Key Change: John Green on "You'll Never Walk Alone"

My guest today is John Green. John is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books including 'Looking for Alaska,' 'The Fault in Our Stars,' 'Turtles All the Way Down,' 'The Anthropocene Reviewed,' and 'Everything is Tuberculosis.' John and his brother Hank Green have co-created a lot of projects together, including their massive YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers, and their podcast, 'Dear Hank and John.' He also serves on the Board of Trustees for global health nonprofit Partners in Health. And when I asked John if there was a piece of music that changed his life, he knew the answer right away: "You'll Never Walk Alone" by Gerry and the Pacemakers. For more info, visit songexploder.net/john-green. https://songexploder.net/john-green

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?

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• 1:56Hrishikesh 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 Beyonce. In the first season of the podcast, some of Nile's guests include John Legend, Miguel, and more.

• 2:40Hrishikesh Hirway?

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

• 2:49Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This is Key Change, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that changed their lives. My guest today is John Green.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  My name's John Green, and I'm a novelist and YouTuber.

• 3:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  John is the award-winning, number-one bestselling author of books, including Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, The Anthropocene Reviewed, and Everything is Tuberculosis. John and his brother Hank Green have co-created a lot of projects together, including their massive YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers, and their podcast, Dear Hank and John. John also serves on the Board of Trustees for the global health nonprofit Partners in Health. And when I asked John if there was a piece of music that changed his life, he knew the answer right away.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  It's a song by Jerry and the Pacemakers called You'll Never Walk Alone, which is a cover of a cover. It's from the musical Carousel, I think. And it's a little bit of a convoluted story how this song came into my life. But, you know, in thinking about your question, have you listened to a song that really changed your life? There are certainly songs that mean more to me than You'll Never Walk Alone. But there's no song that's changed my life more dramatically.

• 4:01Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How do you parse the difference between those two things?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Well, you know, my favorite band is a band called The Mountain Goats. There are songs by Will Oldham that I really treasure. There are songs by Loretta Lynn that I really treasure from my childhood. But You'll Never Walk Alone had this, or has, I guess, this ongoing, deep impact in my daily lived experience, which is very weird for me. I mean, I'm not a music guy like you. Like, I don't have the relationship with music that you have, but I do find that certain songs kind of carry me through, and You'll Never Walk Alone is chief among them.

• 4:41Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you remember the first time that you ever heard it?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, vividly. So when I was 12 years old, I was a soccer player. I was very bad, but I was very passionate. And I worked really hard, but I didn't have any talent. And there was this kid on our middle school soccer team named James, who was from England. And this kid was incredible. I mean, he was the best soccer player any of us had ever seen. He was so overwhelmingly the best soccer player on our team. I mean, I don't think we won a single game, but he would score goals from like 30 yards away. It was incredible.

• 5:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Where were you playing soccer when you were on this team?

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Oh, in Orlando, Florida, the white-hot center of American cultural life. And James told us that in England, where he was from, you know, tens of thousands of people would go to soccer games and they would be arm-in-arm and they would sing these songs together. And he told us that the best team in all of England was called Liverpool Football Club. And I believed him. And I remember the first time I ever heard You'll Never Walk Alone, it was on a VHS tape in high school. A VHS tape of an old game between Liverpool and I can't remember who. And I heard You'll Never Walk Alone sung from the stands, you know, tens of thousands of people, just like James Promised, singing this song together. And it was absolutely magical. And it's been magical in my life ever since.

• 6:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What happened in between, you know, 12-year-old John playing on that soccer team and then high school John watching that Liverpool game?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  So when I was in high school, I went to a boarding school in Alabama, and one of my good friends eventually turned into the novelist Daniel Alarcon. At the time, he was just Daniel, our friend. And he was a big soccer player, and he and his friends would get these VHS tapes of games. And that's how I came to watch it. But, I mean, I guess the short answer is that I just never stopped loving soccer. I stopped playing it because I was no good, but I never stopped loving the game. But it was only when I heard You'll Never Walk Alone and really started to become a Liverpool fan in my teens and twenties that I started to understand that the game wasn't about the game, for lack of a better term. It was about something else, something much deeper. It was about people whose love is oriented in the same direction and how

• 6:52Speaker 01

  good that feels. You know, there's this great Donald Hall line where he writes about third things in marriages, that like a marriage isn't primarily like you looking me in the eyes all the time. It's really about our shared attention intertwining around a third thing, whether that's kids, or the New York Times crossword puzzle, or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or whatever it is. And for me, and for tens of thousands of other people, Liverpool Football Club is a third thing. It's a thing that we look at instead of looking at each other, and through the looking at it together, that intertwined attention, something like as close to literal magic as I've ever experienced happens.

• 7:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Could you walk me through you hearing that song on the VHS tape? Like, what was happening in your brain as the audience started singing? Like, was that a surprise to you that they started singing? James had told you that people do this, but...

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's a completely different thing to hear it and to see it and to feel the passion behind it, the connectivity behind it, the community behind it. It's a totally different thing to have that feeling. So, as I recall, I am sitting in the TV room at my boarding school, this VHS tape is playing, and I'm listening to this song. Never heard the song before. I don't know about the musical carousel. I don't know about the history of the song or anything like that. I can barely even make out the words because they're sung in this very, you know, northern English accent. But the way that the actual

• 8:27Speaker 01

  words You'll Never Walk Alone are sung is such a mix of commitment and desperation, a need to believe that you'll never walk alone, that it just hooked me, man. It just hooked me. And every time I've heard the song since, whether I'm in that stadium, listening to it in real life, or I'm watching it on TV, or whatever, every single time, I feel the same thing. I get goosebumps. I feel overwhelmed. I feel... Like, I'm not alone. And so in high school, especially in college, and then even more in my twenties, it was sort of a slow progression away from being a casual Liverpool fan to being a really committed one.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  But during that process, the song would come back to me over and over again. You know, occasionally I'd hear it on the radio. I had it on a CD, on a burnt CD. I just loved listening to it. I mean, it's a super cheesy song. Like, it's really pretty cliche. But the thing about cliches, right, is that sometimes there's something to them. And I needed, I still need to hear that idea that even when you feel like you're walking alone through the world, you're not, because you're carried by all the people who've loved you and you're carried by all the people who love you still. And the song is the reason I'm a Liverpool fan. And I don't think that's just true for me.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  I think that's true for lots of people.

• 9:58Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Really? It's not the other way around? People don't come to the song because of the team?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  I think sometimes people come to the song because of the team, but sometimes people come to the team because of the song, because the song is so, I mean, I don't know if you've heard the song. It's not technically great.

• 10:14Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you think the song itself is not technically great, or the Jerry and the Pacemakers cover of it?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  I'd go so far as to say both and.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  You know, it's a cheesy song. Like, the chorus is, you know, "Walk on through the rain, walk on through the wind, and you'll never walk alone." Like, I mean, what are the two most obvious things you could walk through, you know, rain and wind? It's not lyrically sophisticated. It's not that musically sophisticated. But the message of it is very clear, very simple. You're not alone even when you feel like you're alone. And that's a message that I need to hear a lot. I need to hear it reinforced over and over again. And so to have that message reinforced to me every Saturday really does mean something. I mean, I'm a religious person, but I'm not as religious as I used to be, and it's sort of what I have instead of hymns.

• 11:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Could I ask you a little bit about the development of your fandom? How did you go from being a casual Liverpool fan to, as you said, getting more and more into it? What was it about that team that made you want to become more than just a casual fan?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  I mean, I think initially it was the song. To some extent, it was the players, like I loved those players in the 90s and 2000s and everything. But, you know, I didn't have like a favorite player I connected with the way lots of people connect with Messi or Pele or whatever. I just loved the idea of being part of a community, a community that sang this song before every game. It just seemed so novel to me. It seemed so different from American sports, so much more like a community asset than a franchise.

• 11:57Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I was gonna ask you, is there a moment when this song is traditionally sung in the game? It's before the game?

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's sung at the beginning of every game, but it's also sung at the end of every game. And then, most magically, my greatest moment as a Liverpool fan was in 2005, the Champions League final. All the best teams in Europe play in this big competition and we made it all the way to the final. And we were down 3-0 at halftime, which is a completely insurmountable scoreline. And not only were we down 3-0 at halftime, we were down 3-0 to a much better team. And at halftime of this game, the fans, despite being utterly, hopelessly defeated, started singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" so loudly together that down in the bellows of the stadium, the players could hear it.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  And they came out and they scored three goals in the second half, sent the game to extra time and won it in penalties and became champions of Europe for the fifth time. And like, it's the ultimate statement of the power of music. It had a real impact on actual people who are not musicians, who are not like huge music fans, who may not even love the song. It just, yeah, so I think we sing it at the beginning of the game, we sing it at the end of the game. And in times of great need, we sing it in the middle as well.

• 13:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Well, I wonder if despite the fact that there are maybe hundreds of thousands of fans in England who support Liverpool, the fact that it was maybe a more rare kind of fandom here in the US, did that have any kind of appeal for you? You know, like the feeling like when a band is underground and you're the only one who knows about it?

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, absolutely. It made me feel very cool to be a Liverpool fan. And now being a Liverpool fan is relatively common and a little bit cliche, but it's very much like following a band when they're underground, where people would be like, do you like basketball? And I'd be like, oh, no, no, that's not for me. But soccer, European soccer is my game. And I didn't know very much, you know, because I was a kid and also, you know, I didn't have that deep a connection to the city or anything. It's not like I'd traveled to Liverpool at the time. And so I was like, not very knowledgeable, but extremely passionate, like a lot of fans when they're young. So yeah, that was definitely me.

• 14:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you know why this song is such a big song for the team?

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they've been singing it on the terraces of the stadium since the song was a popular song. And it was sung by, Jerry and the Pacemakers are a Liverpool-based band. And so they've been singing it since it was a hit. They used to sing all the Beatles hits too, right? Like, the Beatles are also a Liverpool band. It's just that song took on a different meaning because it's so much about struggle and toil and moving on through loss and feeling connected to other people. And that's so much of what sports fandom is. So I think that's why it's stuck around. But it's, you know, I think it's important

• 15:24Speaker 01

  for people who don't like sports to understand that sports is theater. It's theater where the actors don't really know what's going to happen necessarily, but it's not that different from any other form of theater. And because the fans in much of the world sing all through the game, it's musical theater. And so it's actually not that surprising that a song from Carousel would become this sort of classic song sung by Liverpool fans. I mean, Manchester City fans sing songs from a musical. Like, it's not that uncommon. It's just that You'll Never Walk Alone is, in my opinion, my extremely biased opinion, by far the best one.

• 16:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  My conversation with John Green continues after this.

• 16:08Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 16:48Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 17:31Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode is sponsored by the podcast What It's Like to Be. Do you ever think about what other people's workdays look like? Satisfying some of that curiosity is the idea at the heart of bestselling author Dan Heath's podcast, which is called What It's Like to Be. In each episode, Dan interviews someone from a different profession to find out what it's like to be a professional Santa Claus, or a Secret Service agent, or a long-haul truck driver, or an aerospace engineer at NASA, just to name a few examples. The show gives you an insider view into all kinds of jobs from a wide range of industries, answering questions like, what do mail carriers learn about us from our mail?

• 18:13Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 18:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What was the first time that you ever went to a Liverpool game in person?

• 18:37Speaker 01

  So the first time I went to a Liverpool game, it was in the US. It was actually, I think, in Charlotte or somewhere in the US. But it was a preseason game, you know, so it kind of didn't count. But we did sing "You'll Never Walk Alone," and it was awesome. It was awe inspiring. It was borderline sacred. It was so cool. And then I really wanted to have that experience, you know, in Anfield Liverpool Stadium. And so I got to go, not that long ago, a few years ago, went to a Liverpool game for the first time. And that was an amazing experience to sing the song with all those fans who sing it every Saturday. The other cool thing about the experience, actually, was that I happened to be seated about eight

• 19:22Speaker 01

  seats away from a young player's dad. And the young player came on and scored his first goal for Liverpool. And I got to watch his dad watch his son score, which was pretty special.

• 19:34Hrishikesh Hirway?

  What was the experience of singing that song actually like when you were there in the stadium?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  So you get to the stadium, you maybe have a pint of beer, you make your way to your seat.

• 19:47Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Were you just buzzing with anticipation about singing?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I was so excited. I was with my buddy Stuart. I was so excited. I just couldn't believe the whole thing, you know? It was all magical. I keep saying magical, but I don't know what other word to use because it is, there is something about music that takes me as close to magic as I care to get, as I can experience. So I think that's why I keep using the word magical. But anyway, I was absolutely buzzing. I was thrilled. I was, I mean, it's a pilgrimage site for a lot of people, you know? Like, I'd been a Liverpool fan for 20 years at that point.

• 20:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  And we make our way to our seats, and then they start playing like the first notes right before kickoff. They start playing the first notes. And then you hear this wall of sound from the area called the Kop when you walk through the rain, hold your head up high. And you just hear this wall of sound coming to you. And then you realize that you are also like pushing the wall of sound back and forward and left and right. And 80,000 people or however, I don't know how many people fit in Anfield, but all those people can't actually sing a song at the same time. Like it's too big. So the song is sort of echoing around and, you know, this side of the stadium is half

• 21:06Speaker 01

  a bar ahead of this side of the stadium. And it's just super intense. More than anything, it feels like a revival or something, you know, like one of those old timey revivals. That's how I felt. I sometimes say about books that the thing I love about reading is that you can visit places in your mind that you can't get to any other way, that are like inaccessible to me, except when I'm reading. And that's true for music, too. I was able to visit a place within me during that song that I simply can't get to any other way.

• 21:42Hrishikesh Hirway?

  As you were describing the experience of seeing the dad see his son score his first goal, I mean, I have to admit that I like started to get a tiny bit choked up. And I was just wondering, how much crying do you do during Liverpool games?

• 21:57Speaker 01

  So much. I love a good cry. For me, sports is a great way to get to crying. I remember Liverpool won the league a couple of years ago. It was during the pandemic, so there were no fans allowed in the stadium. It was sort of awful. I wanted, you know, 60,000 fans in that stadium singing You'll Never Walk Alone along with the players. I wanted all those things and we didn't get any of them. But I just remember when it was finally confirmed that we were going to be champions, I think like Chelsea had to lose a game. We weren't even playing. We weren't even on the pitch.

• 22:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Right.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  I just remember like bawling. And I had just recorded a podcast with my brother and I hadn't stopped the recording. And so I was able to listen back later to me being like, come on, come on, blow the whistle, blow, yes! And then just bursting into tears.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  So yeah, it's um, it's a way into feeling, you know?

• 22:58Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  One of my friends, Roger Bennett, sometimes says that football is a way to feel things that are hard to feel in real life. And one of the things I love about sports is the purity of feeling. Like, it's actually pretty rare for me to have a really pure joy. Because even when something good happens, I'm always like, well, that pretends something bad. Or when something bad happens, I tell myself, well, maybe, you know, this will be the start of something good. I just, I always have mixed up, muddled emotions, except when I'm watching football, when I have the purest emotions in the world.

• 23:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And in that way, it is more like opera.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  It's so, it really is like opera. That's a great point. I mean, that's, that's why we watch opera, is because of the purity of emotion, even if it's a little bit over the top and everything, it's pure. You know exactly what you're supposed to feel in that moment.

• 23:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  In terms of feelings, does singing the song feel different for you after Liverpool has won a game versus after they have lost a game?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It works as both lamentation and Thanksgiving, right? Like, that's the magic of that song, is that it works as both a, this sucks, but you'll never walk alone, and as I've been telling you, you'll never walk alone and feel this joy together.

• 24:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  It really works as both kinds of song.

• 24:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Well, do you have a preference between the two? Like-

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I prefer it when Liverpool win.

• 24:27Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Because you, you connected the song to a feeling of struggle.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And of course, everybody wants their team to win. But I think about teams like the Mets, or just teams that they have fans who have, for their entire life, only known losing streaks.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:44Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And that is just part of the fandom. And so to experience winning, I don't know, it's easy to be a fan of something when, when you're a winner. You know, when your team's a winner, it feels like the fandom is a little bit, it costs less.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:58Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And so I wonder if it means more when it costs more.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I think it does. I think it definitely does. I think that, you know, those 30 years that we went without a Premier League title were, there was a lot of heartbreak in those years. There was a lot of finishing second. There was a lot of almost. There was a lot of one game away.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  And to hear the song at the end of those seasons where we didn't end up winning the title, where circumstance or fate conspired against us. Those moments are also really lovely to share in their way. I remember the year my book, The Fault in Our Stars, came out, or the year the movie came out. I was on the road constantly. I was away from my family. It was wonderful. I was grateful for it, but it was also hard. And Liverpool almost won the title that year. They took it to the last game. And I remember hearing You'll Never Walk Alone sung at the end of that season and just thinking, well, Liverpool and the fandom really accompanied me through this hard time.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  And of course, I wish we'd won the title, but what I actually needed was the accompaniment.

• 26:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You said that you had a burnt CD of the song originally, and that was how you could listen to it. These days, do you still just put the song on to listen to?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially when I want to cry. So I take a medicine now that makes it harder for me to cry. I used to cry all the time. I used to cry every day, which it turns out is too much. So now I have to take a medicine and it makes it hard for me to cry. And so on the last day of the movie shoot for this movie adaptation of my book, Turtles All the Way Down, I was really emotional. I'd gone through such an intense experience with all these people who made the movie, and I was so grateful for that experience. And I was driving in the car on the way home and listening to a different song. And then I was like, I bet if I put You'll Never Walk Alone on, I'll start crying. And then that's what did it. That's what opened the floodgates for me.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  And I love to cry. I love the purity of emotion and crying. So yeah, I listen to it when I need to cry.

• 27:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  But if you had never heard the song in connection with Liverpool, it might not have that kind of effect on you, right?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  No, I don't think it would. I don't think it would. If I had never heard it sung in community, I don't think it would have that impact on me. You know, that's what makes music magical to me is the community aspect of it, the shared aspect of it.

• 27:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Well, do you get to have a feeling of community? Like, are there people around you that you can experience some kind of group catharsis with in that way, outside of, you know, traveling to Liverpool?

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's a Liverpool bar in Indianapolis, believe it or not, called The Union Jack, where all the Liverpool fans go every Saturday and watch the games. Now, I don't go every week, partly because, you know, like, I have a life where I have to take care of the kids on Saturday mornings a lot of times, but I love going there and, you know, feeling that sense of camaraderie, and they sing the song before every game. So, you know, it's not as many people, but it's that same sense of togetherness in the song.

• 28:14Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And you get that same feeling?

• 28:15Speaker 01

  I do, yeah. It lights me up every time. And I went there with my dad for the game where, last season, where Liverpool clinched the title. And, I mean, I have to emphasize that we did used to be like the Mets. It was very difficult for many years, but then we've had some great joy in the last few years. So, anyway, when we clinched the title last season, I took my dad to that bar and sang with those people and felt that sense that I just can't get anywhere else.

• 28:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You know, I think a lot of why I do the things that I do outside of, like, making music is because I want people to understand how great something is that I love. And I was wondering if, have you tried to convert people to love this song the way that you do? And in order to do that, do you also have to make them a Liverpool fan to get them there?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually wrote an essay in my book, The Anthropocene Review, about this song in an attempt to evangelize for the song, to get people to love it like I love it, and to understand that even though it's cheesy, it contains a power within it that's really special. And I do evangelize for Liverpool. Whenever I meet a young kid, wherever I am, who likes a football team, usually Manchester City or Manchester United, I try to explain to them that it's not too late to turn back.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Like, when you're young, you can still, you have some plasticity to your brain, you can still find your way to Liverpool Football Club. It's not too late.

• 29:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  John, thank you so much.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. What a joy to be with you.

• 29:49Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You've successfully converted me.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Now, you gotta watch. We're really bad right now. So this is the perfect time to become a Liverpool fan. We've lost four games in a row.

• 30:01Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I don't want to feel like I'm jumping on a bandwagon. I want to feel like I've earned my place.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is the perfect time. You'll earn your fandom stripes.

• 30:08Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Buy low.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Buy low.

• 30:13Hrishikesh Hirway?

  John's website is johngreenbooks.com, where you can get his books, including his latest one, Everything is Tuberculosis. You can follow him on Instagram, @johngreenwritesbooks. His podcast with his brother Hank is called Dear Hank and John.

• 30:30Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Visit songexploder.net/keachange for more Key Change episodes and for a playlist with all the music that's been discussed on the show.

• 30:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, and Mary Dolan, with production assistance from Tiger Biscuit. 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 subscribe to my newsletter. You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website. And you can also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi K. Shirway. Thanks for listening.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Radiotopia.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  From PRX.