Bonnie Raitt
Appearances
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Well, this is one of the greatest vocals I've ever heard. It's so simple. And the piano part and the arrangement, this is really early. Even though B.B. started in the late 40s, and he's got a lot of his hits in the 50s, this was a record that when I was 10 or 11 years old, I happened to hear on a radio station. And later... Everybody's got that one record that just turned their head around.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Sometimes there's a Ray Charles tune that did it for me, and then later hearing John Lee Hooker when I was about 14. But B.B. King was a big star in Los Angeles on the black radio, and Rock Me Baby's just a classic tune. Many people have covered it, but I just wanted to bring it to let you know how... unbelievably simple and pure and right to the bone this song can be. And B.B.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
's still one of our greatest bluesmen. I love him dearly.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Well, I sure hope so. I don't know how to play single string lead on electric guitar as well as any of the guitar players that are currently out there. I play acoustic solos more, and I play pretty good rhythm guitar, but my lead playing tends to remain on the slide guitar where I know what I'm doing better.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
So I just, it probably has more to do with phrasing and what to leave out and just, you know, when you go crazy for somebody's style, it's not, unless you're doing a specific mimicking of what they're doing, which I don't do, I would say my singing, just because of his style, restraint, his restraint and his passion.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
I hope I got some influence from him because I just think he's one of the tastiest and most deep singers I've ever heard, as well as one of the greatest blues guitar players in the history of guitar players.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Well, I did because I've been performing that song, write me a few of your lines, as well as his Kokomo blues, probably since the first time I met Fred.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Some days I never get out of bed. I start out with the best of intentions and then shut it instead. Don't think we'll get back how we used to. No use in trying to measure the loss. We better start getting used to it and damn the cost. Go ahead and ask me how I make it through.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
I was about 19 in 1969, and he was part of the great blues rediscovery in the 60s of all these traditional Delta bluesmen who a lot of times, like Fred, had spent the last 20 years being farmers and then suddenly were discovered by either British or white college kids coming over that just fell in love. And I... got his record on our Hooley Records and learned the song.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Yeah, it took a long time to summon up the nerve, and I think somewhat of maturity and sobriety had something to do with it, what comes with sobriety in terms of being able to have a perspective. And since that coincided with my late 30s, early 40s for me, it's hard to separate the two.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
I think that a great song has appealed to me, and I've been in love with the songs of Carousel in Oklahoma and Pajama Game since my dad died. He's been singing them all my life. I just never really thought I would sing them in public. I certainly sung them enough in private just for fun and grew up singing them.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
We started this idea out when we used to just practice Christmas carols and would sing different Broadway songs in his pool. We'd be exercising together, and that was a good way to spend some father-daughter alone time together. And next thing I knew, he sort of suggested doing something together, maybe for the Pops.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And before we knew it, we were performing with John Williams for Evening at the Pops a few years ago, and we did these songs that we ended up putting on my dad's album. And I enjoyed it so much and was terrified to sing in front of an orchestra in a town in Boston that I got my start in. And I think the fact that it was a safe ground made it an easy first date. And we went on to do...
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And then I was honored enough to meet him and travel around with him. And I actually opened a lot of shows for him early on when I was still cutting my teeth and right before I got my first record deal. So he's really my favorite and my closest friend, and I miss him a lot.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
David Letterman together and and he's been coming out over the many years and singing Oklahoma at the end of my shows but I must say I was shivering in my boots the first time I sang they say that falling in love is wonderful in front of my audience but they you know stood up and cheered and that gave me the confidence to put it on a record okay well from the album John Raitt Broadway legend let's hear Bonnie Raitt and her father singing hey there from the pajama game
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
With the stars in your eyes Love never made a fool of you You used to be too wise Hey there Though she won't throw a crime to you You think someday she'll come to you Better forget her Forget her Her with her nose in the air.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And I wanted people to know that when they hear my version on the live album, for example, that this is where we got it, the great Mississippi Fred McDowell. Oh, let's hear it, recorded in 1964.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Yeah, I'd have to say that of all the tunes I've recorded, this one moves me the most, and it's the one that gets mentioned to me when I'm out and about, you know, sky caps or people that are taking my reservation on the phone, you know, they just have spoken to me about how much that song means, and I just have to thank Mike Reed and Alan Shamblin for feeling as deeply as they did to come up with this, because I definitely think this is one that's going to stand the test of time.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Turn down Turn down these voices inside my head Lay down with me and tell me no lies Just hold me close me cause I can't make you love me if you don't you can't make your heart feel something it won't here in In these final hours, I will lay down my heart and feel the power. You won't. No, you won't. I can make you love me.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Actually, I started out with the father of Delta Blues making an appearance in Cambridge at the house of a man who helped rediscover him, Dick Waterman, who came to be a very important part of my life and a lot of lives of blues people.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Sun House was staying with Dick Waterman in Cambridge where I was going to college, and I heard through the Harvard radio station that he was going to be there, and this other blues fanatic friend of mine said, would you like to meet him? So it started with that, and then I met Dick Waterman that day.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
went on to get to hang out with Skip James and big boy Arthur Crudup and Fred McDowell and Mance Lipscomb and then Buddy Guy Jr. Wells were all people that Dick booked. And he had worked with Mississippi John Hurt, who unfortunately had passed away before I got a chance to meet him. But that was my entry into meeting all these great blues people. And part of the reason I took a
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
semester off in my sophomore year was because I knew that these guys were up in age and that I wasn't going to have this opportunity to kind of get to know them and learn at their feet and be of service or just hang out and soak this up. And that was when Fred and I just made this bond.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And I'm sure he, as well as the other bluesmen, always got a big kick out of the fact that this little round-faced redhead was playing Robert Johnson songs and Sun House songs. And I just sat there listening to their stories and learned to drink and, you know, try to be a blues woman at 20, which, you know, I managed to do by the time I was 40 and get recognized for it.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
You know, I'm sure it was odd from the outside, but for the inside, most of the people that were in love with blues were white middle-class kids that were just going to folk festivals and going around the South with tape recorders.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And, of course, the British interest in the blues and Big Bill Brunzi and Lead Belly, and that led to so many of these records being exposed to groups that became the Rolling Stones and the Animals and the Beatles even. The rhythm and blues music was on the radio at that time. Not delta blues, but rhythm and blues was on the radio right next to the Beatles and all the white groups.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
So it wasn't as segregated and it didn't seem as culturally odd to me at the time. I just knew that I'd lucked into something.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Well, his particular, you know, my style's obviously a little different, and of course the key's different, because I sing in a woman's key.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
There were some chords that he used, you know, certain positions on the guitar that I wouldn't have been able to figure out until I watched him do it, but the basic way you learn guitar for me, because I didn't take lessons, was just listening and mimicking, and... And his soulfulness and just his abandon, the way he got into it.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And when he played electric guitar, which he did a lot of the time in later years because it cut through more to clubs where kids were noisy. And, you know, that's what led me to the electric guitar was the way that the note would sustain and just sing and the way you could just... It's so funky when you get these...
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
you know, cheap amps and, you know, it's just, you know, that's the stuff that makes David Lindley and Ry Cooder, Jackson Browne's slide plan so great because they just use these really incredible amplification that duplicates the old, really inexpensive amps. And people want to know how to get that funky sound. Well, get a $25 guitar and the cheapest amp you can find.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
When you get home, baby, write me a few of your lines. When you get home, little baby, write me a few of your lines. That'll be consolation, Lord, honey, on my worried mind.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
No, I just heard it. It's not that difficult to play. Whenever you're learning a song from somebody else, you don't really have to see it unless you're playing some kind of amazing Jimi Hendrix thing, which I probably wouldn't even be able to tackle. These things that I play are really stuff that I can manage.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
It's the finesse of it and the soul that you put into it that makes him different from me probably, and hopefully one day I'll get to be as funky as he is.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
singing blues tunes. It just sounded the fruitiest, you know, whitest voice I'd ever heard, which I didn't mind singing Joan Baez songs. But, you know, I really did think that if I just lived that, you know, I went from being pretty much not a rebel rouser as a teenager. I was a really good student. I went away to a Quaker school and went right to college.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And I don't even think I partied at all until I was about 20. And the drinking age in Massachusetts wasn't even until 21. So I started hanging out with these hardcore guys and You know, like any kid sitting at the feet of the masters, you know, I also got to go on tour hanging out with Buddy and Junior's band on the Rolling Stones tour of Europe. So that was some professional hound dogs there.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
So, you know, those first few years, it was very difficult to be as light sounding as I was. And so I kind of made up for it by bravado and kind of swaggering around thinking I could be, you know, like Etta James in a minute.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Yeah, that was an interesting position to be in. I'm sorry I cut you off, Terry. Go ahead.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Oh, that was just, yeah, there was one blues festival where it was kind of my job to, because there was a lot of different bluesmen in one backstage area, all of whom had not only different tastes in what to drink, but could handle it differently. For example, Son House, if he had a couple of shots of vodka, he could remember all of his songs, and if he had too much, he couldn't remember them.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
So if he didn't have any at all, he usually didn't even want to play. So it was just one of these chemistry experiments that was...
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Kind of a funny anecdote for a young college student hanging out with these blues guys because it was kind of my job to help road manage, and I had to be sure not to let somebody just pass a pint bottle to somebody that I knew was just going to get totally toasted, and he didn't play until four hours from now.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
You're getting old guys that have been farmers and Pullman Porters for 25 years, and suddenly everybody wants to give them anything they want in whatever quantity. And it did a lot of them in. You have to be really careful. Otherwise, it's not helping anybody to give somebody who has a propensity to alcoholism too much alcohol. And we've all seen that in every lifestyle in rock and roll.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Well, this particular album, which has now been re-released on Alligator Records, it's from an album called, I think it's Sippy Sings the Blues, if they left the name the same. And I picked it up when I was 18. I spent the summer my freshman year in on a college charter flight and traveled around Europe with a couple of girlfriends.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Went into the famous Dobell's record store in London and found this incredible record. picture of this woman in these rhinestone cat glasses, and it said Sippy Wallace, and I recognized the name from my old classic blues collection records, you know, compilations, and I'd always really liked Sippy's music because she really didn't take any...
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
She didn't cut anybody any slack in terms of men at the time. She wasn't a victim. She was, you know, you can make me do what you want to do, but you've got to know how. So I had bought the record, fell in love with her, had no idea she was still alive. And at that point, the record was only two or three years old, I think.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Well, you know by that I must have had them walking through.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And I'd recorded a couple of her songs, three actually, over my first two albums. And when I was invited to come to the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in 1972 to perform, I, at that point, had found out that that's where she was living in Detroit and invited her to come out on stage.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
She said she would only do gospel because she was recovering from a stroke and had given up the blues and was playing in the church. And... So I started playing Women Be Wise in the little trailer backstage, and she started kind of sashing back and forth, and she said, well, maybe I'll just do one blues.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And the rest is kind of history, because after that, she was the big hit of the festival, our duet of this song, and we went on to record it together in her subsequent album, Sippy, on Atlantic Records. And we toured together for the next 15 years until she passed away at 86.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Man, oh man. That's a wonderful recording. That's really, really great.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
Well, I'd say those lyrics, for starters. I mean, both You Got to Know How and Women Be Wise and Mighty Type Woman. All these tunes that she writes are real lessons. I learned a lot about what kind of songs appeal to me by what she chose to write about.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And, yeah, I mean, just in terms of her love of family and her independence from men, I mean, she lost her husband many years previous to when I met her and seemed to have a very full life not being somebody's wife. I'm sure she would have, you know, she missed her husband. He was the love of her life. And she really had no desire to get connected again.
Fresh Air
Bonnie Raitt / Francis Ford Coppola
And that was a very strong lesson to me as a young girl. Because I did grow up in a feminist era. And to have a blues woman or someone like Ruth Brown or Aretha Franklin as my role models, as well as Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, you know, these are women that just stood up for themselves and demanded respect.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Bonnie Raitt
I had a double life early on. I have to be careful now that I don't And let that schism happen. And I remember the metaphor of the Wizard of Oz being found out to be just a regular man. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The best movie ever. The best. I totally related to that because I have been given this mantle of so much power and responsibility.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I look so badass to everybody, but I'm really not as... Like that. And in my private life, I have to really wrestle who that is in the ground and see, don't spend too much time just stoking the BR machinery. Otherwise, you lose who you are when you're just a smaller case.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Or have somebody find that for you. Thank you for telling me about that, because I immediately get her vulnerability in her voice for all the strength that she had. That's why so many people relate to her. That's right. There is a real vulnerability. Oh, my gosh. And to be put through what she was put through as a child, uppers and downers and dance for this. Right, exactly.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, no. Here you go. Here's where the rubber hits the road. I am frustrated not being on tour. There's nothing like what happens on stage. Nothing like it. I mean, I make records so I can tour. My dad loved it till the day he stopped performing at 86 years old, and he only mostly stopped because his audience was
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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passed away and and but i'm i'm telling you that i am frustrated when i'm not it's not the adulation of the crowd it's the gang comradery it's the travel totally it's the you know the waking up in a different city and a new opening act an opening night every night show those people you still got it yeah I love, since I was 20 years old, being on the road.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So when I'm home, I have a satisfying, beautiful life here. I live where I want to live. I got a small circle of chosen family, friends. And I'm healthy and I'm lucky. But I really miss what happens playing with other people on the road. I mean, playing by myself is not as satisfying. But do you play every day? No, I only play when I'm getting ready to tour.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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No, I'm too busy managing the big career of this woman who, where's my name? So the business of being Bonnie Raitt is taking up a lot of my time, and I'm glad to do it and answer as diplomatically and kindly when I can't do a benefit or I can't sing on someone's record. Yeah. Or I can't write a blurb.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And when I hear a song that I really love and I want to do it live, then I pick up the guitar and learn it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But I mean, I'm not one of those... When I was a teenager, I just played all the time. Right. But I don't do that so much anymore. But now I'm playing for fun and I got to get my calluses going again. I did my vocal warmup today and I'm singing on a session after we dock on this podcast. I'm singing on someone's record. So I'm getting that fire is going again and my fingers are going, where is it?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I wouldn't know how to notate a solo. I didn't take guitar lessons, so I don't know how to read music. But I took a little piano lesson. But I do everything by ear, pretty much. I just sort of make chord charts when I'm learning a new song. But I play mostly by ear. But yeah, it's pretty spontaneous. And when I'm making a record, I like to get it as live as possible on the first or second take.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So minimal rehearsal. Just pick the key, learn the lyrics. I get the lyrics in front of me so I can just be present and get the band and I rocking on this tune. And then later I do my guitar solo. So I might do three or four takes. But when I piece together from two different takes, if I want to make a combo... A lot of times I start with that as the scaffolding for the solos on tour.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I'm not a big jam stretch out for three or four times around. I'd rather play more songs in the set and save the guitar duels for the rockers. Then I turn to my other guitar player and we just let her rip for a while. So that's fun. That's so fun.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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That bitch hit me. I want to hit her back. Like Sidney Poitier in To Serve With Love. Not To Serve With Love. In the Heat of the Night when he slaps Rod Steiger. Right. When he slaps Rod Steiger. Yeah, unbelievable.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I guess they wouldn't let you do that or what? No, no, I loved taking my piano lessons. My teacher passed away, and I also fell in love with the guitar, and I was playing the guitar more. Right. And I got enough out of the piano. I only wanted to learn piano enough so that I could back myself up and play theme from Exodus and... Pop songs. My mom was my dad's musical director in rehearsal.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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That's right. And so we had racks and racks of drawers of alphabetized sheet music. And I would just come home when it wasn't time for me to learn my classical piece. I would play Richard Rodgers songs. Or if ever I would leave you. I'd do all the Broadway songs. And I would play by ear and sing along with them. So I'm so lucky that I grew up with two incredible music parents. Wow.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Do you know instantly? I pretty much know when I hear a song that I love so much that I just want to sing it. I mean, it started when we're little, and Joan Baez, it was one thing to fall in love with that first Joan Baez or Odetta record, but I just had... I had to sing and play it, not for performing it, but just to take in the communing with her.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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There's something about the song where it wasn't enough to just hear her do it. And it wasn't about her as much as it was just what that made me feel. I wanted to make myself feel. So I would sing for myself. And I'm still, when I hear a song that I go nuts over, I go, man, we're going to kill that.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I have to just do a sidetrack and say, you hurt my feelings is so great.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It is so fantastic, as are all your performances. I just adore you. So don't get me started. Thank you so much. I'll bet you when you read that script, you said,
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It's so profound. I relate to this so much that I almost wanted to go ask everybody in my life that is, have you been lying to me? It's very risky to do it with your romantic partner, though. No shit. I like to keep them kind of separate for that reason because I don't want to know. Yeah, I don't want to be asked what my opinion is of what they're doing or the other way around.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Because of this shock of hair on the side that goes down. And then I put a little white streak in the bird wing and the little logo. It's like the red wing with a little white streak. I love that. Which I've had since I was 24, by the way. It just showed up out of the blue. And I've had that white streak. And when I finally, at 31, when my red hair kind of faded a little bit. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It was still just that one white streak, and I tried dyeing it when I dyed my whole head, and I just went, you know, I'm used to this thing being here. It felt weird. So people always ask me, why do you dye your hair white? I go, because it's the only real color that's been there all this time. I just never touched it. It's so chic. It's so unusual.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Get out of here. Fantastic. Swear to God. I've been told by someone that said, oh, it means you've been kissed by an angel.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It was the hospice nurse that was there with my dad when he passed away in the Palisades. She said, I've always loved that white streak. You know it means you've been kissed by an angel. Oh, I love hospice workers. As she opens the window when my dad passed away and let his spirit out. I mean, whoa, I said, okay, I'm going to take, I'm taking that and I'm going to be kissed by an angel.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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That's why I have the white street.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I mean, it wasn't at the exact moment. It just means that was the same person who was kind of connected to the other realms in a way that when you are blessed enough to be able to be with a loved one as they're getting ready to go, and those angels, those saints, those hospice nurses are there helping you get through it. She just said, does anyone mind if I open the window?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And then he passed away, and she said, I like to let the spirit out. Bonnie. It was so moving to me. Of course. It wasn't anything I would question because she was an incredibly empathetic, compassionate, wonderful nurse that helped not only my dad but the whole family get through that.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I don't think so.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, I'm just saying that the... I'm not a country music artist, but I was surprised with this amount of zillions of streams and appreciation of so many women artists in the country field that it turned out that for a couple of decades, they were mostly just playing guys. On the radio. And I couldn't understand what that gap was. You know, like we can't understand a wage gap.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Are you still, are you kidding? Right. Still there. Yeah. But no, I think, I mean, Joni Mitchell and so many great, Carole King, great singer-songwriters and artists have always been instrumentalists as well.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You don't think about gender. You're just writing. Well, when I sing Angel from Montgomery, some of my strongest songs have been written by men about women. Nobody's Girl is a beautiful song from Nick of Time, Larry John McNally. Oh my God, there's a whole slew of them that are so inside what women are feeling. There's a song of mine on Longing in Their Hearts called All at Once.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It was the first time I wrote in the third person about a woman that had a fight with her daughter. Mm-hmm. And our teenage daughter and, you know, and it was just like a short story. Yeah. And that was really that really felt good to write and sing from a woman's point of view. Right. So I sing from women's point of view. Women be wise, you know. Keep your mouth shut. Don't advertise your man.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah. I love those lyrics. Oh, thank you. I think I've written a lot of really strong song lyrics.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I mean. Thank you. Thank you. I watched that go down on TV. A news team brought a crew for a woman to meet. The man who had her son's heart. And that just inspired me. I mean, I wrote a story about a woman who actually caused the death of her child because she was looking the other way. And she just was so ashamed and so horrified. She just disappeared.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And there was no way for her ever to have any redemption. She was just one of those people, that crazy lady down the street with the blinds closed. and that this guy who had her son's heart that she didn't even know was donated spent all this time to find her. But anyway, there are a lot more songs I sing from a woman's point of view. I should probably say I write from a woman's point of view.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I just don't think about it consciously.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, of course they would be good friends of yours. Aren't they the greatest? The greatest. Oh, and Sheila. I know. Cause I mean, I knew Sheila more because she booked me for David Letterman.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes, we did. I remember I was going, God, she just built like a rocket ship. I just remember loving you. Me? Man, I am going to work out more. No, stop it. I was so inspired. I remember being thrilled that we were on at the same time.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I can see it. Oh, sweet. Oh, my gosh. Isn't that fun? Are we foxes or what? We are stone cold fucking foxes. I love it. And I was so happy that you were, you know, friends with Jane. Fonda, yes. Yeah. You're political. And I just, I love who you are in the world, too. So, you know, we're going to go on and on like this.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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People are going to just shake their head and go, you guys just make a date and sleep together. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Did they drive you crazy?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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No, no, I love... I loved it, but I have two brothers. I'm not a girly girl anyway, so it was really fun. I was kind of a tomboy. I never identified with hair and makeup. I just wasn't into shopping. I didn't want to be a wife and mother. From the get-go? Yeah. Gidget was a big role model from when that book and movie came out. Yes.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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When she was not accepted in a man's world of surfing and then she got really good at it. Yes. You're the Gidget. Yeah. And then I've also said this on interviews, but I really loved Amanda Blake because she had red hair and she owned the saloon and she didn't have to get married, but they were way in love. And I just thought that was so cool because...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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A lot of women, the mothers of my friends in L.A. when I was growing up, somehow in the middle of our teen years, a lot of them were getting dumped. You know, the husbands were marrying younger women. Uh-huh. You know, either the wives later, I realized, might have been premenopausal or when the kids, you know, my dad left my mom when I was 19 and found a younger woman that he was closer with.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I mean, I don't know what went on between them closed doors, but... Parenting teenagers can put a lot of stress on a relationship. Sure. And my dad was away a lot and, you know, my mom was... You know, it was difficult. And so I just got the message where I just don't want to have to depend on any guy.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You know, I'd just rather be way in love, but stay independent and be not the other woman like breaking up people's homes. Even before feminism, I didn't want to have that model of being married and living in the suburbs and having kids.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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No, didn't. I was just naturally a tough girl, you know, and I adopted that blues mama persona early on with my band Jump Ahead from teenage years to my first album. I couldn't stand the way I sang because it was so fruity and I wanted to sound like Etta James and it wasn't going to happen.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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On the first album?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I hated it, hated, hated. But I loved doing it. I just didn't like listening to it. So I would adopt this kind of swagger and drink and smoke and, you know, talk. I mean, I listened to some bootleg live shows of my early folk days where I was just like, you know, I just, who was I? I adopted a persona as if I was somebody that did own a saloon.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I have great affection and compassion and a lot of great memories of who she was back then. I'm proud of the music that I made, but do I like listening to my voice? Not really. I mean, maybe as I got older, I could like it more. Yeah. How about you? When you see yourself, do you... Cringe when you see early footage of yourself?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yep, I have a lot of that, too. I know exactly what you mean. And here's the thing that I found out. Yes. How about when you think... You're making a cool looking face at the camera.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I just, I mean, it's really so embarrassing. I just had to just look at a whole bunch of shots where I could have sworn I was, or even live shots now. I'm editing, helping pick the promo pictures for the Austin City Limits show we cut. All these shots of me playing guitar, they just look hideous. I mean, I'm never, now I'm going to be self-conscious about how I play. Oh, no, you mustn't be.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I don't want to be. I just want to wear a COVID mask and just make whatever face I want.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, the guitar part's fine. I just have to make sure that I'm not making the face that I just saw in about 10 photos.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I mean, I think that happens naturally. Yeah, it happens. You get lower, you get more notes down below as you get older and older. It sounds great. Because I warm up more. Yeah. Oh, thank you.
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I mean, I feel like I have more agility.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I know that I have to say when I look at my pals Jackson Brown and, you know, Bruce Hornsby, Bruce Springsteen, like a lot of people, men and women that are touring now, their voices have never been better.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And it's really great because we're not 50. We're like 70. It's fantastic. It's a huge benefit to aging. Yeah. Isn't it? And look at Tony Bennett and Willie and Bebe. I mean, my dad was singing his butt off when he was in his 80s. Incredible. I mean, when people go, are you going to retire? I go, why would I retire?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, I'll tell you what was great was that she had all of the... Inherent swagger still, but she was bemused. And I don't think that when you're in your 20s, you're bemused by men's bad behavior. In her case, if somebody should have paid royalties, she was just really happy to be appreciated. And she would just sit and listen to us clowning around in the dressing room.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I just looked over at her and she was like, not winking, but almost. She was bemused and relaxed and having the time of her life. And I said, man, I want to get to that Yoda place. Muddy was like that. John Lee Hooker was like that a lot. Fred McDowell, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sippy Wallace.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You know, when you're talking about Ruth Brown, who did get ripped off and built Atlantic Records, she was from a different generation. In the 50s, she kind of built Atlantic Records. She was pissed, so you don't cross her. But Sippy was, for me as a young woman, to get to be with somebody that was so...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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wise about men and she said you can make me do what you want to do but you got to know how that was one of the songs of hers I picked her songs because you know the feminists would say what do you mean women be wise keep your mouth shut don't advertise your man that if you talk about yours they're going to come up and steal them well excuse me that's what happens you know women don't do that to each other I go oh really what world are you living in right exactly
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You're going to brag on why somebody's such a great lover and then you're surprised when you're on the road and they take a little taste. Come on.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I hope. I hope I reached the Sippy Wallace level of bemusement. Yeah. Because, really, you've got to just sit back and go, it's all... It's out of my control, but I'm going to... I mean, there's a different layer. There's layers of political stuff that are on top of being alive now that I don't know whether any bemusement would be what I would call any... No, I hear that. Right. Yes.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But I'm just saying, in her as a young woman, she was... She was like what I'm aspiring to feel like now. Like, okay. She's okay. She's okay. Yeah. She's like sitting with it all. She's sitting with it all. She can breathe deep. Breathe deep. Funny. Yes. Present.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Bring it when she needs to, you know. Right. She didn't seem to care about what people thought about her. Yes. All that stuff. I mean, we're tyrannized by the weight thing, by the... You know, am I pretty enough? I know. Believe me. What about ageism? Oh. Yeah. Talk about that, Bonnie.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I think in my folk Americana wing of the music business, we only get more legendary and people respect us more as we get older. I don't see the discrimination that leading ladies got in my dad's business when Connie Towers and other people turned 50 and other actresses. They were over, over.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And so in my world, I did not face sexism or ageism, but I did face men in the beginning not liking to be told anything. that I was self-managed, that I was the music director of my albums when I couldn't, you know, that was odd to be told what you were doing not correctly or you'd like somebody to do it differently in the studio when I couldn't play that instrument as well as they could.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So, like, who are you who died and made you the boss? So how did you handle that?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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tiptoe around that yeah you know um first of all you try to get make sure you're only in the room with people that have a lot of respect for you and most of that time that was the case there was like one one record where i was with a lot of really heavy hitters in new york and i was only 24 and there was a actual producer jerry ragavoy and so what i would do oftentimes that would be a partnership and when something tricky needed to be said sometimes i would ask him to
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rephrase it he'd be like my secretary of state uh-huh my yeah he was the diplomat you he was the u.n ambassador that went in and said what she means to say here is uh-huh sounds great it sounds great but did you ever have any self-doubt
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You know, when it comes to music, my ears tell me when something's working. I cannot lie. If it doesn't sound right, if the groove's... too rushed or the playing isn't that track wasn't it. Yeah. I have to be completely honest. And so I've and I trust that implicitly since the beginning. Yeah. I can tell when it's the right take. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And pretty much the people that I pick to work with, they feel the same way. So I haven't had a lot of pushback on that. The pushback sometimes is in the record company where they don't like to see a woman represent themselves. And if you say, how come you don't put enough records in the stores after I just sold out that city? They don't like to hear that from the artists.
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So they want to have an intermediary, and it's usually a guy.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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How were you feeling? Yeah. It's interesting. I haven't been asked this in a very long time. And it's an interesting... When we started out speaking about the uppercase and lowercase...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I was worried that by personally becoming more at peace and serene and well, that I wouldn't, the edge that I had, that the suffering, that the, you know, anger and the resentment and the betrayal, and I'm singing all of your pain, I'm singing for you, I'm going through it too, and I had this bad relationship, and, you know...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I picked all those relationships so I could be authentic when I sang about pain. But I'm just saying that what happens when you get out of... agony and you're not suffering anymore and you're not paying. What if you, what if it doesn't sound as authentic when you're up there trying to play?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And in fact, it was just as if the windshield was clearer and I could be more authentically me and feel even stronger. And I watched Stevie Ray Vaughan come out of rehab and he was worried about whether he'd be able to play the same, whether he'd have the same fire. Where, where's the source of that fire? Is it suffering and pain and self-doubt and all of those even existential questions?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And it turns out that the miracle that happens when you can be coming from a different place that's not inauthentic or phony or a crutch of becoming somebody else or putting in chemicals to try to be that other person. You can be, like the wizard actually came up with the solutions all by himself without being behind there. So that was what was beautiful.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And for me, singing my songs straight, because I didn't sing in my shows messed up. I kind of waited until after the show to get high. I wasn't that different. But being the person that I became when I was more authentically okay with the smaller case me only made the bigger case me stronger, I think, and more compelling and more passionate. And the suffering is right there.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I can remember what those pain—when I sing I Can't Make You Love Me, it's as if I just went through it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It was, you know— That is what I—I just got goosebumps from that. That's what I think I want to know. I want to know that I had it all along.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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That I don't have to put it on. It's not a role that I'm playing.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And so it's a beautiful thing to just feel so in your moment when I'm singing and playing music and it's working. It's like you when you're doing your thing and it's just perfect. It's the ultimate. It's the ultimate. Melding of what you were supposed to be doing on this earth this time. And I know what a gift it is. So I'm not going to cheapen it and mess it up. Right, right, right. That's good.
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Absolutely. It is probably the longing for what I wish I could have and love or didn't get as a little kid. That's not grief, but it's longing and the loss of so many things. Things in my life that I didn't cherish at the time. Well, I just mean relationships that because I'm on the road all the time, I wish I had nurtured more. You know, that's something we all kick ourselves for.
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But the loss of so many people has been when I go to sing now. I sing Dimming of the Day for my brother Steve. And I wrote this rocker song with my guitar player. I put the words to it called I'm Living for the Ones Who Didn't Make It. Yeah. You know, and that helps to get the rockers actually get the energy out as much as the sad songs. But Angel from Montgomery, I mean, wipes me out.
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I mean, there's so many different songs that have ache in them.
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And grief is a big part of that because it's been part of my life the last 20 years especially. Yeah, right. So it's cathartic that way, right, Bonnie? Absolutely. And I know the audience is feeling that. And when I sing just like that, I try not to make eye contact with the people in the audience, but the guys in the band will tell me there was people sobbing in the front, you know. Oh, yeah.
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Yeah. You know, or I've gotten letters from women that have said, I've never seen my husband cry. We've been married 40 years. And when you sing, I turn and look at him and he was crying. I can't make you love me. Oh, yeah. So I know that I'm holding a really holy space on those songs like Angel from Montgomery. You know, the feisty ones, I'm holding that space.
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And, you know, when you're asking about, do I write from women's point of view? You know, yeah, I've written a whole lot of songs. You know, Meet Me Halfway, Standing by the Same Old Love, Down to You. There's a whole bunch of tunes. Baby, Don't You Know I'm on Your Side that are about... Even though we were finished talking about it, I just went...
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I'm standing up for these positions, these lyrics that I pick. I'm standing up for those people in the audience that need to say that to their partners. And a lot of them are women. So, yeah, I mean, I take back saying I don't think about gender. I think about me, but because I'm a woman, I'm speaking about meet me halfway.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, thank you.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It feels that way when I'm singing it. Thank you for receiving it. It really means a lot.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Can you imagine how it feels for me to be off the road since October and have my first time being me again, be with you, receiving me with such an – I mean, I knew you were a fan, but not to the extent – of soul connection that we have and so many things line up, you know, and the important and all the important, the real things and the real things.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I admire you so much for you to like me is just thrilling. So it's right. It's me. It's mutual.
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Thank you. Thank you.
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partners that are more your peers than someone that's just feeding what you need and companionship and being okay. You know, see if you can make more parity in the decision. And that's hard to do when you travel all the time. But that's good advice. You know, but I wish I had I've had relationships with people that were really even on many, many levels, and those were the ones that had a shot.
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And when I aimed lower and just sort of like filled up on fast food for that desire, and I was holding out for the higher one later, well, next thing you know, I would have liked to have known that sooner. Yeah. Okay. That's really good advice.
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Oh, peace, sanity, coming together, putting aside our differences and an end to this
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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a redirect of the road we're on onto one that's more solid and more loving and more compassionate and more just and may we be at peace may i be at peace may i find a way to be effective and i'm looking forward to making a difference if i can help make that happen that's the future i want to see well that's the perfect way to end this conversation
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I am too. I'm going to go sing on a record by the man who co-wrote I Can't Make You Love Me and the wonderful Joe Henry that produced like eight songs I've put out on the last few albums. One of my favorite songwriters. And the two of them are collaborating on a record together. And I'm going to go finally get to pay back to Mike Reed by singing on his, he sings like an angel.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I mean, Scott, you know how Michael McDonald's voice is unearthly beautiful? Yes. Mike Reed, he's made several albums of his own. He's just so, but for a former Cincinnati Bengal football player to have come up with the music for I Can't Make You Love Me. And with Alan Shamblin to come up with that, Don't Patronize Me. Don't Patronize Me is extraordinary. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
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So you're going to that now. And I'm going to take this lump in my throat that you've carefully honed for the last two hours, and I'm going to use that and sing on this beautiful song that they did together. Oh, I'm so happy. Oh, I'm so happy. I can't wait to hear it. Me too. I can't wait. And just think, now it doesn't exist. In a couple hours, it will always exist. All right. It's amazing.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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All right. I can't wait to see you again and make a difference together and have a blast and laugh and hike and do all that stuff. Okay. We are one. We are one. Bonnie Raitt, the most wonderful, the most authentic. Julia, oh, thank you for everything. Thank you, Julia. I love you, too. Love you, love you. Be well.
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Julia, I don't know how I can live up to this. I'm shaking in my boots.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I'm so honored that you get me so deeply because it takes all of those qualities you like in me are in you. And that's how we make that connection. I know that's the truth. And I've seen them in you. So thank you for honoring me with that.
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Absolutely. Proudly 74 as of November last year. Nice. Nice. And how old do you feel, Bonnie? Oh, my God. Probably 50. Uh-huh. Maybe. Maybe. You know, the wear and tear on joints from being active and injuries here and there and all that stuff. You know, just wear and tear from age is the only way I feel a little bit more comfortable.
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I wouldn't say less vibrant, but it takes a little bit more to get up off the couch. You know, I can tell that the parts are getting a little worn. Creaky? A little worn. I'm trying to keep the soft tissue and the spirit still gooey. Okay. That's smart.
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Yes. And I work at it. I mean, I try to do yoga at least three times a week and I hike and I move around and try not to sit around too much. But it's, yeah, 74 is different than 64. And, you know, we'll all have to keep lifting each other up through these rough times because that's the part that beats us down more than gravity, I think. Yeah.
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You know, the cruelty and the suffering and the war and the endless stupidity and what? Are you kidding? I think that wears you out. Beats down the spirit. It's harder to get up off the spiritual couch when you get that pounding you down. Oh, I like that. I like that.
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I really think that you're more relaxed about the things that could bother you a lot more, the triggers. You recognize that you get reactive and trigger, and it's just not worth the agita. It's not healthy for you. It doesn't end up harboring resentments, harboring anger. And keep stuffing it and not saying how you really feel that works to get you in the world.
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But somehow I can't separate the fact that I've been I'm in a tremendously lucky position of having enough power to be self-powered, you know, in the business. I mean, I run my own ship with a great team, but. I don't work for anybody and I don't have to answer to anybody. And I'm living in a time when women can carve their own destinies a lot more than my mother's generation even.
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So I think I've earned the ability to be more relaxed from 36 years of work in a sobriety program, but also spiritual and therapy. And some of it is just the age. I can't separate the times we're in from having been a feminist. You know, I mean, if we were fighting what women had to fight in the 1930s. Oh, please. I probably look like my grandmother did when she was 74.
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It was tougher to be a woman before. And I think we know more. We know how to get out of situations that are really unpleasant and not working. We're wiser. And we get the hell out of that situation and stop hanging out with people that are
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draining us right and that's a wisdom that hopefully could come earlier but for me it took a long time right so every decade I'm more I'm not putting up with any more of this crap and I'm more comfortable where I'm at and if I'm not comfortable it's up to me to move out of the way
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That was very well spoken, but... But, yeah, I think that I'm better at that than I was. I'm less at the mercy of other people. And I've heard a lot of women on your podcast and heard a lot of other women that I admire and read their books and have friends that are older than me. And they also have told me they are just more comfortable with themselves than they used to be. Mm-hmm.
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Yes, and that's diving deep early on, but why not? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. The way those two uppercase and lowercase came up for me was in being asked about the balance of my life, you know? What bugs you? And what bugs me is...
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And what has driven a lot of, as I've learned over the years with therapy and in sobriety, working on my programs and finding out, trying to analyze why I do what I do and why I was moved to overindulge in this or pick the wrong partner or why do I, you know, why have I been the way that I've been when it's clearly not working? And that's something that comes with age.
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But one of the problems that I recognized early on was ever since I was little, I really... got more strokes and attention and love by performing outside of my family unit at school, even for my relatives. I became Bonnie the cute little redhead with temples.
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If I did a little Shirley Temple tap dancer and then later, you know, if I played the guitar for my folks' friends, I got a lot of positive attention. By being extroverted and I think that redheaded personality thing, you're born with that color hair and you're supposed to grow into it. So I got what I didn't get at home by being big Bonnie, you know, and I'll say that that became later.
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When I became professional, I'm more comfortable on stage and I always wondered why. Why when I come off stage, I don't have the same self-esteem or lack of self-judgment. So I was beating myself up a lot and privately as a little girl when I went back. And so I wonder when that started.
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I was never that comfortable when I wasn't performing the version of myself that was a good little girl or the cute girl or the talented girl or the all A's or the... daddy's little girl and not cause too much of a ruckus. Then when I was just back in my room, I would pour my heart out and play the guitar and just sing these sad ballads and longing and look in the mirror and hate what I saw.