Clipse - The Birds Don't Sing

Clipse was formed in 1994 by two brothers: Gene Thornton Jr, aka Malice, and his younger brother Terrence Thornton, aka Pusha T. From the beginning, they’ve worked with producer Pharrell Williams, originally as part of the acclaimed production duo, The Neptunes. But then, there was a 16 year gap between the third Clipse album, which came out in 2009, and their most recent album, Let God Sort Em Out, which came out in July 2025. This November, they were nominated for 5 Grammys, including Album of the Year. They were also nominated for Best Rap Song, for “The Birds Don’t Sing.” It’s a song that they made after the death of both of their parents in the span of just a few months. For this episode, I asked Pusha T, Malice, and Pharrell about the making of that song, which also features contributions from John Legend and Stevie Wonder. For more info, visit songexploder.net/clipse. https:songexploder.net/clipse

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 18. 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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• 1:56Speaker 01

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• 2:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Clips was formed in 1994 by two brothers, Gene Thornton Jr., aka Malice, and his younger brother, Terrence Thornton, aka Pusha T. From the beginning, they've worked with producer Pharrell Williams, originally as part of the acclaimed production duo, The Neptunes. But then, there was a 16-year gap between the third Clips album, which came out in 2009, and their most recent album, Let God Sort 'Em Out, which came out in July 2025. This November, they were nominated for five Grammys, including Album of the Year. They were also nominated for Best Rap Song for "The Birds Don't Sing." It's a song that they made after the death of both of their parents in the span of just a few months. For this episode, I asked Pusha T, Malice, and Pharrell about the making of that song,

• 3:13Hrishikesh Hirway?

  which also features contributions from John Legend and Stevie Wonder.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  This is Pusha T.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  This is Malice, one half of Clips.

• 3:48Hrishikesh Hirway?

  The events in this song start in November 2021. I was wondering, what was going on in your life around that time? And Pusha, maybe I'll ask you to answer that first.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  I was actually traveling a lot. I was making music in different states, different settings. I was always leaving town. Me and my mom had got into an argument centered around her driving herself to dialysis and not calling my brother. So that was an issue for me. You know, like, why are you driving? Like, you don't even have to drive. Gene would go to her house in the morning before she could even get to her car. He would be outside waiting for her and be like, "Get in the car. I will drive you to dialysis."

• 4:40Speaker 02

  My mom, real, you know, tough lady. Tough. Like, if you argue with her, it's like, she's getting the last word. She, I think she hung up on me. When I was coming back home, I said, "Man, I'mma go over here and act like nothing ever happened." So, of course, I did. Hey, what's up? You look good today. What's going on? You know, we talking or whatever. I told her my plans, which were to go to Turks for Thanksgiving and Texas the next day. She questioned me about going to Turks. Are you sure you want to go to Turks? But before I left, she said to me,

• 5:21Speaker 02

  hey, I ain't gonna drive no more, okay? And I was like, okay. You know, I just brushed it off. And then she said, but you know I can drive, right? And I said, yeah, I know. And, um, I left. Go pack, you know, get myself together. You know, leave airport. And, um, yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  I went to her house and it was about 5:30 in the morning. I was picking her up as normal for a dialysis. My sister had called me and she said, you know, she's been trying to call Ma and that she didn't get an answer. And I was like, well, I'm here now. The door is open. I had just pulled up. And I went in there and I just discovered her just laying there.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  When I got to the airport, my wife called me and told me that my brother had found my mom. I was on my way back home immediately, of course.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Four months later, one of my dad's best friends gave me a call and he told me that my dad didn't show up for church. When I went over there to check on my dad, I saw that his car was there. You know, I knocked on the door. I just didn't get a response. It led me to believe that something, you know, was wrong.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  I called to have a welfare check done. And the paramedics, when they went inside, it looked to be a new rookie that was with him. And when he came outside, I noticed that he quickly glanced at me but couldn't look at me. And I knew at that point, before I actually laid eyes on my dad, I knew that he was no longer with us. When I went in his place, he was laying there, very much like how my mom was laying there. It was just very surreal to revisit that scenario back to back like that.

• 7:42Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah. Your parents lived in Virginia Beach, and I know that's where you grew up and that's where Pharrell grew up. Did he know your parents?

• 7:50Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Pharrell, I mean, we know each other's parents and neighbors and, yeah, for sure.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  I'll never forget, like, I was at my house, like, sort of pacing around in the yard. I just understood that we gotta do a song. It was the right thing to do. We gotta do this.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  It came to him, and he was like, man, I gotta go in the studio tomorrow because I feel like I got this. Like, I feel like I got the song. He hears it in his head before anything.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  I was in Paris, where we had been recording the majority of the album. I just remember he played the beat.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  You know, and just telling me, like, this is how it's supposed to be. Like, this is the openness and this is the sound bed to get everything you want to get off your chest. That was his pitch to me for the verses. Because when you have beats like that, every line has to hit. Every line had to mean something. The beat was what we call a talker, where you can get your diction on and say the things that touch people and make them feel where you're coming from. I couldn't dive into it, though. I needed a minute.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  I did feel like we have to do this, but I just wasn't ready to prepare myself for that dive in, honestly.

• 9:33Speaker 05

  Lost in emotion, mama's youngest. Trying to navigate life without my compass. Some experience death and feel numbness. But not me, I felt it all and couldn't function.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Immediately, it was about tapping into the emotion. Just the emotion of even having to write it. I wanted to speak to that from line one. You know, you need to understand that I'm lost while I'm trying to write this. I'm trying to figure this out, y'all. And I wanted to put in perspective where I am in the family tree. You know, just imagine what the youngest, the mama's boy of the bunch, how tough this has to be.

• 10:17Speaker 05

  Seeing you that day, telling you my plans, but I was leaving you that day. It was in God's hands. Yeah, it was at Elon's, waiting to get with me. On my way to Texas, that's when Virginia hit me.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  To give a little bit of backstory. That day, I was meeting Kanye at Elon Musk's house to record, to be honest. So I was actually on a trip to Texas when I found out, and my wife's name is Virginia.

• 10:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When you have a moment like that lyrically, where you're in the middle of this emotional story, but you still manage to juxtapose Texas, the place, and Virginia, the place, with Virginia, your wife's name. Is that something that comes to you spontaneously? Or is it something that you try and work towards?

• 11:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:05Speaker 03

  I feel like you're trying to get our original recipe on how we do this thing here.

• 11:10Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I am, exactly.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  This song was definitely more on the passionate side, but there are just those magical times that come together where it just ended up being wordplay when it's really just true.

• 11:26Speaker 05

  Saying you was tired but not ready to go. Basically was dying without letting me know. I love you, Mad Nige. Hate that he won't remember you. Two things that break my heart is what November's do.

• 11:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Could you tell me about that lyric? Two things that break my heart is what November's do.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Genius. For my son not to know who his grandmother was and how she was. That is very painful to me because she was a nurturing, spoiling type of lady and would be for him. I think that like is a very tough thing for me in dealing with, you know, her loss.

• 12:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Gene, you said genius when I asked about that line from Pusha T. Do you two feel like you are each other's first fans?

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure. For me, for me, absolutely. I mean, we had a session. I had to take him outside and just tell him what I thought. And I was like, yo, you know, you're the best. You are the best. That's how I see it. You got to understand that, you know, for me, the art of rap, I've never witnessed this in close proximity until my, you know, seeing my brother first, being a writer, understanding the art of it. The actual, you know, sitting down, pen to pad, notebook. So there's a tutorial in that, in just the beginning of it for me.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  And now 16 years later from our last album, seeing how people gravitate to his intellect and perspective. Man, this has been going on from seventh grade for him, 12, 13 years old for him. So of course.

• 13:20Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How does this first end?

• 13:22Speaker 02

  T follows you, which is my dad. Now, mind you, Diddy calls you, Gene finds you. Was that your vision? Precision while I'm reminiscing. It all hits different, ma, listen. That was basically the walk down of everything that happened. When Gene tells you, he pulled up at my mom's house, my sister called him. He was already in front of the house. He walks in, the door was open. Was this how she played it, wanted it, and how it was just easy? Like, it was just, yeah, she just made it clean, man, but that's my mom.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  I don't know, it just made me question. Like I said, the whole verse, as I'm writing it, my mind is just thinking in hindsight. Just wanted to speak to the idea of, man, did you map this out like this?

• 14:17Speaker 02

  My conversation with Clips continues after this.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Pusha finished his verse before I did. And when I first heard his verse, it just cut really, really deep. I knew that I had a job on my hands. And then, once I had some time to just enjoy the verse and lament over the verse, mourn over the verse, then and only then could I dig in and do my thing on it.

• 14:53Speaker 06

  Your car was in the driveway, I knew you were home. By the third knock, a chill ran through my bones. The way you miss mama, I guess I should've known. Chivalry ain't dead, you ain't let her go alone.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  And that is who my dad was. Chivalrous, you know what I'm saying? Stand up when a woman comes into the room.

• 15:14Speaker 06

  Coming through your dresser drawer, where do I begin? Posted noted Bible quotes, were you preparing then?

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Everywhere, scriptures, everywhere. Like, I don't know how many bibles he had in his house, but he was the deacon at his church. You know, even in his car. Like, you pull the visor down and a scripture falls out of it. You know what I'm saying? And that was our conversation every morning. Coffee and just talking about the goodness of God. That's really how we bonded.

• 15:47Speaker 06

  I can hear your voice now, I can feel your presence. Asking should I rap again? You gave me your blessing. The way you spelled it out, there's a nelly in every lesson. Boy, you owe it to the world, let your mess become your message.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  So I asked him, the week before he passed, what did he think about me returning to rap? And he said, I think you've been too hard on yourself, son. Just like that. I really stand by every decision I made with my hiatus. But to hear him say that, you know, it just opened my eyes.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Pharrell has said he didn't want to sing the hook. He didn't felt like he was strong enough a singer to do the hook. He sang it a couple different ways and ended up saying, man, I'm not nailing this chorus properly. But this is how I hear it. And when we get the right person to nail it, it's going to be everything it needs to be. And then he was like, hey, man, you know who'll do this, like who got it? They're gonna execute. And I was like, who? He was like John Legend. And I was like, man.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  He understood the mission? Yeah, he definitely understood the mission. I could tell he understood what the song meant to us. You know, you could hear it in the vocal.

• 17:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Pharrell, Pusha and Malice told me that you're the one who came up with the lyrics for the hook. And I was wondering, how did those words end up being the lyrics for the song? It's a quote from Werner Herzog, right?

• 17:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:43Hrishikesh Hirway?

  The director?

• 17:44Speaker 04

  It was so striking to me. It was from this movie. He was like in the jungle somewhere. And you know, something terribly wrong with his production, whatever. He was just so mad. He was kind of like cursing everything.

• 17:57Speaker 07

  Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in pain.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  And I was like, that's crazy. The audacity to say that you're sad. So certainly, everything must be sad too. And so when we got ready to do the song, I knew that was the title.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Since the beginning of time, when it was Neptune's, we used to call Pharrell a third clips member. You know, just because of the ad libs and those vocal nuances that come along within the track. It's something that people have always looked forward to.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  And Stevie Wonder did the keys.

• 19:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How did that happen?

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Pharrell took a trip somewhere and Stevie Wonder was there. And he was like, man, I have this song that I would love to get you on. He gave him the whole rundown of the song. And man, you know, Stevie just enhanced what was there.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  And that's Stevie at the end of the song as well, speaking.

• 19:45Speaker 08

  Remember those who lost their mothers and fathers. And make sure that every single moment that you have with them, you show them love.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Man, if my mom knew that we had Stevie Wonder on the song, she'd flip out.

• 20:04Speaker 08

  You show them love, you'll see.

• 20:07Hrishikesh Hirway?

  One thing I'm curious about is how did you two decide who was gonna write which verse about which parent?

• 20:14Speaker 02

  I mean, we both could have interchanged. It was just how it happened. Pusha finished his verse with the conversation, you know, that he had had with our mother at the time, just fresh on his mind. But I mean, we could have switched at any point.

• 20:31Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I just want to go back to the lyrics for the hook for a second. When you first heard Pharrell building this hook around these words, "the birds don't sing, they screech in pain", what was your reaction to that?

• 20:41Speaker 02

  It hit me pretty hard. Because I was feeling like, damn, like, my mom was really toughing this out. You know, the whole process of dialysis, the whole process of, you know, just sickness and getting up and doing all that she was doing. And I began to just think about how tough things had to have been for her. And speaking about that with Pharrell just randomly, you know, just like, man, you know, how you feeling? And, you know, just telling him about that. He called me back and was like, man, the parallel of we think that birds are singing,

• 21:22Speaker 02

  but they're actually screeching in pain. Like, the parallel of like, you know, watching my mom just get up and muster through things and she here and she tough and whatever the case may be, but she may have really been toughing it out.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  I think a lot of people suffer in silence. And especially the way we grew up, it's like, you just don't dump all of your hardships. Your pain and struggles are no more special than anyone else's. But the idea of anything being tough for her, while I'm thinking she's just going on with her day and her daily and, you know, just being her, that idea was, um, that broke me down. Like, it broke me down.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  So on Thursday, my dad came over to get some paperwork that I had. So he pulls up in the driveway. He's sitting in the car and I ran outside and I had on a white t-shirt, I remember. And it was freezing outside. I came outside, I went to his side of the door, I gave him the paperwork. I ran back up the stairs to my house and I said, "I love you." And he said, "I love you, son." And it was that tone that I just did. Now, we always said that I love you, but the way he said it, it rang to me.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Like, it touched me, because it was very endearing. And then, I'm running in the house and I closed the door and I'm running up my stairs. I said to myself, I said, "I didn't even see his face." Like, I didn't bend down to look in the car. I just gave him the paper.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  And my dad passed that weekend. That's the last thing that I heard him say. It really meant something to me. He left me with something.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Family is family.

• 23:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And now, here's "The Birds Don't Sing" by Clips in its entirety.

• 23:53Speaker 05

  Lost in emotion, mama's youngest. Trying to navigate life without my compass. Some experience death and feel numbness. But not me, I felt it all and couldn't function. Seeing you that day, telling you my plans, but I was leaving you that day. It was in God's hands. Yeah, he was at Elon's, waiting to get with me. On my way to Texas, that's when Virginia hit me. And I realized in that instant. Our last conversation, you was against it. Told you I was going to Turks for Thanksgiving. I heard what I wanted to hear, but didn't listen. You said you told Jean that Buck needed forgiveness. I see you went to DeeDee's and stuffed both her fridges. You even told Dad you wished y'all never split it. See, you were checking boxes, I was checking my mentions.

• 24:38Speaker 05

  Saying you was tired, but not ready to go. Basically was dying without letting me know. I love you, Med Naj, hate that he won't remember you. Two things that break my heart is what Novembers do. And T follows you. Now, mind you, DeeDee calls you, Jean finds you. Was that your vision? Precision. While I'm reminiscing, it all hits different, my list.

• 25:34Speaker 06

  Your car was in the driveway, I knew you were home. By the third knock, a chill ran through my bones. The way you missed mama, I guess I should've known. Chivalry ain't dead, you ain't let her go alone. Found you in the kitchen, scriptures in the den. Half-written texts that you never got to send. Combing through your dresser drawer, where do I begin? Posted noted bible quotes, were you preparing then? I can hear your voice now, I can feel your presence. Asking should I rap again? You gave me your blessing, the way you spelled it out? There's an L in every lesson, boy you owe it to the world. Let your mess become your message. Shared you with my friends, the pops they never had. You lived for our fishing trips, damn I had a dad. Mine taught discipline, mine taught structure. Mine didn't mind when he had to pull a double.

• 26:19Speaker 06

  Mine worked overtime, smiled through the struggle. Cause mine wouldn't let us feel what he had to suffer. See mine made sure he had every base covered. So imagine his pain, finding base in the cupboard. Birds don't sing if the words don't sting. Your last few words in my ear still ring. You told me that you loved me, it was all in your tone. I love my two sons, was the code to your phone, now you home.

• 26:42Speaker 09

  Oh, the birds don't sing. No they don't. The birds don't sing, they screech and bang. Don't the truth flow in vain? Now to the different way. When they doing it? The birds don't sing. No they don't. The birds don't sing.

• 27:30Speaker 08

  Remember those who lost their mothers and fathers. And make sure that every single moment that you have with them, you show them love. You show them love. You'll see.

• 27:50Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Visit songexploder.net/clips to learn more. You'll find links to buy and stream The Birds Don't Sing. And you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan, and Kathleen Smith, with production assistance from Tiger Biscuit. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Special thanks to Rob Alsh for recording Clips' side of our conversation. 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. I write a newsletter where I talk about the making of some of these episodes, and about music and film, and generally about the creative process.

• 28:34Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You can find a link to the newsletter on the Song Exploder website. You could also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Thanks for listening.

• 28:49Speaker 09

  Radiotopia. From PRX.