Adrianne Lenker - Sadness As a Gift

Adrianne Lenker is a singer and songwriter. She’s the lead singer of the critically acclaimed and beloved band Big Thief, and her work as a solo artist is also critically acclaimed and beloved. Her most recent solo album, Bright Future, was named one of the best albums of 2024 by the New Yorker, Stereogum, and more, and it was nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album. It was co-produced by Adrianne and longtime collaborator Phil Weinrobe. And I talked to the two of them about the making of one of my favorite songs from it, “Sadness As a Gift.” For more, visit songexploder.net/adrianne-lenker https://songexploder.net/adrianne-lenker.

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?

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• 0:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 1:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 2:01Hrishikesh Hirway?

  that exist only as titles in our imagination, if they even register that much. This show is a chance to reach beyond what you know or think you know. If you're curious to learn more about the work lives of other people, check out What It's Like to Be, wherever you get podcasts. 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.

• 2:42Hrishikesh Hirway?

  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 Beyonce. In the first season of the podcast, some of Nile's guests include John Legend, Miguel, and more. New episodes are coming out every other Tuesday. Listen to Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers wherever you get your podcasts.

• 3:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Adrienne Lenker is a singer and songwriter. She's the lead singer of the critically acclaimed and beloved band Big Thief. And her work as a solo artist is also critically acclaimed and beloved. Her most recent solo album, Bright Future, was named one of the best albums of 2024 by The New Yorker, Stereogum, and more, and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album. It was co-produced by Adrienne and longtime collaborator Philip Weinrope. And I talked to the two of them about the making of one of my favorite songs from it, "Sadness is a Gift."

• 4:23Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Could you tell me when "Sadness is a Gift" first started coming to you? How the idea for the song first entered your mind?

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Well, I had gone through a breakup and my heart was aching a lot. I had this therapist for a little while. And he was actually the one who first planted the idea in my mind that that sadness you feel

• 4:44Speaker 02

  It's actually just an indication of your love. You wouldn't feel that sadness or that longing without having this great love inside of you and that sadness is an indicator of how strongly you feel and felt. So it kind of flipped my way of thinking about sadness. And years later, when I was going through this heartbreak, I was feeling that like, yes, this is a loss, but therein lies the gift of feeling how powerfully I love. But it didn't cancel out the fact that it can still feel unbearable. So it's holding both worlds. It's like acknowledging the longing and all of that sadness, not trying to push it away.

• 5:29Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Well, I have this recording that I believe is the original demo that you made.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Wow, I had definitely been crying in that one.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  That was a voice memo right from when I wrote it, so I can hear in my voice, my voice was pretty raw and yeah.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Searching for your eyes, all I see are blue skies. Like, looking at blue skies is like a very joyful feeling, but it's like, I don't even want to see the blue sky. I just want to see your eyes. That's all I'm looking for and all I can see is this big blue sky. And that old man beats his crooked cane, says it's time to let go. It's like these figures you encounter, like maybe they don't even understand their own magic, but they give you these little keys to your existence.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Maybe it's a tree, you know? Maybe the tree is the old man. The crooked cane is just the limb of the tree. And it's beating in the wind and the leaves are falling off the branch and it's shaking off the last of its dead leaves, reminding you it's time to let go. Everything, we must let go of everything. And it's a gift to feel that sadness because it means you're feeling and it means it means you're alive and that you're able to love.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  I was deep in the feeling of what I was going through and I can really hear that in my voice when I hear that recording.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Sometimes when I'm really deep in a feeling, it's too much to write. Like I can't write in those exact moments. And those very things feel so out of reach and feel so hard. Just pick up the notebook or like pick up the guitar, get it out of the case. You know, but it's like, no, I think I'm just gonna like eat this bag of chips and face plant. But like, not that there's anything wrong with that. Like sometimes that's what you gotta do, you know? But sometimes I'll like see a flash of myself picking up the guitar and I'm still laying there, you know? Okay, well, I don't think I'm gonna write anything right now and I don't feel too good, but like maybe I'll just play it for a couple of seconds and I can always put it down.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  And it's like, pick it up and it's like, oh my God, this is what I needed, you know? Sometimes nothing happens, but sometimes a whole thing happens.

• 8:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Adrian, I know you met Phil originally through Big Thief. How did you end up deciding to work with him on your solo albums?

• 8:57Speaker 02

  When I first met him, I thought he was too good to be true.

• 9:01Hrishikesh Hirway?

  In what way?

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Like, I kind of felt like he was so generous in his presence and with his spirit. And just watching how he lives life and how he does his work. It was always just so engaged and so loving. And I just came to develop a very deep trust for him.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  I'm Philip Weinroeb, and I engineered, mixed, and produced this song alongside Adrian.

• 9:29Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Phil, do you remember the first time you heard this song in any kind of form?

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, Adrian texted it to me. You know, Adrian texts me a good amount of songs, and I love all of them equally and some of them more equally. And this was one that I loved more equally. Right away from the iPhone recording, it just felt like a song that had existed for like thousands of years. And also, like, I've never heard it before, which is such a wonderful experience to have when listening to a song. And this was probably a good year before we went into record. So it had been kicking around for a while. And it had almost taken on like its own lore in the small community of people

• 10:16Speaker 03

  who hear some of Adrian's songs in their early stages. Like, I remember speaking with a few different people in the Big Thief camp. And I was like, man, have you heard Sadness as a Gift? It's like, yeah, yeah, I heard it. Whoa, I can't stop listening to it. So I kind of thought like, oh, we're going in to make the record that's gonna have Sadness as a gift on it.

• 10:36Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And where did you go to record the album?

• 10:39Speaker 02

  It took place in a little studio in the northeast called Dublin Infinity.

• 10:46Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What made you decide that was where you wanted to do it?

• 10:49Speaker 03

  We wanted to be in a place we could really feel kind of at home in and had the feeling of even though we recorded a record there, this place doesn't feel like a recording studio, just a room you can make music in.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  And with like water nearby and forest and feeling the wind blowing through, kinda not really heavily insulated and soundproofed like a lot of studios are. I was wanting to feel what it would be like to be responding in real time to other people playing parlor instruments, just acoustic instruments, piano, guitars, and violin. There's something incredibly exciting to me about the alchemy and the power that can be produced and created with just these raw instruments together in a room without the need for headphones. It feels

• 11:47Speaker 02

  immense and deep and rich and powerful, but even just in its softness.

• 11:53Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And who else was there with the two of you?

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Josephine Runstein, Nick Hakim, and Matt Davidson. A really magical part of this whole thing was that the first people I thought of and the first people I asked were actually all miraculously available.

• 12:08Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  I was like, hmm, who could play piano? Oh, Nick, I would love to play with Nick. And then who could play fiddle or violin? Well, Matt plays fiddle and Josephine, I love how she plays violin. And we had never all played together, so there was some risk involved. We didn't really know how it was going to alchemize, but I love all of them.

• 12:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Can you tell me more about this idea of not using headphones? Because that feels pretty unusual.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  Well, Phil and I first were just the two of us for like a week and then everyone showed up. But we didn't use headphones. I was just sitting in the room with my acoustic guitar. And then once everyone else showed up, it just kind of carried over. And even further than not wearing headphones was, we didn't even listen back to a single thing that we did at all. Like, everyone left and hadn't heard a single thing. Single recording we had made. And no one even asked.

• 13:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What do you think is the advantage of not listening back to stuff you're recording? Because that feels like such a huge part of the recording process normally, you know? Okay, let's do a take, let's listen back. How did that sound? Oh, let me adjust this thing and then fix it for the next take. What is the benefit of not working that way?

• 13:21Speaker 03

  Trusting yourself.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, trusting your feelings. It's almost like getting ready to go out the door without looking in a mirror. There is an inclination or a strong pull to check yourself all the time to check like, what do we sound like? Does this sound good? Do we need to change or alter anything? Do I, do we need to move this piece of hair like to the right of that eyebrow? But I feel like actually working in a way where you just go based off of how it feels to play in the room. And oh, I know that take two was good because I felt so much when we were playing at that time. And like, I know that the take after that was good because I got chills during that one.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  And I cried on take four. So, man, like, I know we got it in there. We got it in there somewhere. I don't even have to hear back because I know I enjoyed that moment of playing music in the room. And I gotta trust that that's as real a gauge as any gauge could be.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  The problem with playback is that you must be a critic during playback. You must analyze. You can't really just listen to playback and enjoy it. And as soon as you flip roles and become an analyzer and a critic, you've now lost whatever performer position you're in. And to me, that's the real tragedy of playback is that we do all this work to like, get into a zone to perform. And then playback just kind of like knocks you off that very, very tender and beautiful little balancing position that you've gotten in. And in a group, it's even more difficult.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  And so I just want to protect the ability to perform music at all costs. And to me, playback is dangerous because of that.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 15:13Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So I wanted to ask you that, just to preface what we're going to be listening to, because no headphones means you're all just playing in one room and listening to each other in real time. So everybody's playing is in everyone else's mic. And normally on the show, I can isolate the different instruments, but that's not possible with this live recording setup that you did. But one cool thing that I do have is all the different takes that you recorded.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Cool. I didn't know you had this stuff. That's awesome.

• 15:40Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah, Phil sent me all eight different takes of the song, recorded on two different days.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 15:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So let's listen to this part from the very first take.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  The seasons go so fast, thinking that this one's gonna last. Maybe the question was too much to ask.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  It's cool hearing the double fiddle.

• 16:14Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I noticed that the lyrics are a little bit different here. In the demo, you had sung, "The seasons go fast, thinking that this love was gonna last." And now you've changed it to, "The seasons go so fast, thinking that this one was gonna last." I know it's a little change, but I was wondering if you could tell me about making that change.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  I thought it was stronger, because "the seasons go fast, thinking this love was gonna last" kind of puts the season and the love in like different categories, whereas... It's really like thinking that this season was gonna last, which is the love. So it's kind of redundant.

• 16:48Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah, I love that double meaning in the song. Phil, do you remember what you were thinking when you heard this for the first time with the full ensemble?

• 16:56Speaker 03

  So the first run on sadness as a gift was before Nick Hakim arrived to the studio. So this is Adrienne, Matt Davidson, and Josephine Runstein.

• 17:07Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Right. And so that's why we didn't hear piano in that take.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Actually, I remember thinking that I was excited. But as it was happening, I could hear the energy from the violins came in late or was a little hesitant. And I remember feeling in this first take like, oh, they're gonna get a little warmed up after this one. And we're gonna start really digging in, I bet.

• 17:37Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I mean, it's already so different.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that is the energy. You can feel it. It's like the other one, it's like you're kind of skirting around the edges of the song. And this one is like you're in the song.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  You and I both know there is nothing more to say. Chances shudder shining eyes and turn their face away. Leaning on the windowsill, you could write me someday, and I think you will. We could see the sadness as a gift and still feel too heavy to hold.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  There must have been something like unsettled or not fully satisfied in me that was like, I don't know if we have it yet, even though the energy is really there. But there must have been something in the delivery that didn't convey the fullness of the story. Because I don't know why else we would have done it again.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  I think it was like, let's give it a shot before Nick comes. We did a bunch of takes, see how it goes. And then let's like, do it again after Nick gets here. But we were always going to try it again once Nick showed up.

• 19:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And you'll hear how that turned out when my conversation with Adrienne Lenker and Philip Weinrobe continues after this.

• 19:20Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 20:07Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 21:33Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 22:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So I'd love to listen to the take that actually made it onto the album. And in this one, Nick Hakim is now playing piano, and Matt Davidson has moved from fiddle to electric guitar.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  That is 100% not planned, just to be clear. Like, Adrienne just like heard Matt playing and started playing. We didn't say, "Why didn't this start with an electric guitar rundown?"

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it didn't.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  And in fact, you can tell it's unplanned because Adrienne's counting. I think you're kind of saying, "Actually, let's just do a take." That's what that means.

• 22:59Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Right, because you don't do that count-in on other takes.

• 23:07Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Adrienne, did you ever think about doing everything live except the vocals? Keeping this kind of parlor feel, but then coming back and being like, well, and now, and then I'll overdub my vocals on top of this performance so that I can do as many takes or change my mind about things later?

• 23:26Speaker 02

  I just don't love doing it like that because I feel like I have the most fun singing when I'm singing with everything that's happening in real time. It does feel risky sometimes because I'm like, well, what if I don't like that? But then it also helps me let go because if I'm having fun, it's probably a good vocal take, even if it's not perfect. And I could get a perfect vocal take, but it won't have all that energy of when I was having fun with everyone. Which one would you rather hear? Someone singing who's having fun or someone singing who's thinking about getting a perfect vocal take?

• 24:04Speaker 02

  When I was a kid, I recorded a lot. You know, I didn't go to high school. Instead, I was just in the studio and I would sit at 13 years old in the studio for hours and hours and hours, comping together, line by line, word by word.

• 24:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  For your vocal takes?

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I was told was the way to make something good, that you have to get it perfect. And I didn't really like how the records came out. It sucked the joy out of it for me. And when I listen to recordings I love, there's a spark of life and energy in it that like, I started practicing and studying in a way how to find that. I do really love the way it feels to play music in a room and let all of the things in.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  I really like singing that part.

• 25:09Hrishikesh Hirway?

  That lyric?

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's another question, like, what does it look like to see into eternity? And the same eternity as someone else, implying that there are different eternities that individuals could see into. And that somehow you and I have lined up and we're looking like into this little like window of the same, same eternity. And you could hear the music inside my mind and you showed me a place I'll find even when I'm old. Oh, kiss so sweet, so fine. You could hear the music inside my mind. And you showed me a place I'll find even when I'm old. It's like maybe when we all line up on a song

• 25:55Speaker 02

  and we're singing it together or feeling it together with all of our different ways of perceiving and all of our different life stories and journeys. When we all sing a song together in a present moment, we're actually glimpsing eternity together. Maybe the question was too much to ask.

• 26:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And now here's "Sadness as a Gift" by Adrienne Lenker in its entirety.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  You and I both know There is nothing more to say Chances shudder shining eyes And turn their face away Lean it on the windowsill You could write me someday and I think you will We could see the sadness as a gift and still Feel too heavy to hold Snow falling I try to keep from calling Watch the spring turn to winter

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Fireflies all frozen The seasons go so fast Thinking that this one's gonna last Maybe the question was too much to ask

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Been searching for your eyes All I see is blue skies And that old man beats his crooked cane It's time to let go Lean it on the windowsill You could write me someday and I bet you will We could see the sadness as a gift and still The seasons go so fast Thinking that this one's gonna last Maybe the question was too much to ask

• 30:44Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Visit songexploder.net to learn more about Adrienne Lenker and to find links to buy or stream this song. This episode was produced by me, along with Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan, and production assistant Tiger Bisco. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Special thanks to Noah Lenker and Phil Weinrobe for their help with this episode. 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. If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter. You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website.

• 31:25Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You can also follow me on Instagram @RishiHirway, and you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi K. Hirway. Thanks for listening.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  Radiotopia. From PRX.