Rishi Keshe Hirway

what those stories were about and make something beautiful out of, you know, the interviews and the music and like using all of that listening to that end.

But making the podcast for that long is part of the reason why I didn't make my own music.

Because it was so, so much easier for me to justify spending the time being of service to someone else's art than trying to somehow prioritize something that felt

selfish by making something of my own and also nebulous because, you know, who knows if it would ever come out or if it would ever mean anything.

But starting with writing that song and talking about that song about my mom, it really opened up something for me that made me feel like

I do have my own stories that I feel like expressing through music.

And regardless of if anybody else hears them or if anybody else cares, there's something internally in me that I have been ignoring.

And I really need to pay attention to that again in order to feel whole.

This is, I think, again, a byproduct of having made the podcast, of having made Song Exploder for so long.

The episodes that always meant the most to me were about songs that were incredibly personal to the artist, where I felt like I wasn't just getting something nice to listen to, but I was really feeling closer to that artist and who they were and something deep and intrinsic to them.

it was always a privilege to get to make those kinds of episodes.

And those kinds of songs always stuck with me.

And so naturally, when I came back to making my own music, I thought,

well, I only want to make music that has that kind of depth and has that kind of richness.

And so I just started writing as honestly about my own life and my own experiences.

And I went away from the kind of metaphor and abstract imagery that I'd maybe favored in my younger life, in the sort of earlier era of my music career.

I think that I've learned that specificity in someone's stories and specificity in art doesn't make it a barrier for entry for the audience.

I think that's something that people can get scared of, that, oh, if I make this too much about myself,

then will I alienate people because it won't feel as universal.

That just hasn't been my experience.