live taping. They have a program where they let four songwriters come stay for a week and work on music. And I've never done something like that. I'm very nervous about not writing anything at all and squandering the opportunity. I had maybe a weird idea. I was wondering if you might be willing to think of a prompt for me, a sort of assignment. I think not wanting to let someone else down might be more powerful than my own paralysis, not to burden you with my problems, but if it would be fun slash interesting for you.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  I love giving other people work, man.

• 6:41Hrishikesh Hirway?

  It was great. And so you wrote back right away. You said, sure thing. Try one of these or all of them. Write a confession and defend yourself for something you've never done. Pick a line from an obituary and use it as the first line of your song. And the last one was, describe a street you grew up on from the point of view of a stray dog.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Honestly, it was pretty random. Imagine you're a dog.

• 7:04Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  But for some reason, it spoke to you and gave you, you know, inspiration. You need it as a starting point to go somewhere else.

• 7:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  It made me immediately think of, when I was eight years old, I went to my mom's hometown in India, and there were just dogs running around on the street. And I was kind of scared of dogs growing up. And the idea of like stray dogs was pretty scary.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  But these dogs were just having fun. It was like we weren't even there. The people did not matter to them at all. And they just had their own little community and they were just running around having fun. And so that is the image that immediately came to mind. A pack of stray dogs by my uncle's house, tearing down the street.

• 7:54Hrishikesh Hirway?

  A streak of wild legs and open mouths, in love with their lives and their speed. Remembering that and remembering the feeling that I got from those dogs also reminded me of the feeling that I had when I was younger and with my friends who I used to play in a band with. I thought about how much I missed them and how much I missed the way that life used to feel back then.

• 8:26Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So before I even got to Texas, I wrote a draft of this song and I sent it to you.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's cool. I thought it was fun that you jumped in. It's a very meditative style that you have, and I thought it was really fun to hear where you went with it.

• 8:41Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You just happened to say the right combination of words to me.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:44Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And that's a song that I would have never thought of without that phrase to bounce off of. So then, when it came time to record the album, I wrote to you and took another big swing, and I asked if you would sing on it, since it was already tied to you. And so much of the album's about my family, and my mom and I had bonded over your music.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And you wrote back right away, and you said, "Of course, no sweat," which is amazing.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  I can't believe the joy that poured out of him, mangy and lean.

• 9:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What was the process like for you when you were recording the vocals for this song?

• 9:22Speaker 01

  I kind of listened through a couple of times and see if it's something that I should sing over a bunch of stuff or just sort of duck in and out and just try to make an arrangement thing. So I was just trying to give weight to certain sections. Found a photograph of the four of us, New York, 2 A.M. Yeah, I love digging into other people's melodies and seeing how I can participate.

• 9:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And then another person on this song is Billy Crockett, who owns Blue Rock, where we did our episode and where I did that songwriting residency. And he's an amazing musician, and he kind of brought us together. So I asked him to play the guitar solo on this song.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  I find like collaborations are the most exciting, to me, anyway, because you never know. You've got to be game, and you've got to sort of be vulnerable. But I find that that's the way to surprise yourself. When you get to a point like that, you know, you write a lot of songs. It gets harder and harder to surprise yourself, but you start involving other people, and it gets pretty easy.

• 10:34Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Well, I really can't thank you enough for being a part of it. It really...

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 10:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  It's really incredible for me.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  That's amazing. You're so kind. It was a treat to participate. You know, making music is fun. Making music with friends is the best.

• 10:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Thank you so much for listening to this extended intro, and I hope you'll check out Stray Dogs, which is out now. You can go to songexploder.net/straydogs to listen. And if you want to stay in touch with me about my own music and the album that's coming up, please sign up for my newsletter. You can also find that on the Song Exploder website. The new Iron and Wine album is out February 27. It's called Hen's Teeth. But right now, here's the episode from November 2022 about the Iron and Wine classic Flightless Bird: American Mouth.

• 11:23Hrishikesh Hirway?

  In 2002, Sam Beam's first album as Iron and Wine was released on Sub Pop Records. He'd given them a bunch of demos, and rather than have him re-record those songs, they just released the demos themselves. Since then, he's put out five more full-length albums, and he's been nominated for multiple Grammys. For this episode, Sam looked back at the making of his song Flightless Bird: American Mouth from his 2007 album, The Shepherd's Dog. A year after that album came out, the song was used prominently in a scene in the movie Twilight, and it's been one of the most popular Iron and Wine songs ever since. I talked to Sam at Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio in Wimberly, Texas, in front of a small audience. Coming up, you'll hear the original demo he recorded

• 12:08Hrishikesh Hirway?

  and how that transformed into the final version of the song.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  I'm Sam Beam, and I have a musical project called Iron and Wine.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  My family was growing and I was traveling the world more, traveling the country and the world and seeing more of the universe. We had been living in Florida for a while and we were getting ready to move to Texas. That was also in a time right after 9/11. It was still pretty fresh. And the way that made us all feel differently about the world or just the way the world was changing in that time. And I was also a young man coming to terms with histories that I had learned and I was reacting to this difference between the myth and the reality.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  That demo was recorded in 2004. And it sounds like those early Iron and Wine records because I use the same process. I got the sense pretty early that it was like a rite of passage kind of story. It's me talking to America and describing our relationship.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  ...

• 14:46Speaker 01

  I used to multitrack the drums one head at a time. And so my kids and my wife at the time, they always complain about, you know, hearing this boom, boom, boom, you know, or bing, bing, bing. You know, that's always said in the back room. At that point, I was definitely learning about demoitis as well. Because if you develop a demo too well, and you try to chase the thing, it's impossible.

• 15:13Hrishikesh Hirway?

  More with Iron and Wine after this.

• 15:20Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 15:59Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 17:07Hrishikesh Hirway?

  There's a new podcast called Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers. In every legendary music career, there's a moment right before it all changes. And in every episode of this podcast, Nile Rodgers talks to a legendary musician about the choices, the events, and the relationships that shaped their career before the moment that everything changed for them. Every story is unique and opens a window into the lives of some of the biggest names in music, and Nile is the perfect person to lead these conversations. Because for over 50 years, he's played guitar with artists like Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Daft Punk, and Beyoncé. In the first season of the podcast, some of Nile's guests include John Legend, Miguel, and more.

• 17:52Hrishikesh Hirway?

  New episodes are coming out every other Tuesday. Listen to Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers wherever you get your podcasts.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  I was building my own studio, so I brought in Brian Deck, who had recorded the record before that, Our Endless Number of Days. We did that in Chicago. That was my first experience in a studio, and it was frustrating and illuminating and everything. And so I got the bug, bought a bunch of gear, and he came to Texas and helped me set it up, and we got to work. I also had a bunch of kids, and I had to take them to school or change a diaper or whatever. It was a mess. But it was also, you know, it was part of the adventure, setting up this mad factory at your house and trying to, you know, make a life out of it. And so Brian would make a loop, like some interesting loop, and I would play a guitar.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  And then go back, and we would record everything else, track by track.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  I changed one of the lyrics from that demo that you played because I decided diving too deep for coins was better than my candy coins. I liked the idea of reflecting on yourself as someone diving too deep for things that you were after. And the other stuff was me just reminiscing about my neighborhood as a kid, you know, running around on the streetlights.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  I was also really into Allen Ginsberg at the time and some of the other beat poets, just their way of describing America. A lot of incongruous images thrown up against each other. I think the beginning of it, the imagery is innocent and then it gets more complex and more frustrated as the thing goes on. Have I found you, flightless bird? The innocent part of America. Or have I lost you, the American mouth with a big pill stuck going down?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  And then, once I got to the idea of like, America being a mouth, the rest kind of felt like that things are going wrong.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  This is Brian Deck. Brian's a drummer. It's one of the reasons I wanted to work with him because I wish I could go back in time and be part of the rhythm section. But I'm not that good. But that's where my heart is. And so I wanted a producer who loved that as much as me. What's interesting, you can hear this room. It's not like a treated room at all. It was just this round room. It was a terrible idea to record drums in there. That's Rob Berger playing the piano. I love bringing other musicians in.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  I mean, the demos are just me and I can flesh it out a bunch, but the fun comes when you bring other people in and they expand what you're doing in a way that you would never imagine. Rob, the piano player, is also an incredible accordion player. Mostly, I just wanted new voices, new sounds that I hadn't used before, and I had plenty to choose from because the early records were so sparse. That's an acoustic electric guitar with a tool called the Ebow.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  It basically makes the string vibrate the way a violin bow would. And so it gives this long sustain. My grandma used to play piano in church. And I remember as a tiny kid, she would sing the harmonies, standing beside me. And I listened to her. And the music in your ear just kind of starts to expand. You're like, ooh, that's fun. Listening to her woke up something in my brain or tickled it in a way that just made it really happy. At the time, I just really liked stacking harmonies.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Thrown in the cold and clean Blood of Christ mountain stream. Pissing on magazine photos, those fishing lures, "thrown in the cold and clean Blood of Christ mountain stream." I had done a bunch of hiking in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico, and so I was just kind of like using the words. It's a roundabout, long-winded fancy way to say there are things, sacred things, that I don't think are being treated as sacred. You know, there's something vulnerable is being exploited. Like, I think advertising is bullshit, that kind of thing.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  I mean, obviously, it serves a purpose. But like, if you get lost in those things, you miss out on some of this beautiful, cold, clean, blood of Christ water, you know? It was just sort of this American feeling.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  The high pianist of his, Rob, we had a really weird filter thing called the Sherman. And anytime we had a spot where we didn't know where to go, we was like, Sherman, see what happens.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  It was my studio, so for better or for worse, I could work on it whenever I wanted to. I was able to approach it the way that I would a painting. You work on something, walk away, clear your head, look at a lot of other paintings, or work on other stuff, and come back and address it in a totally different mindset and usually have a new idea of how to approach it. Like, in the second section of this song, where you're just sort of building more and more girth, you know, just making it thicker. The drones and all the different clangs and tambourines. It kind of starts quiet, then it gets joyous

• 25:52Speaker 01

  and a little haywire-ish, and it's fun.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  You know, I wrote this song, and oddly enough, it's been the most well-known from this movie that it was in, Twilight. You know, it came out around the time they were filming this movie. And as far as I've been told the story, a reputable source told me that Kristen Stewart was listening to it in her headphones while they were blocking this dance scene. And she was just watching, going, "Oh, this kind of fits. You know, you guys want to put this on some speakers." And they listened to it so many times, it just stuck in their brain and it became the irreplaceable song for them. But yeah, it changed my life.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  You know, we were doing better than I had ever imagined. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to read music. I don't know what I'm playing. I just enjoy making songs. I never imagined that I'd be, this would be my career. And so, I had already felt like the luckiest person on the planet. And then, when it got on the soundtrack and the audience just sort of blossomed and bloomed in this way that I had never imagined, it was a huge part of the building of my career. You never know, man. You never know where they're gonna land.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  I feel like what happens in the song is a statement. This is what it was like when I was young, and this is what I'm frustrated about now. Growing up and getting older and starting to understand how things work and just feeling unsettled. I don't feel like this narrator ever reached some kind of resolution. I think it's just more of like, things are different now, and I don't think they're great. I don't know who I am either. The flightless bird in the American mouth, you know, he feels like somewhere in between those things. Anytime someone's griping about the state of their country is because they're frustrated and don't feel like they can change it except by saying it. And I love America.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  I mean, it's fine to like, love America and criticize it at the same time. That's what we do. But we usually criticize the things we love the most.

• 29:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And now, here's Flightless Bird: American Mouth by Iron and Wine in its entirety.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  I was a quick, wet boy, diving too deep for coins all of your streetlight. Eyes wide on my plastic toys. Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long, baby hair and stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere. Have I found you,

• 30:06Speaker 02

  flightless bird? jealous? We've been all lost, you, American mouth. Big blue.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  Now I'm a fat house cat Dissing my sore blunt tongue Watching the warm poison rats Go through the white fence cracks Pissing on my magazine photos Those fish and birds Crawling in the cold and green Where the cries mountain stream Have I found you

• 31:21Speaker 02

  By last breath Down there I know I've lost you Merrick and you In the storm Now and now You You

• 33:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  For more, visit songexploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream Flightless Bird: American Mouth.

• 33:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Song Exploder and the show's theme music were created by me. I produced this episode with Craig Ely, with artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith, and production assistance from Mary Dolan. Special thanks to Billy and Doty Crockett at Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio. And special thanks to the folks at PRX who put the taping together. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @RishiHirway, and you can follow the show @SongExploder.

• 34:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Thanks for listening.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Radiotopia. From PRX.