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Charge, is now streaming on Hulu.

0:16

This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. and Cooley. Richard

0:19

Thompson, the British singer-songwriter guitarist who

0:22

has been writing and recording music

0:24

since the 60s, is about

0:26

to launch a summer concert tour and has

0:28

a new album out. It's called

0:30

Ship to Shore, and it's his first

0:33

studio album in five years, the

0:35

longest stretch between records since he

0:37

co-founded Fairport Convention in 1967, when

0:41

he was 18 years old. Five

0:43

years later, he became a recording

0:45

duo with his wife, Linda Thompson,

0:47

then went solo in 1983. Here's

0:50

a taste of What's Left to Lose, a

0:52

new song from Ship to Shore. Fuck

1:24

do I take, what's

1:29

left to lose? Everything

1:31

I cared about is

1:34

gone, what's left to

1:36

lose? When

1:41

there's nothing, how do I

1:44

carry on? You left my

1:46

life, when you

1:49

shut the door. I'll

1:54

start again in another

1:56

place, and face this tear.

2:00

To replace your face

2:02

one day I won't

2:05

receive any more. Today

2:12

we're going to listen back to two of

2:14

Richard Thompson's visits to Fresh Air. We'll

2:16

hear portions of his 2022 interview with

2:19

Terry Gross after the publication

2:21

of his memoir, but first

2:23

let's listen to his 1994 visit

2:26

to the Fresh Air studio when Richard

2:28

Thompson brought his guitar to promote his

2:30

then new album, Mirror Blue. He

2:33

started by playing and singing a

2:35

number from that collection, a terrific

2:37

song called Easy There, Steady Now.

3:04

Check knife with a precious load, spurs

3:06

its guts all over the road, excuse

3:09

me I had to smile, lost my

3:11

grip too for a while. I said

3:13

Easy There, Steady

3:15

Now, Easy There,

3:19

Steady Now. She

3:25

didn't have a decency to sweep away

3:27

what's left of me, I don't have

3:29

the presence of mind to walk along

3:31

in a straight line. Easy

3:34

There, Steady

3:36

Now, Easy

3:38

There, Steady Now. I'll

3:42

call your name,

3:45

I'll call it

3:47

loud, I'll see

3:50

your face on

3:53

every crown. music

4:05

music music

4:15

music music

4:25

music music

4:35

music music

4:45

music music

4:55

music music

5:05

music music

5:15

music music

5:25

music music

5:35

music music

5:47

music Richard

5:51

Thompson performing in our studio. You

5:53

know, I don't know that I could think

5:55

of another guitarist who combines the

5:58

best of folk and rock. better than you

6:00

do. And I'd

6:02

like to go back to when you first

6:04

got a guitar and ask you

6:06

about what you were listening to then, what direction you

6:09

thought you wanted to head in back

6:11

when you were however old

6:13

you were. I don't know if I had a

6:15

direction, you know, I don't think you think when

6:17

you're that young or if you do

6:19

your, you know, your Mozart or something. Why'd

6:22

you want a guitar? Well there was

6:25

already a guitar in the house. My

6:27

father played guitar and there's

6:30

a lot of guitar music in the house, you

6:32

know, Jenga Reinhart records and Les Paul records and

6:36

then my older sister, you know, when Rock

6:38

and Roll came along she had Buddy Holly

6:40

records and Gene Vincent records. So

6:42

there's lots of guitar stuff. So it was very

6:44

logical to pick it up and play it and

6:48

I really tried to play everything. So

6:51

I really absorbed it, you know, a lot of folk stars

6:53

and a lot of rock stars, you know, really, you know,

6:55

probably before I was 15 or 16. What was your father

6:59

playing? He was playing dance band

7:01

jazz very badly though. He was just an

7:03

amateur musician. What

7:06

context did he play? He was a policeman? Yeah,

7:08

so he was, you know, he just noodled around the

7:11

house. I mean, I think at some point

7:13

he was in a dance band, you know, the, you

7:15

know, the swinging cops

7:18

or something. The

7:20

four truncheons. So did

7:23

you teach yourself? I

7:26

taught myself a bit. My

7:29

sister's boyfriends used to teach me a couple

7:31

of her boyfriends, you know, but play

7:33

guitar. So, you know, while they were waiting for her to

7:35

get ready, which is usually a

7:37

good couple of hours, I

7:39

get a good guitar lesson and then I

7:43

took classical lessons at one point for a couple of years. So

7:46

when you were, say, a teenager, what

7:49

were the licks that you

7:51

were trying hardest to

7:53

learn? Oh, you

7:56

know, the Buddy Holly stuff. That's why I'm

7:58

in the wrong tune. That sort

8:00

of stuff. That

8:07

sort of stuff. The

8:17

Shaddows are a great British instrumental band. That

8:24

kind of stuff. That

8:26

sort of folk stuff. That

8:33

sort of stuff. I

8:42

used to go to folk clubs as well. You'd get a

8:44

real diet. You'd

8:46

see Davey Graham one weekend and somebody

8:48

really atrocious next week. But

8:50

then you could see blues artists coming to

8:53

Britain from about 63 onwards, 63, 64. And

8:56

did they have a big impression on you? Oh yeah, I mean it's

8:59

great. You could see someone you'd heard

9:01

on a record and you thought they were dead and

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10:42

Let's get back to Terry's 1994 interview

10:45

with Richard Thompson. It's one

10:47

of two interviews we're featuring today from

10:49

the singer-songwriter guitarist who has a new

10:51

album out and is starting a new

10:53

summer concert tour. Here he

10:56

is with another song called, Taking My

10:58

Business Elsewhere. If

11:13

she's not here by now, then

11:16

I guess she's

11:18

not coming. If

11:26

she's not here by now,

11:31

then I guess she don't

11:33

care. Waiter,

11:41

I won't waste

11:43

your time anymore.

11:46

You've already started

11:49

to sweep them down the floor.

11:53

And I guess she's not coming,

11:56

so I'll head for the

11:58

door. I'll be

12:01

taking my business

12:03

elsewhere It

12:15

wasn't for me that

12:19

sparkin' rises

12:23

It wasn't

12:26

for me

12:30

that halo

12:34

in my head When

12:42

she touched me a load rose

12:45

up into my throat But

12:49

she must act that way

12:52

with any old soul

12:56

And wait her, you don't

12:58

seem to share in the

13:01

joke So

13:03

I'll be taking

13:05

my business elsewhere

13:09

When she called me

13:11

her lover and

13:14

born was she kissing me

13:17

I'll never get over

13:20

the sheer surprise

13:22

of her acting

13:24

that way I'm

13:27

feeling okay but for the eyes of

13:30

her Oh,

13:36

it's cold in the

13:38

rain and

13:41

it's dark and

13:43

it's soft And

13:48

I'll miss

13:51

her tonight

13:53

on my

13:55

lonely backstay

14:04

I'm sorry if you're

14:06

taking so much of

14:09

your space I'll

14:11

move down the

14:13

street to some

14:15

friendlier place Cause

14:18

I guess she's not

14:20

coming and you're sick

14:23

of my face I'll

14:25

be taking my business

14:28

this way I'll

14:32

be taking my business

14:35

this way That's

15:02

Richard Thompson Great

15:04

song, I've come to think of that as

15:07

your one for my baby One

15:10

for somebody's baby What about the

15:12

story behind the song you just sang? It's me

15:16

sitting down thinking of this story Actually

15:19

I was thinking, gosh I'd love to write a song for little Jimmy

15:21

Scott He's one of my favorite

15:23

singers So I started writing a song and it came

15:25

out as this one And I

15:27

thought, well he couldn't possibly sing this, but I could So

15:30

I'll keep it What made you want to write a song

15:32

for him? He's

15:35

a jazz singer He's a jazz singer

15:37

He's a very intense performer and singer

15:39

And boy, he sure

15:41

sounds like he means it Spare

15:43

me from having to read your lyrics and

15:46

sounding like I'm giving the squarest reading in

15:48

the world There's something I

15:50

want to quote here Can I ask you

15:52

to quote the line? This is from the way that

15:54

it shows I just think it's a particularly well

15:57

written couple of lines here

16:00

you quote the first few lines? I'm

16:02

gonna give yourself away to some Casanova on

16:05

the spills and stains of a

16:07

backstage sofa. He'll

16:09

catch you yawning with one leg over. I

16:13

think that's really great writing. Casanova over. Well

16:15

at that point the rhyme scheme was getting

16:17

desperate. I was running out of possibilities. I'm

16:19

not even thinking about the rhyme but the

16:22

spills and the stains on the couch. I

16:24

thought that was really nice. I was

16:27

actually thinking of a backstage in Philadelphia. Oh

16:29

really? I can't remember where the place is

16:31

called. It really sort of run down rock

16:33

and roll theater. It's got a

16:35

smelliest couch I've ever seen in my life. You

16:37

can sort of smell the

16:40

sort of improvised sex oozing of this

16:42

couch. Quite disturbing. Now

16:45

who are the songwriters you admire? And did you ever

16:47

go through a period of trying to write in the

16:49

manner of different songwriters like you went through a period

16:52

of trying to play in the style of different guitarists?

16:54

Yeah I think it's a great exercise. I still do

16:56

it. I still think well you know

16:58

here's a songwriter who has

17:01

a great kind of flow or something. Why

17:04

didn't I try and write a song in that style? I

17:07

still do that. Early on I

17:09

was listening to people like the

17:13

Everly Brothers and Philoaks

17:16

and Richard Farina. I've

17:19

always been influenced by Scottish

17:23

ballads. I think that's probably the richest place

17:26

you can find songs because

17:29

they're just so good and they're

17:32

so stunningly succinct. They

17:35

tell whole stories. There's

17:37

so much in a verse. It's

17:40

so beautifully pared down over

17:42

centuries. Just wonderful stuff. So

17:45

that's a big influence. And some

17:47

of the Scottish writers like Carolina

17:52

Oliphant and Burns,

17:54

you know, Burns Walter Scott. Can I ask

17:57

you to play a chorus of one of

17:59

your songs that you feel is especially interesting?

18:01

influenced by traditional Scottish ballads. Gosh.

18:04

Okay, thank

18:06

you. I think I'm...

18:11

Mmm. Oh, you

18:14

speak the words

18:16

Locked in my

18:19

breath But

18:24

it's late for me Let

18:27

an old man rest

18:36

One more blackened

18:38

time On the

18:40

barricade To

18:48

keep me Safe

18:54

from loving It

18:59

goes on. But in

19:02

terms of, you know, verse

19:04

structure, you

19:07

know, word usage, word repetition, blah

19:09

blah blah, you know, and tune, I mean, it's

19:11

very... And what you're saying is? Very Scottish, yeah.

19:13

I've really just so enjoyed the concert.

19:17

I'm so thrilled we

19:19

were able to do this. I want to thank you very, very much. I'm

19:21

very grateful you had me, thank you. Would

19:24

you like to close with another song from the

19:26

new album? Sure. Or if

19:28

you prefer something earlier? Yeah, I could do something

19:30

earlier. Yeah, great. What would you like? Want

19:33

to do Feel So Good? Okay. Yeah, why

19:35

don't you do Feel So Good? Okay. This

19:38

is from a previous album from a couple of years

19:40

ago called Rumor and Sigh. It is indeed, yes. Here

19:42

we go. I

19:45

feel so good I'm gonna

19:47

break somebody's heart tonight I

19:52

feel so good I'm gonna take

19:54

someone apart tonight They

19:58

put me in jail for my

20:00

life deviant ways two years seven

20:02

months and 16 days

20:05

now back on the street

20:07

in a purple haze i

20:10

feel so good i feel

20:12

so good i feel so

20:14

good i'm gonna break somebody's

20:17

heart tonight i

20:24

feel so good i'm gonna make

20:26

somebody's day tonight i

20:30

feel so good i'm gonna make somebody

20:33

pay tonight i'm

20:36

old enough to send but i'm too young to

20:38

vote society been dragging on

20:41

the tail of my coat but

20:43

i've got a suitcase with 50

20:45

pound notes and a half naked

20:47

woman with a tongue down my

20:49

throat and i feel so good

20:52

i feel so good

20:56

i feel so good i'm gonna

20:58

break somebody's heart tonight they

21:03

made me pay for the things i've

21:05

done now

21:09

it's my turn to have all

21:11

the fun i

21:15

feel so good i'm gonna break

21:17

somebody's heart tonight i

21:30

feel so good i feel

21:32

so good i'm gonna break

21:34

somebody's heart tonight i

21:45

feel so good i'm gonna

21:47

break somebody's heart tonight i

21:50

feel so good i'm gonna break

21:52

somebody's heart tonight Break

22:00

somebody's heart. Break

22:03

somebody's heart. Break

22:06

somebody's heart. Richard

22:17

Thompson, visiting Terry Gross in the Fresh Air

22:19

studio in 1994. By

22:22

the way, we should note that the jazz

22:24

singer he mentioned, Little Jimmy Scott, died in

22:26

2014. Do

22:28

yourself a favor and listen to his music.

22:32

After a break, we'll hear portions of a

22:34

much more recent interview with Richard Thompson from

22:36

2022. And

22:38

film critic Justin Chang reviews Janet

22:40

Planet, the first film from

22:42

the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker.

22:45

I'm David B. Cooley, and this is Fresh Air.

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This message comes from NPR sponsor

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23:08

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a Holocaust survivor, princess by marriage,

23:17

founder of a fashion brand and

23:19

philanthropist, Diane von Furstenberg

23:21

continues to inspire and empower women

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Clinton, and more, Diane von

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for this podcast comes from

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the New Bower Family Foundation,

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supporting WHY's Fresh Air and

24:10

its commitment to sharing ideas

24:12

and encouraging meaningful conversation. On

24:15

today's show, we're featuring singer-songwriter guitarist

24:17

Richard Thompson, who has scheduled a

24:19

new concert tour this summer and

24:21

has just released his first studio

24:23

album in five years, Ship to

24:25

Shore. When he

24:27

was 18 years old, Thompson co-founded

24:30

the British group Fairport Convention, then

24:32

teamed with his then-wife Linda Thompson

24:34

as a recording duo before embarking

24:36

on a six-decade solo career. Richard

24:40

Thompson covered a lot of that ground in

24:42

his memoir, which borrowed its title from one

24:44

of his songs. The memoir

24:46

is called B-Swing, Losing My

24:48

Way and Finding My Voice, 1967 to 1975. Terry

24:54

Gross spoke with Thompson in 2022 after

24:57

that memoir was published. She

24:59

began by playing a sample from a 2018 album, a

25:03

song called The Storm Won't Come.

25:06

["The Storm Won't Come"] Fire

25:36

to burn What

25:41

fire may

25:45

And rain to

25:48

wash The

25:52

dark away The

25:56

storm won't come With

26:01

the storm won't come

26:05

I'm longing for the

26:07

storm With

26:10

the storm won't come Richard

26:22

Thompson, welcome back to Fresh Air. It's always such a treat to

26:25

have you on the show. I love

26:27

your music so much. Thank you so

26:29

much. You have such a

26:31

dark sensibility and I'm thinking about how

26:33

so much of pop music over

26:36

the decades, particularly in the pre-Dylan

26:38

era, were about love and romance

26:41

and, you know, more chaste sex

26:43

because you weren't allowed to use sexual, sexually

26:47

explicit words in the earlier days of pop.

26:50

But so many traditional ballads, like the

26:52

ballads of the British Isles that you,

26:54

you know, started singing

26:56

are about love and murder and

26:58

revenge and death and

27:00

storms at sea and hangings. Yeah,

27:04

happy stuff. Happy stuff. Is that

27:06

part of what you loved about those old ballads? Well,

27:09

I think it is. I don't know why we

27:11

are so attracted to that stuff. It's

27:14

great storytelling. The old Scottish

27:16

and Irish ballads and English ballads are just

27:18

wonderful storytelling. And if you grow up on

27:20

a diet of that, you think that's normal.

27:23

And when people say, oh, your music is so dark, you

27:25

know, you've got such a dark sensibility,

27:29

you know, I just say, well, I don't know what you mean. I

27:31

mean, to me, it's just normal. And

27:33

I'm happy that people think my music is at

27:35

least serious, that it's not frivolous pop music, that

27:38

it actually shares some

27:40

of the characteristics of poetry or of

27:42

good prose. You know, you're going to

27:44

the same places. You're just expressing

27:47

it in a more musical way.

27:50

What was behind the founding of Fairport

27:52

Convention, and what made you think that

27:55

you wanted to and that the band

27:57

should explore the

27:59

music? of the traditional British

28:02

ballads. I think we started

28:04

out as a bunch of friends. Myself and

28:06

Ashley and Simon were three

28:09

like-minded North London teenagers,

28:12

fairly determined to not be like other bands.

28:15

I think we thought there was a glut

28:17

of blues bands, R&B bands, soul bands. So

28:21

we always tried to find obscurities. If

28:23

we were going to do a blues song, we'd try and find something that

28:25

no one else had ever heard of. And

28:30

we would do country songs, which no one else did at that

28:32

time. And we do

28:34

singer-songwriter stuff. We

28:36

were very early in finding Joni

28:39

Mitchell demos before she had recorded. I

28:42

think we were the first people to get the basement tapes, the

28:45

Dylan basement tapes. We

28:47

were doing very early songs by Lena Kine. So

28:50

we were being obscure before we really

28:52

became writers. We were trying

28:54

to have the most obscure,

28:57

different material from anybody else. And

29:00

I think our love of lyrics

29:03

made us stand out from other bands

29:05

more than anything else. We really liked

29:07

great lyrics. So we do Philoak songs.

29:09

We do Joni

29:11

Mitchell, et cetera. I

29:13

don't think anyone else was really doing that at the time. The

29:17

first song that was

29:19

a traditional song that Fairport did was,

29:21

She Moves Through the Fair. And

29:24

of course, Sandy Denney was the lead singer. Why

29:27

was this the song that was chosen

29:29

to be the first actual traditional song

29:31

that the band did? Well,

29:33

when Sandy joined the band, we

29:35

didn't have a lot of rehearsal time. We were

29:37

playing shows all the time. And so we had

29:40

to get Sandy into the band, to integrate

29:42

Sandy into the band as quickly as possible.

29:45

So as she slowly learned our repertoire, we

29:48

decided that we should learn some of her repertoire that

29:50

she was singing in the folk clubs. And

29:53

it was easy to kind of wrap ourselves around

29:55

her arrangement of She Moves Through the Fair, Not

29:58

In My Town, a couple of other

30:00

songs. songs that she'd been performing. So

30:02

that was a fairly easy rehearsal process.

30:04

And for us it was a nice

30:06

way to start playing

30:09

some British Isles music. Well,

30:12

why don't we hear that recording? This

30:14

is Sandy Denny with Fairport Convention. She

30:17

moved through the fair. My

30:22

young love

30:26

said to

30:29

me, My

30:33

mother mine. And

30:35

my father once

30:40

liked you. For

30:42

you like a

30:51

boy. And

30:55

she laid her hand

30:58

on me. And

31:01

she did say,

31:05

Oh it will not

31:07

be long till I

31:10

do. That

31:25

was an early Fairport Convention song with

31:28

my guest Richard Thompson on

31:30

guitar. You write

31:32

that it was hard to keep the sound of

31:34

unaccompanied singing, the kind of singing

31:36

that was often done with traditional songs, and

31:39

the ambiguity of key and the lack of

31:41

resolution in the melody. Once you

31:44

put instruments behind it, can you elaborate on

31:46

that and maybe say this?

31:48

If you could sing perhaps an

31:50

example of the ambiguity of key and

31:52

the lack of resolution in the melody

31:54

that you refer to. You

32:00

know, it's tempting when you

32:02

grow up in a sort of Western

32:06

music to

32:09

put anything that's from outside of

32:11

it into the basic

32:13

Western chord structure, you know, like CFG or

32:15

something or what will fit an awful lot

32:17

of traditional songs if you let them. But

32:21

in traditional music, sometimes it

32:23

is hard to know what the

32:25

key is. She

32:28

moves with the fad. My young love said

32:30

to me, my parents want mind. And

32:33

my father won't slight you for your lack

32:35

of kind. And she

32:37

laid her hand on me and this she did say,

32:39

this will not be long

32:41

love till now, why didn't I? Now

32:44

you could sing that over the root note or

32:46

you could sing it over a fourth above or

32:48

a fifth above. And

32:51

sometimes you don't want to pin that

32:53

down. You want to keep that ambiguity.

32:56

And a great traditional interpreter, someone like

32:58

Martin Carthy, who use special guitar tunings

33:02

in order to keep that ambiguity alive

33:04

and to not nail it down into

33:06

sort of CFG. So

33:09

it sounds like, you know, a

33:12

Western tradition popular song. And

33:15

it's not always easy to do that, but it's

33:17

a very desirable thing, I think, to keep that

33:19

ambiguity going. So how did you

33:21

deal with it as a guitarist? As

33:24

a guitarist, I

33:27

learned from people like Martin Carthy and Davey

33:29

Graham, some of the great acoustic guitar

33:31

players in Britain. And

33:34

as a band, we try to arrange things in that

33:36

way. And we did

33:38

a song maybe a year later than

33:40

that called A Sailor's Life, where

33:43

it's basically built around a drone. So

33:45

you have a drone and melody and

33:48

not an awful lot of saying what the

33:50

chord is. And just

33:52

drone and melody is a very old tradition, a

33:56

lot of pipe music, bagpipe

33:58

music from all around. the world. It's

34:00

basically drone and melody. So

34:03

it's a very ancient thing and you

34:05

don't have to develop that into a

34:08

chord structure necessarily. You can keep that

34:11

ambiguity going. So in Fairport

34:14

eventually we really tried to do a lot more

34:16

of that. Well let's

34:18

hear the song you were just talking about. This is

34:20

Fairport Convention. That

35:07

was

35:13

Fairport Convention with my guest Richard Thompson

35:16

on guitar. After

35:18

leaving Fairport and playing with a lot

35:20

of other bands, you and

35:23

your girlfriend and wife Linda Thompson

35:25

formed a group and

35:27

you did remarkable music together.

35:29

How do you think performing

35:32

with her changed you as

35:34

a songwriter because you were writing songs for yourself

35:37

and writing songs for her? Yeah,

35:41

interesting. I think, well

35:44

it had to make me empathetic to someone

35:47

else's point of view and

35:50

particularly to write songs from a female

35:52

perspective is very difficult and I'm not

35:54

sure I ever really did

35:56

that successfully but at least I could write songs

35:58

that were at least ambiguous. that if I

36:01

sang it, it sounded authentic or if Linda sang

36:03

it, it sounded authentic. I

36:05

could never claim to get right inside her

36:07

head to write stuff

36:09

in that way. But there

36:11

were many songs that we tried out where

36:14

she might start out singing it and then say, well, you

36:17

know, I don't really feel this, you know, why don't you

36:19

sing it? So there was a bit of

36:21

that back and forth kind of idea.

36:24

But I think it loosened me up as a

36:26

songwriter and it made me a bit

36:29

more sympathetic. I

36:32

think, you know, I admired someone like Robbie

36:34

Robertson of the band who was writing songs

36:37

for other voices, not for his own

36:39

voice. And so he'd be writing

36:41

a song thinking, well, Levon's gonna sing this one,

36:43

you know, or Rick Danko's gonna sing this one.

36:47

So I think I was influenced by that attitude.

36:50

That really helped me. So I

36:52

wanna play a song that she sings

36:54

lead on and you sing on

36:56

the chorus. And this is Walking on a

36:58

Wire. And it's from the

37:00

album Shoot Out the Lights, which was your

37:03

last album together in 1982. Can

37:06

you talk about writing this song? Yeah,

37:10

it's a song about relationships, you

37:13

know, being right on the edge

37:15

really, you know, or up

37:18

in a high wire and you can fall off any moment.

37:21

You know, some people say, not me

37:24

necessarily, but some people say this was,

37:26

you know, kind of a precursor of

37:28

our marriage breaking down. You know, it

37:30

was kind of prophetic that,

37:33

you know, we weren't gonna be together much longer.

37:35

I mean, I really don't know about that. Certainly

37:38

by the time the album came out, we

37:40

were pretty

37:43

much split up. And

37:46

so a lot of people have read into the

37:48

album. It's, you know, one of the breakup albums.

37:52

And I'm not sure I go that far really.

37:57

And to me, I was just writing songs. I didn't

37:59

really know what I was doing in that sense. I

38:01

wasn't deliberately writing with

38:04

a divorce in mind or anything. But

38:07

perhaps I was subconsciously picking up on the

38:09

news and the songs just pop out. The

38:11

songs just seem to pop out anyway. They

38:14

just seem to have a life of their

38:16

own. And you

38:18

write them and you look at them later and

38:20

you think, oh, okay, maybe that was about that

38:22

or about this. But

38:24

I think at the time, you're not really conscious necessarily. Well,

38:28

let's hear it. So this is Linda

38:30

Thompson singing lead with Richard Thompson also

38:32

on vocals. And this is

38:34

from their album together, Shoot Out the Lights,

38:36

recorded in 1982. I'm

38:57

walking on a wire. I'm

39:00

walking on a wire. And

39:03

I'm falling. I

39:12

wish I could please

39:14

you tonight. With

39:18

my medicine, just won't

39:21

come around. I'm

39:27

walking on a wire. I'm

39:31

walking on a wire. And

39:35

I'm falling.

39:39

Too many steps

39:41

to take. That

39:45

was Richard and Linda Thompson from their album Shoot

39:47

Out the Lights from 1982. You've

39:51

said that it's sometimes hard to tell where a song comes

39:53

from. They just kind of come to you. When

39:56

you write songs now, are they

39:59

coming from a different place? at all, because you've

40:01

lived through so much more than

40:03

you did when you were young. And also you've

40:05

written so many songs. I think it's hard

40:07

for a lot of people to not keep writing

40:10

the same song. I

40:12

think you have to be aware of

40:16

writing the same song over and over. On

40:19

the other hand, if you write

40:21

the same song over and over, you might

40:23

finally get it right. And I think there's

40:26

a lot of writing with

40:29

variations. You're almost writing the same song, but

40:31

you manage to make it different enough that

40:33

people won't notice too much. But

40:35

you know what you're aiming for. You're aiming

40:37

to perfect that particular kind of song. But

40:40

on the whole, I think you're trying to

40:42

not repeat yourself. And that

40:44

gets harder and harder, of course. So

40:47

there's always this idea that you have to

40:49

come up with something that's different. And when

40:51

you do come up with a song that

40:54

you think, well, no one's written this song

40:56

before. I know for certain this is something

40:58

that no one has tackled before. It's a

41:00

great feeling. It's a wonderful feeling. And

41:04

it's a rare thing,

41:07

because of how much

41:09

we all love songs and how many songs

41:12

get written and how many people want to

41:14

express themselves. So being

41:16

original does get harder and harder. Richard

41:19

Thompson, thank you so much for talking with us.

41:21

It's always such a pleasure to have you on

41:23

our show and to have an opportunity to play

41:25

a lot of your music. Oh,

41:27

well, it's a great pleasure. Thank you so much, Terry. Richard

41:31

Thompson, speaking to Terry Gross in

41:33

2022. His new album,

41:35

Ship to Shore, is available now. And

41:38

he scheduled a concert tour for this

41:40

summer, including dates in Cape May and

41:42

in Woodstock, New York. Coming

41:44

up, film critic Justin Chang reviews

41:47

Janet Planet, the first film from

41:49

the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Annie

41:51

Baker. This is Fresh Air. can

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More at schwab.com. Janet

42:51

Planet is the first feature film from

42:53

the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Annie Baker.

42:56

The movie is set in 1991. Julianne

42:59

Nicholson stars as a woman looking

43:02

after her 11-year-old daughter in Western

43:04

Massachusetts during a long, hot summer.

43:07

Janet Planet is now in theaters. Here

43:10

is Justin's review. Amid

43:13

the current crop of summer movies, I

43:15

can't think of one that captures

43:18

the feeling of summer more evocatively

43:20

than Janet Planet. Much

43:22

of the story takes place in

43:24

a rustic house in woodsy Western

43:27

Massachusetts. By day, sunlight

43:29

streams in through enormous windows, and

43:32

at night, chirping crickets flood the

43:34

soundtrack. The celebrated

43:36

playwright Annie Baker, here

43:38

writing and directing her first film, has

43:41

uncanny powers of observation and

43:44

a talent for evoking time and place. She

43:47

also has two memorable lead characters

43:50

and a sharply funny and moving story

43:52

to tell. It's

43:54

the summer of 1991. The

43:57

story begins when 11-year-old Lacey. Lacey,

44:00

played by the terrific newcomer Zoe

44:02

Ziegler, calls her mom

44:04

from camp and demands to be

44:06

taken home early. Her exact words

44:08

are, I'm going to kill myself

44:10

if you don't come get me.

44:13

Lacey is a shy misfit,

44:16

with big, owlish glasses and

44:18

a flair for deadpan exaggeration.

44:21

She and her single mom, Janet, who's

44:24

played by a subtly luminous

44:26

Julianne Nicholson, are extremely close,

44:29

as we can see when Janet Dooley

44:31

comes to fetch Lacey and bring her

44:33

home. Later at their

44:36

house, Janet puts Lacey to bed and

44:38

listens to her vent. You

44:41

know, it's funny. What?

44:44

Every moment of my life is hell. I

44:49

don't like it when you say

44:51

things like that. But it is.

44:56

You actually seem very happy to me a lot of

44:58

the time. I tell.

45:04

I don't think it'll last, though. As

45:07

you can tell from the dialogue, Baker

45:09

isn't one to hurry her characters along.

45:12

Her plays, the best known of which

45:14

is her Pulitzer-winning 2013 drama

45:16

The Flick, have been justly

45:19

praised for bringing a new kind of

45:21

naturalism to the stage, especially

45:23

in the way the actors retain

45:26

the stammers and silences of normal

45:28

conversation. She brings

45:30

that same sensibility to Janet Planet.

45:33

Baker includes a few loving nods to

45:35

her background in theatre. At

45:38

various points, Lacey plays with a

45:40

small puppet theatre, complete

45:42

with handmade clay figurines. And

45:45

in a later scene, she and Janet

45:47

attend an outdoor performance featuring

45:49

actors in elaborate costumes. But

45:52

the movie never feels stagey. It

45:55

was shot on 16mm film

45:57

by Maria von Hauswolf, who

45:59

previously filmed the visually

46:02

stunning Icelandic drama Godland,

46:05

and her use of natural light

46:07

and precise fine grain details feel

46:10

transportingly cinematic. The

46:12

movie is divided into three loose chapters,

46:15

each one focused on a friend

46:17

or significant other of Janet's who

46:19

becomes a house guest for a

46:21

spell. First

46:23

up is her boyfriend Wayne, played by

46:26

a gruff Will Patton, who

46:28

has a daughter around Lacey's age, but

46:30

doesn't take too kindly to Lacey herself.

46:33

He's soon out the door. In

46:36

the second chapter, we meet Regina, played

46:39

by a wonderful Sophie Oconedo, a free-spirited

46:42

drifter who comes to stay with

46:44

Janet and Lacey after leaving

46:46

a local hippie commune, basically

46:49

a cult, though everyone is careful not

46:51

to use that word. Regina

46:54

initially brings a breath of fresh air into

46:56

the house, though she

46:58

proves insensitive and tactless, especially

47:01

around Janet, and soon overstays

47:03

her welcome. The

47:06

third house guest, Avi, played

47:09

by Elias Koteas, is

47:11

Regina's ex-partner and the leader of

47:13

that hippie commune. Avi

47:16

is the most mysterious presence in the movie,

47:19

and it's through his short-lived relationship

47:21

with Janet that we fully grasp

47:23

how profoundly unhappy she is. The

47:27

title Janet Planet has many meanings. It's

47:30

the name of the acupuncture studio that Janet

47:32

operates out of the house. It's

47:34

also a passing reference to the

47:36

nickname that Van Morrison gave the

47:38

songwriter Janet Rigsby, who inspired

47:41

a lot of his love songs during

47:43

their five-year marriage. But

47:45

the title is most meaningful as

47:47

it frames our understanding of Janet,

47:50

whose quiet magnetism really does

47:52

seem to draw other people,

47:54

especially men, into her orbit.

47:57

As we see in Nicholson's heartbreaking

48:00

performance, it's been as much a

48:02

curse as it is a blessing. One

48:05

of the movie's subtlest achievements is the

48:07

way it clues us into Janet's perspective,

48:10

even as it keeps Janet herself at a bit

48:12

of a distance. Much

48:14

of the time we're studying Janet through

48:17

Lacey's eyes, and what's uncanny

48:19

is the way Baker captures a

48:21

sense of the girl's growing disillusionment.

48:24

That intensely specific moment when a

48:26

child begins to see even a

48:29

doting parent in a clear

48:31

and not always flattering new light.

48:34

By the end of Janet Planet, not

48:36

much has happened, and yet

48:38

something momentous seems to have taken

48:40

place. You want Baker

48:43

to return to these characters to

48:45

show us how Janet and Lacey

48:47

continue to change and grow together

48:49

and apart in the years and

48:52

the summers to come. Justin

48:55

Chang is a film critic for The New

48:57

Yorker. He reviewed Janet Planet. On

48:59

Monday's show, why have cast members

49:02

of the popular reality TV show

49:04

Love is Blind accused the show's

49:06

creators of exploitation and false imprisonment?

49:09

New Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum tells

49:11

us about her article, Is

49:14

Love is Blind a Toxic Workplace?

49:17

And, we'll talk about her new book,

49:19

Queue the Sun, the invention of reality

49:21

TV. I hope you can join us. To

49:42

keep up with what's on the show and get highlights

49:44

of our interviews, follow us on Instagram

49:46

at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh

49:49

Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.

49:52

Our senior producer today is Roberta

49:54

Sherrock. Our technical

49:56

director and engineer is Audrey Bentham,

49:58

with additional engineering support by

50:00

Joyce Lieberman and Julian Hertzfeld. Our

50:03

interviews and reviews are produced

50:06

and edited by Amy Salat,

50:08

Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam

50:11

Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Theresa Madden,

50:13

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50:15

Wolfram, Heidi Saman, and Kayla

50:18

Latimore. Our digital

50:20

media producer is Molly C.V. Nespert.

50:23

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50:25

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