Key Change: David Chang on "I See a Darkness"

My guest today is Chef David Chang. He founded Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2004. That was just the start of his incredible career – he’s opened several restaurants, winning awards and Michelin stars along the way, and becoming a fixture in the upper echelon of food. He’s the host of the Netflix shows Ugly Delicious and Dinner Time Live, as well as his own podcast, The Dave Chang Show. For this episode, I talked to Dave about the song “I See a Darkness.” It's the title track on the album by Bonnie “Prince” Billy, aka Will Oldham, which came out in 1999. Later, Johnny Cash would cover “I See a Darkness” in 2000, as a duet with Will Oldham, as part of Johnny Cash’s acclaimed American series. You can get Bonnie "Prince" Billy’s "I See a Darkness" on vinyl or digital here. https://www.dragcity.com/products/i-see-a-darkness?srsltid=AfmBOorbFsIzlYPacuO_wE6CwsSARkCvBSfd8YhAHlomsR6X67I7gJ8Y For more info, visit songexploder.net/david-chang. https://songexploder.net/david-chang.

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?

  I've talked about Quince before on the show and how some of my favorite clothes are things that I've gotten from their website, but they have a lot of categories beyond clothes. For example, I just ordered a cotton velvet tree skirt, which is the thing that goes around the Christmas tree to hide the stand and the cords from the lights and stuff, and it also catches pine needles. I grew up with an artificial tree, so I'm kind of new to the ways of having a real tree, but Quince is letting me step my game up. And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. So it's a great place to do all of your holiday shopping, whether you're buying clothes, or accessories, or stuff for your house. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive

• 2:40Hrishikesh Hirway?

  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 it was Song Exploder. It's the best way to support the show.

• 2:58Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This is Key Change, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that transformed their lives. My guest today is chef David Chang. He founded Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2004. That was just the start of his incredible career. He's opened several restaurants, winning awards and Michelin stars along the way, and becoming a fixture in the upper echelon of food. He's the host of the Netflix shows Ugly Delicious and Dinner Time Live, as well as his own podcast, The Dave Chang Show. For this episode, I talk to Dave about the song "I See a Darkness." It's the title track on the album by Bonnie Prince Billy, aka Will Oldham, which came out in 1999. Later, Johnny Cash would cover "I See a Darkness" in 2000 as a duet with Will Oldham, as part of Johnny Cash's acclaimed American series. I want to give a content

• 3:43Hrishikesh Hirway?

  warning before getting into the episode here, because this conversation is a heavy one. Dave talks about his depression, because that figures entirely into his relationship with this song. And later on, he talks a bit about his friendship with Anthony Bourdain, who, if you're not familiar with him, was an iconic, towering figure in the food world, and he died by suicide in 2018. I feel like I need to include something here that Dave said in our interview.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  In today's day and age, in 2025, where people are talking about mental health and mental illness, it always pisses me off when somebody hurts themselves and you read the newspaper and they always put in the call the suicide hotline up there. It fucking drives me insane. Like, you think that's gonna change it? Like, this is the problem. We're just having a hard time, like, having a conversation about it.

• 4:31Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Here's the episode. David, thanks so much for being here and doing the show.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  As you think so having me. I See a Darkness off I See a Darkness by Will Oldham, Bonnie Prince Billy. It's number one, by far and away, the most important song in my life, yeah.

• 4:47Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When was the first time you heard it?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Ninety nine. And, you know, it was right after we got back from winter break, senior year. I just had never really listened to anything like Will Oldham before. I just didn't even know how to characterize it. But around that time, I really started to appreciate music that was hard to play for other people. That's the best way to describe it, right? If you played it for acquaintances that you don't really know, you wouldn't do that. That's how I feel.

• 5:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah. It's a little bit like small talk. Like, where are you at conversationally with someone? With a stranger, you're gonna be at the surface level of a small talk. With someone you know a little bit better, you might get into some stuff, but you're not gonna get into the real stuff.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. And when you find that moment where you can connect with somebody, you're like, oh, my God, it's pretty powerful. And the music that I would listen to became instrumental in how I would think about food later on. It gave me the confidence to find a way to express myself in food that may not be the exact mainstream highway that people might be receptive to. Because food was such a different place in the early aughts, where we didn't have this wealth of knowledge, not in a cultural understanding. And I had to look at other places, primarily music, to gain a lot of reference.

• 6:12Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Going back to when the first time you heard it, it's your senior year, you went to Trinity in Connecticut, right?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Yep. And I remember listening to the album and getting the CD. I bought it at Tower Records. And the album cover just scared the shit out of me.

• 6:27Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah, will you describe the album cover?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  It's a skull on a black. You know, this faded black, it seems foreboding, it seems dark and sad. It tells you everything. Beware.

• 6:38Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  It's not just a normal scone. It's not inviting at all. Most of the songs are not happy.

• 6:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  But it also, I love sad music too, but this was a different kind of sadness. And I would listen to it, but I never listened to the lyrics, it never resonated. So I just sort of put it away. I moved to Japan after that summer. I wasn't there to cook, but I was teaching English and I live in the middle of nowhere. And when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere, you just sort of listen to things differently. You're more open to things. I'm reading things that I never read before. And it was something, again, I would listen to, but it still didn't resonate with me. Like, man, I just can't connect, but I feel like something's there, but I don't know. I come back from Japan and I start working in New York. And I never really had manic highs, but I would have mostly manic lows in terms of,

• 7:30Speaker 01

  well, later diagnosis bipolar. And I would have moments now in retrospect where we're just like darkness, right? And at that time, 2000, there was sort of nothing online as a resource that you might have today. And I would go to library and be like, okay. I think the only books that were available that I read were sort of Noonday Demon. And Will Styron had a book called Darkness Visible. And that proved to be a very important book for me. Because he would describe being overcome with darkness, where he would not have control over his emotions. And it would bring him to a place that was not good.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  It was the first time where I could read something and I'm like, well, it's not exact, but he's writing things that I understand where I'm at emotionally. But I just was grasping for sort of help. And I needed help, but I was too afraid to ask for help.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  And when you are depressed and you don't want to face the world and you lock yourself in your room, I would just listen to music. So when I wasn't working, which was a lot at that time, cooking, you know, my sort of private moments, I'd just be listening to music, trying to find anything. And I just knew intuitively, like, this is the album that I should probably listen to. It's not a surprise if you're in a bad mental place. Like, if you're breaking up with your girlfriend or boyfriend, it's consoling to listen to a sad song about breakup. But it sort of was like scary. Because when I listened to it, I felt like I understood a song in a way that I'd never understood

• 9:13Speaker 01

  anything before. My initial interpretation was a song about depression, mental depression, not having control over your emotions.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  But did you ever, ever notice the kind of thoughts I got?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Being overcome by darkness and losing optimism in the world. It's just this perfect marriage of all the instruments and hitting the notes the way it is. It's imperfectly perfect. It's perfectly imperfect. And honestly, the lyrics are so spardon. To me, the most powerful part of that song is pull the smiles inside. I think about that lyric, so powerful. Sometimes the most unhappy I've ever been, or if I see somebody that is extremely happy on the outside, could just be a mask. More often than not, it's just not real. It almost

• 10:21Speaker 01

  seems frowned upon to share a feeling of sadness, or I'm not actually having a smile. There's a lot of conflict in there about one's perspective to society, culture, to loved ones, to friends. Because nobody, you don't want to impose on people a negative outlook. At least I don't. But that's, to me, what the song is about. That line shows me that this individual is empathetic enough that he cares about how other people might be perceiving someone's actions, including his own.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  I think that's a lot to unpack from a small line. There's like four words in it. When I first really started thinking about the song and I'm working in New York and I'm about to open up the restaurant, Original Momofugu, 2003, 2004, I never thought about it actually as the narrator, the singer of the song, singing it to anybody. I would assume most people think that he might be singing it to his friend.

• 11:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Right.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  I've always interpreted it that this person is singing it with the hope of telling a friend.

• 11:29Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Like he's building up his confidence.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if you've been in that situation, whether, you know, it's on the opposite end of the spectrum of telling someone you love somebody, right? Like, I gotta, when, at least I did. I was like, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell what is now my wife, like, I love her. It's like, you, you need that confidence. You're talking to yourself like, oh, it's gonna go out like this. It's gonna happen like that. But for those that have been tinged with this unsavory place to be mentally, the hardest part is sharing where you're at with, with anybody. So I view this as a practice conversation to tell a friend. And certainly no problem if it was designed where he's actually singing to his friend.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  But I feel that if you are in a place of depression, you live in your head. It's all imaginary. You're not even interacting with the world. The prospect of you even seeing a friend in physical life, it's not even happening. So I always viewed the song as the, the narrator thinking about the song, hoping to express oneself to a friend. And that's ultimately why I view the song as extraordinarily hopeful. But you can listen to that a thousand times and not see the hope. And I think why it resonated so strongly with me was the mere fact that you are now thinking about sharing your place of where you're

• 12:53Speaker 01

  at. That's the hardest fucking thing to do. It's like you're breaking through this inertia that, hey, all I know is whatever is happening, maybe I wasn't aware of it when I made mistakes in the past and it just happened. But now I've made enough mistakes where something's gotta change. But that, just that spark, I view it as uplifting because it's a spark of hope. And that's all you can ask for when you're in that kind of place. And that's why it was always this buoy of safety for me. It's a reminder, like, I'm getting through something.

• 13:25Hrishikesh Hirway?

  My conversation with chef David Chang continues after this.

• 13:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 14:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This year, my wife and I are hosting Thanksgiving at our house. And in anticipation of that, I've already started some of the planning. And one of the things that I realized I wanted to have was some kind of small but elegant serving tray that I could put snacks and stuff on while we're just hanging out before the meal starts. So I turned to Wayfair, and I found the perfect thing. These small wooden plates made from acacia. They match the rest of the vibe of my house, and I'm going to be using them even when it's not Thanksgiving. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home, so you can host and celebrate without the stress. If you're hosting for any of the many holidays coming up, take a look at the website to browse for ideas or look for something very specific.

• 15:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You can use filters and reviews and photos from other customers to help you find the perfect thing. When you're refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 15:20Hrishikesh 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.

• 16:05Hrishikesh Hirway?

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

• 16:16Speaker 01

  When did the Johnny Cash version come out?

• 16:18Hrishikesh Hirway?

  In 2000.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  And then that became like very popular.

• 16:21Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  And I listened to that version. I don't, I like it because I like Johnny Cash, but I don't, I didn't like it because it was a different meaning. Same lyrics, but it feels like a different song to me. It's not singing to me anymore.

• 16:34Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  And I also learned that it wasn't necessarily a song about depression from Oldham's perspective. And I think that he said something like, it's a song about a good person plagued with bad thoughts or intentions. And that didn't bother me at all because I felt that the Johnny Cash version clearly was about something else that I never really followed up on, but I could see that. And I was like, okay. But whatever interpretation or any version of that song, whether it was about depression or whether it was about darkness or wanting to do bad things or wanting to do drugs or whatever that society deems as bad behavior from an individual,

• 17:17Speaker 01

  all of those interpretations of what that song might be live in the same house, which is not a place of brilliance and happiness and radiance. But I think it's okay to have a place that is not that. And that's why it's important to me. It is a place that I can go to. It's a song that I can go to when I'm either in a place of darkness or something bad happens. And that has unfortunately happened to me a bunch in my life. So it's like this song is burned into my psyche. But I can tell you for certain that the meaning of that song changed over time. Initially, it was, oh, this song is about me.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  This song is, he's writing about me, you know? But the song changed as I got help and I got treatment and as I got to understand things a little bit better.

• 18:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You said that you have looked at music as an inspiration for food. Do you think that there's anything in your food that you could connect back to coming from this song?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's specifically a dish or anything, but I do think it's a song about resilience to me ultimately. I would view it as a song that reminds me that there are peaks and valleys. And when it's bad, it's bad. And when it's good, it's good, but it's usually not nearly as bad as you think. It's usually not as good as you think. And no matter where you're at, it's okay to ask for help. And I think that's the thing is no matter where I've been at in my career, I've never viewed it as a solo venture. And I've always viewed it as it's much better if I have a friend around.

• 18:57Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I know you said the songs changed its meaning for you over the years. Have you ever listened to it and felt not a connection to the singer? But actually heard yourself as the friend that he's singing to?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. If there's a multiverse, I think I've gone to every possible scenario of listening to this song. I always vision this happening in a bar. And I thought about it as if I was on the receiving end of this conversation, how that might be weird. It's weird not because I'm having the conversation. I think it's weird because most people never have this kind of conversation. So how are you ready to hear that information? On the other hand, I thought about it as a friend. And if you are receiving end of it all is like, it's a beautiful thing that your friend is confiding in you. Something so personal, that friendship, that love bond between the two of you is so great

• 19:52Speaker 01

  that this friend can share with me something that he cannot share or she cannot share with anybody else. So from that perspective, I was like, oh, that's pretty fucking cool. So, yeah.

• 20:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah, the last line of the song being, do you know how much I love you? Is I hope that somehow you can save me from this darkness.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, this hard life is too fucking hard to do it on your own. I've given this song to a lot of my friends. Because I think I've been open about my struggles. This is the song I will give to somebody if I know and they've asked for help. And it's okay if it doesn't resonate with them. I just want them to know that they can find their own thing that is their buoy. But I think about this song in a different way, particularly when Tony died, Bourdain. I listened to that song a lot after Tony died. I listened to so much that I had to stop listening to it. Because I listened to it almost as punishment. Because I never gave it to her.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  So it's a reminder to me that you never know where somebody's at, ever. Tony never brought the smile inside, you know? And I think about that a lot. It reminded me that when you are in a bar with a friend catching up, you should say the things that you want to say. Had I not made the assumption that Tony was always Tony, maybe something could have been different. I don't know. So that's hard. But the song is a conversation. And it's a conversation that I wish that I had with more people. Again, encouraging yourself to build up confidence to have that conversation.

• 21:34Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When you were first describing the song, you said that it was something that you didn't feel comfortable playing in front of other people. So do you remember when it changed? That it became something that you wanted to give your friends?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  I remember getting help, seeing my first psychiatrist, being like, ah, I don't feel comfortable. Every step of the way in this process, I was nervous to get help. Then you get help and then you don't want to take the medicine or the advice or the therapy or behavior, whatever it might be. And then you sort of just surrender. You give up control and you're like, I'm never going to tell anybody this. It is my secret. I don't want anyone to know. And then I think somewhere along the way, I started telling some people, you're slowly building up the tolerance of letting people know that you might be different. It's okay to let people know that you're vulnerable.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  But going back to Tony, I never told anybody this at a public, large level, until he died. And it, it totally fucked me up. And I was like, I'm never gonna fucking not do that again. I mean, it's hard talking about it now. I feel like we were all selfish and we all wanted Tony to be a certain way. I needed Tony to be fearless. I needed Tony to be strong, to be the, you know, the oracle Delphi. You know, whenever I needed help, he was there. And I have a lot of remorse for always being the person that took from Tony and never given.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  And I think that if I was being more selfless with the time that I had with Tony, it's possible that I could have had a conversation that he was like, you know, I've been thinking about that a lot. I can't believe that you're talking about this right now. Or like, man, I never thought about it that way. I'm acting this way or like, you're right. I can't believe I'm thinking about this. Like, you're totally right. I don't want to have regrets of conversations that I should have had with the people I care about or love. And I never had that conversation with Tony. So yeah, that's why the song was so hard. It was a reminder. Maybe nothing could have changed and that's probably what have happened too.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  I don't know, but I told myself, I was like, well, what am I hiding things for? This is fucking terrible. Why would I be afraid to talk about this? What's the point? Ego, if anything, I'd rather talk about this and share my personal struggles than give somebody a 1-800 number. So yeah, I had not really listened to that song since he passed. It was like a yearbook of pain. I don't look at that as a negative at all. This is what life is, the good and the fucking bad.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  So, yeah. Hard to talk about this stuff. But to me, the cruel cosmic joke of depression is it robs you of the belief that anybody could stand in your shoes or help you. It robs you of the confidence to think that anybody would be invested in you. It's just insidious that way. And that's, to me, is why the song is so hopeful, is I think it's a reminder that not only is it better to do the good things and the joyous moments of your life with others, it's better, definitely, to not be by yourself.

• 25:09Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Thanks so much, Dave.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Man, I can't believe we just talked about all this. This is crazy.

• 25:15Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I really appreciate it.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, Rishi.

• 25:19Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You can hear more with chef David Chang on his own podcast, The Dave Chang Show. I've been a guest on there a couple of times, and I always really love talking to him. And also check out Dave's memoir, Eat a Peach, which came out in 2020. He's also on social media at David Chang. Also, go listen to I See a Darkness by Bonnie Prince Billy. It's an amazing song. Actually, the whole album is great, and I'll put a link in the show notes for where you can order it. Visit songexploder.net/keachange for more Key Change episodes and for a playlist with all the songs that have been discussed on the series. This episode was produced by me 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.

• 26:04Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, I have a newsletter that I send out. It's on Substack, and it's called Accept Cookies. I write about what I'm watching and listening to and thinking about these days. You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi Keshi-Hirway. Thanks for listening.