Rosanne Cash is a 4-time Grammy-winning member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, who has released over a dozen albums and published 5 books, has had her (prose) writing featured in the likes of Oxford American, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, was the 2020 recipient of the Edward MacDowell Medal for outstanding contributions to American culture, and holds an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music. We talk with Rosanne about navigating insecurity and imposter syndrome, measuring your own success by your talent and not your validation, allowing yourself to be called an artist, prose vs songwriting, respect for yourself and for the audience, and a whole lot more.
Rosanne Cash is a 4-time Grammy-winning member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, who has released over a dozen albums and published 5 books, has had her (prose) writing featured in the likes of Oxford American, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, was the 2020 recipient of the Edward MacDowell Medal for outstanding contributions to American culture, and holds an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music. We talk with Rosanne about navigating insecurity and imposter syndrome, measuring your own success by your talent and not your validation, allowing yourself to be called an artist, prose vs songwriting, respect for yourself and for the audience, and a whole lot more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of the Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss,
Michaela: and I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And we are on episode 100.
Aaron: I've never wanted to use an air horn on this show. This would be the time to use it.
Michaela: B I honestly did not. Anticipate getting to a hundred episodes when we started talking about doing this. No, I thought
Aaron: we'd do like 10 or 20 and be like, oh, that was fun.
Michaela: Yeah. But we're addicted now. Yeah, sorry.
So, And we are so excited that the 100th episode is featuring our conversation with the one and only. Roseanne Cash.
Aaron: Yeah. For the three of you out there that don't know who Roseanne Cash is, she is a Grammy Americana Award, A-C-M-C-M-A winner. She has dozens of records. She's [00:01:00] written five books currently, including memoirs, children's books, collections of essays, and her prose writing has appeared in the Oxford American, the Nation, the New York Times, the Atlantic, and a ton more.
Michaela: wanna say she's like a monster of creativity and that sounds really insane. But she's she, she's prolific. She's prolific and also incredibly down to earth.
And generous in how she shares about her work. She's a recipient of the 2020 Edward McDowell Medal, which is awarded to one person annually, who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and art.
She also has an honorary doctorate from Berkeley College of Music and has been honored in many, many different ways for contributing incredible work.
Yeah, and on top of putting out so much art and writing on her own, she also goes to bat for the rest of us artists doing things like testifying in front of Congress for.
Aaron: Intellectual rights and arts advocacy and funding, and that's pretty incredible.
Michaela: She's also been a long time [00:02:00] outspoken activist for gun safety and regulation.
Aaron: So if that's not enough to entice you to continue to listen for the next 40 minutes, we touch on a lot of things like using art to ground yourself and being intentional with your time in your community, especially given the state of.
The entire world at the moment one of my favorite things, if you've ever listened to one of the other 99 episodes letting your own creative output and quality define your success. Not letting other people and other gigs or offers that you get, define your success.
Michaela: We touch on working in different mediums of writing and art and how that is in relation to each other and not taking away, and also learning to trust your own instincts and recognizing what you need by just having great respect for yourself as well as your audience.
Aaron: Yeah. And some of those topics that we just listed off, come from our Patreon community as they do in most shows. And that's because our Patreons get advanced notice of the [00:03:00] guests before they appear, and it gives them the opportunity to submit some burning questions they've had for these artists. we have a bunch of other things happening over there, changing, morphing, growing, it is a living community.
And if you would like to be a part of that, or also just directly support the production of this show. There's a link below in our show notes,
Michaela: and if you're a visual person, this and all of our past conversations are available on YouTube.
Aaron: So without further ado, our 100th episode is our wonderful conversation with Roseanne Cash.
Rosanne: Thank you so much for giving us your time, and we are really excited to have you. You've been a dream guest because of all of the many things you've done.
Michaela:
we often like to start with just how are you doing today and where are you physically and also in your creative and business work.
Rosanne: Wow. You said this is only an hour, right? well I am doing what a lot of people are doing now, which is limiting my news [00:04:00] intake 'cause it's really toxic
I wake up at three o'clock worried about children in Sudan and the constitution and things that I can't get answers to at 3:00 AM So I'm limiting what I take in during the day I make a conscious effort to reach out to my friends and plan lunches.
And I went to the theater with a girlfriend last night and I went to a film with another girlfriend last week and I am really diligent about that. That's something that really feeds me and. It makes me feel okay about the world. And also art makes me feel better about the world. So combining those two things is a really great instrument.
I hate to use these words 'cause they just sound kind of new agey, but it's true. I feel more in my body, more in my own life, more knowing who I am when I spend time with friends and when I partake in culture. John and I went [00:05:00] to the museum two weeks ago, went to the Met, and those things are so enriching and so essential.
Like air,
like blood and oxygen. More than anything else to me except for my little grandchildren.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Aaron: I was raised hearing the phrase, think globally, act locally, and I was like, oh, I get that. And it has really. Solidified for me since November. On a deeper level, it's like we have two young children as well so, you know, in the very immediate here, like in our house, but then also as well in our community of like, trying to create the world and the community that we want to see globally here.
And just, you know, when a butterfly flaps its wings, who knows where that ends up.
Rosanne: well, I'm of the same mind that everything has a ripple. Even a small act of kindness has a ripple and you don't know where it ends up or how it pays forward. So yeah, I think that way as well. And what is that [00:06:00] quote? do what you can, where you are with what,
you have.
Michaela: Yeah. And I, think that has progressively gotten more challenging because we have so much access to everything that's happening everywhere, all the time. And I'm curious, 'cause one of the things I grapple with is being a really, deep feeler and from observing your work from afar and your activism and advocate for others, I'm assuming you are the same.
How do you reconcile for yourself your feeling of responsibility like detaching that from thinking that we need to consume all the time and be worked up from, okay, what am I doing to contribute positively. Sometimes I feel guilty when I'm like. I don't need to be reading or looking at every horrible picture of what's
Rosanne: Mm mm.
Michaela: or, you know,
Michaela: in the next state over or in my own state. So like how to kind of reconcile that and really allow yourself to then [00:07:00] fully enjoy and take in those moments that are so essential, like going to a museum or observing art.
has that ever been something that's come up for you?
Rosanne: Yes, feeling over responsible for the suffering in the world and those things that I can't do anything about. I am tormented by those things sometimes tormented, you know, and the feeling of helplessness and what do I do? How can I help? But going back to what we just talked about, about everything has a ripple, you know, I have to remember that if I'm out of my body, I'm no help to anyone. And what are the things that help me stay in my body and think clearly? I mean, partaking Of art and music does help me think clearly and get me back in my body. And that should lead me to some way to offer assistance in ways that actually have meaning that I can actually do something.
I just did this benefit
Aaron: [00:08:00] for a music relief foundation in California, and it was in San Francisco and it was honoring Joan Baez
Rosanne: and, there were some wonderful people on there, Bonnie Rai. And. Emmi Lou Harris and Lucinda Williams and Joan and Linda Ronstadt came because we've all known her for years and years, so she wanted to be there too.
And there were some men on it as well, but I'm thinking about the women. I called us the flock of Crohn's uh, and Margot Price was there too, but she's not of our generation,
so we were kind of like, oh, she still has skin tone.
That's so wonderful. Her knees can still bend. Isn't that incredible? Can you do that again?
So we did this show and the feeling of sisterhood was so palpable, not just to us, but to the audience as well. And that in itself was uplifting to everyone to show that you can still support each other and [00:09:00] love each other, and that you can let go of your competitive nature and. Lift each other up Tom Morell was on the show and he walked out and he said to full audience, it's so nice to be together before they cart us all off to jail.
Michaela: Yeah.
Rosanne: So talk
about sense of community. People of like mine who are scared, who we have this community. I mean, I say that in every show I have. Thank you for creating two hours of community with me. If we did it in two hours, we can spread it out to the world.
I don't know if that answers anything, but it's the instinct I have.
Michaela: Yeah,
Aaron: absolutely. I mean, as you mentioned, you started by saying you went to the theater, you went to see a film. as you said, going to ingest this art. It's this wonderful gift that we can share as artists of bringing people together of all walks of life, of all different viewpoints and all of at a common thing.
And, it's been in our faces 24 hours a day, more [00:10:00] than just the last four months. But the divisiveness pointing out how we're all different we're all this. And it's like, you can go to any show and there are people with drastically different viewpoints
all in the same place, liking one thing.
And the more that we can lean into that, I think the more we have a, chance
Rosanne: well, you're touching on something really important, but even in a more basic individual way, anything. That touches your own sense of your own humanity
is important. And anything that causes you to reflect on yourself, which is one of the great functions of art and music, is to look within. You know, How does that relate to me?
What does that say about my own life? Anything that does that rouses your humanity and helps you reflect back to yourself, that's gonna spread out and that creates community as well. I mean, Bob Dylan said this great thing about performance, he said the audience doesn't come to know about the [00:11:00] performers feelings.
They come to feel their own feelings.
So in that way, an artist is in the service industry,
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Rosanne: you know, the service industry of the heart and soul. I've had
this so many times.
Michaela: that relationship is endlessly fascinating to me of how, as creators you are kind of harvesting yourself to share.
And Sometimes there can be this, I think false criticism of that artists are narcissistic or naval gazing or something. But in reality, what it's doing is seeing our, reflection within each other.
So yes, we're focusing on ourselves by creating, we're focusing on ourselves when we listen and take in art. But at the same time, this connection is being built where we start recognizing, oh, they feel that too. They're giving me language for what I'm experiencing. I'm not alone. They're not alone.
We're not that different.
Rosanne: right. Well, as A songwriter [00:12:00] too, I mean, the things that you write that you think are the most personal, are the most universal. I, I wrote this song, John wrote the music. My husband and I wrote the lyrics to this song called House on the Lake. And it was really personal.
It was after my dad and my stepmom died, and they had lived in a house on the lake. And this song was full of personal details. The garden, the blue bedroom, the wood, the nails, the, you know, and afterwards I thought, I can't perform this. It's just too personal. It reveals too much.
so the first time I was gonna perform it, I was really nervous. I did it. And afterwards this man came up to me and he said, Ugh, you know, everybody's got their house on the lake.
Rosanne: And I thought, wow, the more specific, the more resonant it becomes,
Aaron: Completely. Yeah. I've, thought a lot about that. we just had our second child earlier this year,
Rosanne: [00:13:00] congratulations.
Michaela: a thank you. Thank you very much. Two month old. So that's,
Rosanne: Oh, if we're, if we're stuttering and not making sense, it's because we're sleep deprived. We also have a three and a half year old, oh, is a little Yeah.
you have not slept at all. Then
Michaela: It's, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It,
Rosanne: it becomes hallucinogenic, doesn't it? the, that level of exhaustion.
Aaron: you know, being the second time around, I'm able to kind of be a little bit more present in the swirl of everything, in the hallucination of everything where I can't really tell if something was yesterday or two months ago. there is no depth to my timeline anymore.
Yeah. It's all very 2D and I'm like, okay.
Rosanne: It's all 2D. I like that. That's a great, great way to put it. I Remember feeling that it was the big secret no one had told you about parroting. They told you about the pain of childbirth, but nobody told you about the level of exhaustion afterwards.
Michaela: yeah.
Aaron: It's inexplicable unless you've lived it.
Michaela: yeah. And it's just like when people would say [00:14:00] like, it's a lot of work. I remember being like, yeah, okay. I get it. Like, And I was a nanny forever, so I think I was honestly like a little arrogant. Like I was like, yeah, I know. No, I didn't.
Rosanne: No, you didn't.
Michaela: no, the amount of work that just dinner bath and bedtime is just, you're like, oh my God, I'm so
Rosanne: Right. If, if you get to four o'clock and
you've taken a shower
that day, you've done really well.
Aaron: yeah,
Michaela: Anyways,
Aaron: so with that, with expecting our new child, I got a trove of old family photos. probably my parents feeling nostalgic or something that, that I hadn't seen, you know, pictures of, my grandfather when he was two years old sitting on a rooftop in the Bronx.
Rosanne: Oh wow.
Aaron: you know,
and being able to see that and, just thinking of this, specificity of looking at a photograph and looking at that. And I knew my grandfather, but I didn't know his sister or my great grandparents. But just looking in that and looking at the buildings in New York, having lived in, New York for 12 years before [00:15:00] we moved to Nashville.
So just seeing that and seeing that details on the buildings and looking and be able to see like, there's some clothes hanging on, somebody's fire escape and all of that. I was able to remember like this apartment that we lived in, beautiful big apartment on the backside of the building on the second floor.
So very dark and very Cale like. and we lived there for like two months. But I can, you know, seeing, seeing the clothes on the fire, escapee, I could bring myself back to that apartment. And the, smell of moving in there, the excitement, it was the first apartment we lived in together. And just bringing it back to what you were saying, the specificity of your, you know, everybody has a house on the lake.
It's like you can really see yourself in the details.
Rosanne: some of the songs that have aroused me the most that have, aroused the deepest feelings were really specific or I didn't know what they meant. I didn't know what that image referred to. I didn't know what those particular combination of words meant, but It struck a chord.
You know, Something deeply resonated with me. That particular combination of melody and words, so you don't have to [00:16:00] always know what it's about. In fact, John Stewart, not the daily show host, but the songwriter who's since passed on. He was a mentor of mine, a songwriting mentor, and I remember playing him something I had written, and he pointed out a particular line I had written.
I said, yeah, I don't really know what that means, that line. And he said, oh, it's one of those, like, like, it
came
from somewhere else to Speak to More than me.
Michaela: And I love when that, I think I, read, an interview that you did some, like referencing a song or, an album maybe as a postcard from the future
Rosanne: Yeah.
Michaela: you might not know when you wrote it, what it means, and then years down the line or later you're like,
Rosanne: Yeah,
Michaela: that's what that was for.
Rosanne: yeah. I mean, I'm not the first writer to notice that creative work happens outside linear time,
and so it would make sense that sometimes [00:17:00] when you're writing either prose or lyrics, you write about something that's deeply felt, inexplicable,
and that Later on it's revealed or it's revealed in parts over time.
I found That to be true so many times.
Sometimes I've startled myself and sometimes there's a sweetness to it. Oh, that's what I was touching. That's what I was reaching for. That's was trying to reveal itself or even. I knew what was going to happen.
Michaela: Yeah.
Aaron: Mm-hmm. I'm wondering if, since you've written a good handful of books as well as countless songs if, the act of creating feels different between the two, when you're working on something more long form, if, or if just writing feels like writing and the words have the same feel to you.
Rosanne: Writing feels like writing.
Aaron: Yeah.
Rosanne: My favorite playground is songwriting because I love the implied structure in songwriting, [00:18:00] you know, setting up a rhyme scheme and then following the rules I've set for myself for that particular song. And of course, being married to a melody, it's a particular thing.
Um. And when the music and the lyrics dovetail perfectly, there's nothing more satisfying than that.
But prose you know, it's also a beautiful playground and it also has melody. And finding the melody when I'm writing prose is incredibly satisfying to me. But as far as that feeling of expansion and connecting with something bigger than myself, it's the same feeling.
Aaron: do they feel like they feed one another?
Rosanne: Oh yeah. I think so. Well, And also I think that as I've developed as a songwriter, I've developed in a parallel way as a prose writer, just the tools have gotten sharper.
Michaela: On the kind of like career side, you have such a diverse career, genre wise within music, also [00:19:00] publishing essays and op-eds and short stories and children's books. Was there ever any limiting beliefs that you struggled with of am I allowed to do this?
Rosanne: I still struggle with those.
Michaela: Okay, great.
Rosanne: No, I think it's part of the
gig that insecurity is part of the gig. Like, you know, I still go through periods of thinking, oh, this is all shit. What? Why am I bothering? she's so much better than I am. This is awful. I'm a hack, you
know? And then I pull up and I go, okay, you've been doing this for 45 years.
Just stop, you know, get back to work. And I love this quote. I've quoted this a million times that Martha Graham said, and I know I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like, it doesn't matter what the world thinks of your work. It doesn't even matter what you think of your work. It only matters that you do it
and put it out into [00:20:00] the world because the world needs it.
I mean, The world needs all of our, messy striving as well as our completed, glorious, almost perfect things that we create. It needs that feeling of longing as well. Of reaching for something.
Michaela: I love, oh, love, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. That just gave me like shivers of, it needs that feeling of longing, of reaching for something.
Aaron: Yeah. that ties back to a question I had earlier when you mentioned that you're talking about the house on the lake, you almost felt like you didn't wanna perform, maybe because it was too close.
I always like hearing how much of your work. Actually gets released.
Rosanne: interesting.
Aaron: you know,
On the outside, as listeners, as fans, you know, we only see the tip of the iceberg. And I love to hear like, for me, I have, we're sitting in my studio right now, I have hard drives of music that will never see the light of day that I created just for myself.
Whether it's as like a exploration or an exercise or an exhale any of that. But I'm wondering, what that is like for you
the,
Rosanne: An [00:21:00] exhale.
I
like that.
Are you sure they won't ever see the light of day?
Aaron: Currently, no I'm not. Thank you for calling me on that. I'm not, they very well my, yeah.
Rosanne: I mean, I do have reams of unfinished lyrics, even some finished lyrics that haven't been put to music or I don't think are quote good enough or I couldn't see to completion. But I don't throw lyrics away because sometimes when I'm stuck on one thing, I can go look through. What I have left over and see if I can pull something from that to put in something new.
but as far as recordings, I have some, not a lot actually. John has, as you have reams of recordings on hard drives
of musical ideas. And sometimes when we're working on something, he'll just go through rifle through his hard drives to something that might work. like I [00:22:00] said, I have tons of lyrics that are unfinished and, unrecorded, but not a lot of musical
ideas.
Aaron: So kinda when you get to the, stage of recording something, you feel in it
Rosanne: Yeah.
Aaron: to see it through.
Rosanne: Yeah. I also have, you know, prose pieces that I haven't published. I've actually started on volume two of my memoir. but I haven't gotten very far there
I mean, I'm hoping to get it done by the time I'm 85,
Michaela: Yeah.
Rosanne: so I can
Michaela: more to say.
Rosanne: well, yeah, then I can start a volume three.
Michaela: Yeah. I'm curious, especially because you have so many different modes of creativity, but then also, the outside work of the performance of, events of, benefits, all the different things that you're doing do you have to have a kind of dedicated schedule for your creative time?
Rosanne: This is a [00:23:00] really good question, and in the last several years I've felt a bit out of control with how much traveling charity events, benefits and, moderated conversations and blurbing people's books and a lot of other stuff. I was saying yes to way too many things. And then the travel, and then, I haven't made a record since 2018.
I haven't put one out since then. I have done a lot of other things since then and, you know, contributed to other albums. I've been working on a musical for a. Seven years. so there's other stuff going on, but I was feeling a little outta control. So I've started saying no more and trying not to feel guilty about
it.
And really pulling back on touring. I mean, Touring is getting hard. It's always been hard, but as I get older, it's getting harder and I'm like reaching that point where the benefits and the [00:24:00] joy is almost equal to the stress of doing it.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Rosanne: So I just wanna pull back more. But yeah, it does eat into my creative time.
Absolutely. And I'm more and more aware of that as time feels more
urgent, you know, as I get older.
Michaela: one of your writings that I love, because you're so honest in your writing is the piece that you published in the Early Pandemic in the Atlantic. I'm probably gonna botch the title, but I'll miss the thing I wanted to lose
about touring. And I think in there there's this moment where you recount this story of walking behind your husband John, and maybe another musician that was with you guys and you guys were going to get the rental car, and you just paused behind them and said, I don't wanna do this anymore.
And they kind of looked and said, what? And correct me, this is your story that I'm recounting, and then, but this is how I recall it, because it struck me and And they were kind of like, huh. And you were like, and just kept [00:25:00] going. But it was like that moment of. I don't wanna do this anymore. And it felt so relatable even for me, which I, haven't spent a long lifetime touring.
I didn't really start touring until I was about 30, which is considered like, kind of late in the music industry. I'm 38 now, and then the pandemic habit, and then I had started having babies. So like, I haven't had a ton of years and I still related to that moment so much of like this thing that I love doing it feels like, it's like the driving force in my life at many different periods of time.
Like Everything revolves around what tours do you have, what tours can you get? you gotta keep working and also because you love performing and connecting with audiences. But then those moments of, I don't wanna do this.
Rosanne: Yeah the piece was called I will Miss What I Wanted to Lose.
And,
You described that scene we were walking through. Parking garage in Reno at midnight,
and it was my husband and my tour manager, we were all [00:26:00] pulling our own bags and they were walking ahead of me, and I just looked around and stopped and said, I don't wanna do this anymore.
And they didn't even turn around. They kept walking, was like, yeah, whatever. This is what's happening,
you know, Going to a hotel that looks exactly like the one I had just left in the city before, after that piece came out, there was another woman musician I know, and she wrote me and she said, thank you.
I have felt like that so many times, and I'm getting to a point where I just can't do it anymore. And on the road. I have these little rituals and this routine that I like to have as much as possible. if things don't work out the plan veers off and goes off the rails, my nervous system gets really shaky and shattered by it.
And I, I don't have a diva meltdown, but you know, I'm not [00:27:00] happy. So
It's like I have to get to a town early enough that I can have a nap. And if I get to the town so early that I can't check into the hotel, then they have to pay for the night before so that I can get into my room you know, I have to have my tea at 3 45 before soundcheck starts.
You know, it's like all Of these little things in my mind, but they, and there has to be a steamer in the dressing room and a tea kettle, and I always take an extra sweater because the dressing rooms are always freezing and all of these little things that have to happen so that I can do this.
it sounds kind of neurotic, yeah, it probably is. But it helps me get through the day.
Aaron: it sounds like just like the human quest for facility, because there's so much that is outside of your control
Rosanne: Right.
Aaron: day. It's like just the little things to me, it sounds like you've done this for so many years [00:28:00] that you know the tiny points in the day that make you feel in control of your life, which is a very human thing to ask for.
Thank you.
Rosanne: Thank you for explaining that so well, because that is exactly right. like even the bigger things, like my monitor engineer is so important to me because he knows exactly what I need I don't take silk on the road because you don't wanna spend your time ironing, you know what I mean?
It's like there, but John was just so funny. He saw my kit, you know, that I keep my moisturizers and my little thing of honey and the tea that I like to have and my serum and my, particular blah, blah, blah, blah, blah that I keep. And he just looked at all this stuff and he goes, you are gonna be a lead weight during the apocalypse.
Michaela: good. You know, though, it's like, I, remember if you don't live it, I understand how people don't understand it because I remember [00:29:00] When I was younger, when I was right outta college, I worked for none such records, which I actually have known. I met Danny back then. I've
Rosanne: oh wow. Yeah.
Michaela: And know, I was always like booking travel and stuff for, artists and bands and, and I would often like see different people's riders I don't think I understood even as someone who was a musician and a performer, I hadn't yet lived the professional life yet.
And I really wanted that. But I still think there was an element of me of wow, this is really high maintenance. And like now, now I understand because. Now, I've gone on tour for six weeks and it's not just about the one show and wow, someone shows up and they need all these things. It's not about what it's doing for them right now, it's what has happened for them all of the days leading up, all of the travel, leading up, all of the use of your voice as you use it more and more, it becomes so sensitive like now.
That I've lived it. Anybody who wants to criticize, especially, it's [00:30:00] so, you know, gendered of like the diva thing, but it's just if you're on airplanes and on buses and cars, like your voice is your instrument and is so sensitive and talking to people and yeah, you need what you need and you've refined it and learned through trial and error.
What is going to make it so that I'm capable of putting on this show? And that's not being high maintenance, that's actually being deeply respectful also of your audience
Rosanne: That's,
Michaela: the time and money to come and receive you, and you wanna put on the best possible performance for them.
Rosanne: yeah, that's really well said, Mikayla. Really well said. Everything I just said about all of these little details and these routines and these rituals that are so important, it is all in service of being able to perform and protecting my voice. I can't do three shows in a row anymore.
I used to be able to, but I can't do it now. I read [00:31:00] this memoir of Maria Callis years and years ago, and she said something like, the first thing I do when I wake up is to see who the voice is today. What shape it's in, what mood it's in. I do that too. I, as soon as I wake up on the road, I check my voice and then I know some things I need to do that day to prepare it, to protect it before the show that night.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Like how much steam, how much warmup, how much honey do I need? That gargle that Elton told me about?
Yeah. Or one of my favorites is, gummy bears. The gelatin. I've like melted it down when I've, really struggled. also, not to go deep on the gender stuff, but as a woman, when you're doing this for a lifetime, your voice is so impacted by hormones and are you pregnant? Are you postpartum?
Are you menstruating? Like, all of that stuff impacts your voice. I'm learning that now of [00:32:00] like, what, this sounds different.
Rosanne: Absolutely. You know, there are opera singers who, don't perform during certain times in their cycle
when you get your period, you lose a couple of top notes. A lot of people
do. Your voice drops. It's so interesting. And I lost my voice. I got polyps, when I was pregnant with my son and the hormones, the pregnancy hormones just kept making the polyps grow bigger.
'cause they fed whatever was going on in my throat. The hormones were kept affecting. So, uh, yeah, being a woman, there are particular challenges, I mean, I did a whole tour with morning sickness once and I just wanted to die.
Michaela: Yeah, that's I, this last pregnancy I was nauseous literally every single day.
Rosanne: Oh, I'm so sorry. That's awful.
Michaela: It was hell. And I went on tour flew to festivals and anybody who was traveling with [00:33:00] me, like every day I had a different, changing regimen of like, okay, I think I can drink coffee with some milk and sugar and I need meat sticks today and tomorrow meat sticks are making me vomit.
And like it was just, now that I'm not nauseous, I'm like, I cannot believe I got through that. But
Rosanne: it's horrifying.
Michaela: speaking of that, one of the things I would love to ask you about if you feel comfortable is being a mother and being in this industry and you have several children and you became a mother at a pretty fairly young age, if I'm correct.
And, and also, raised a child that was from Rodney's
Rosanne: mm-hmm. Yeah.
Michaela: this is such a broad question, but wherever you feel comfortable or inspired to enter, discuss a little bit about grappling with the responsibility of motherhood the desire for motherhood and if that ever but up against your [00:34:00] ambition career wise, as well as artistically, because I kind of like to always separate our creative artistic drive and ambition from our business career ambition.
Rosanne: I separate those things too. when I was. A teenager. I never thought about getting married and having children. I wasn't one of those girls who looked at bride magazines or, fantasized about it. I always had ambitions to create, you know, I wanted to be a writer, wanted to be a songwriter.
I didn't want to be a performer at first, but I was devoted to being a songwriter. you know, when I got together with Rodney and had a child and then it, I was kind of shaken, like, oh, I didn't expect to love this little being as much as I do now. How am I gonna manage this? How am I gonna work this out?
I, uh, didn't go on the road nearly as much as my colleagues during those years when I was raising kids, but I still went [00:35:00] out. And felt guilty.
Maternal guilt is powerful. sometimes I think back and go, oh, I didn't, why did I do that? I didn't really have to leave then. I mean, I was fumbling.
I was really fumbling when I was younger, when I got older and I had my last baby at 43. I was Much better at balancing and doing things consciously so that I didn't have to suffer guilt about it. And Jake said to me. I asked him later on, I think when he was in his teens or something, I said, do you resent me or feel bad about the times I went to do a tour?
And he said, no. He said, I, I love that you work, mom. I wouldn't have wanted a mom who didn't work. And I never was gone a long time, ever. I wanted to make all of the parent teacher meetings all of the plays and to be there to be a real mom. that's not to say that women who are on the road aren't real moms, [00:36:00] but I wanted to be there for the nitty gritty of it.
I actually made it harder on myself. I would go out for a three day strategic strike and come home,
rather than stay out for three, four, or five, six weeks. But like I said, I didn't expect to love them so much and
that guided me that my alarm bells would go off when things fell outta balance.
Michaela: Yeah. Did you have any, Grief over if you missed things on either side of like maybe missed things career wise because of
Rosanne: no,
Michaela: a mother.
Rosanne: I never had grief or regret about missing something career wise. I only had regret about missing something kid wise, if there was anything I missed.
But I was never a person who had a five year plan or a thing of like, I want to achieve this. I. Obviously I wanted to be successful, but it was mitigated by the fact that [00:37:00] more than successful, I wanted to be good
at what I did. and that was the driving factor. Not, how many Grammys can I get, but how good of a songwriter can I become? Keep reaching for it, you know, not get dismantled by my insecurities that I'll never be as good as Bob Dylan, but to just keep reaching for the best one I could be. I mean, Linda Ronstadt said this great thing and I wrote it down and put it in my pocket, my wallet, and carried it for a long time.
She said, refine your skills so you can support your instincts, and that was a mantra
for me.
Aaron: I really love that. And I, love hearing that your measure of success is tied to your creativity. That's something that I'd say all the time on here because, regardless of what. Stage of your career you're at in this business? the majority of the business part is outside of our control.
We can't control how many people show up at a show or how many people buy a record. we can try to influence it, but it's at the [00:38:00] end of the day, outside of our control. was that measure, was that barometer being tied to your own output in your circle of influence, was, has that always been innately inside you or is that something that you really had to work on?
Rosanne: no, that was always innate. Actually, on I added the external. Ambition like, well, I'd like to play Carnegie Hall,
Michaela: Mm-hmm. But I wanna be good enough to do it before I play it.
Rosanne: I wanna feel confident that I am good enough to play Carnegie Hall before I get to Carnegie Hall. So it started in the right place for me. It started in, I wanna be good,
Michaela: And that judgment of, you would know if you were good enough to play Carnegie Hall, not because you got offered a gig at Carnegie Hall, but because you felt you were good enough.
Rosanne: Right. Sometimes I had to, we're getting really into some subconscious weeds here I'm trying to pull back what is true here. [00:39:00] Sometimes if I got to a situation that felt. scary, really public, really quote, important. I would have to tell myself, you worked hard enough to get here and that's why you're here.
So let some of that anxiety go, or you wouldn't have this challenge if you weren't up for it.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Rosanne: I mean, That is a kind of magical thinking to talk myself into being able to do things sometimes. But, you know, magical thinking can be useful.
Michaela: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. Absolutely.
Michaela: Yeah. I feel like in a lot of these conversations, when we get deep into it, there's always kind of this like asterisk of like, this is getting a little new agey, or this is getting
Rosanne: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Michaela: like, well,
Isn't creativity new agey? We literally just pull things out of thin air and make them up.
Yeah.
Rosanne: That's, it's so true. Yeah, it's so true. And also there's an inherent mysticism to creativity it's not a [00:40:00] religion and it's not a, I was gonna say it's not a spiritual path, but it actually is a spiritual path. You know? I mean, I
Trust art more than I trust religion.
Michaela: Yeah. I think the last few years I've had this realization that feels so deeply profound to me, but I feel a little self-conscious, like maybe it's like, okay, you're not really onto anything new, but I think becoming. A mother has really shown me this of watching my child I think I used to think and that society perpetuates the idea that creativity is reserved for the artists. And I've really understood, and what feels deeply profound is statement that to be human is to be creative.
I think we've gotten so far away from it through technology and capitalism and like, we've just made it so hard for adults to stay connected to it that we think, oh, it's for the talented, it's for those who make this of their path.
And it has felt so deeply [00:41:00] profound to me the last few years of, This is in all of us.
Rosanne: I totally agree.
Michaela: measurement is not necessary of whether it's deemed talented or good. It's just the act going back to your Martha Graham quote.
Rosanne: Yeah. To put it out in the world. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I know an accountant who is the most linear, logic based thinker and actor in her life. And I visited her house once and she showed me these tile pathways she had made into her garden and these beautiful sculptures she had made with all of these broken tiles.
And I went, what? You know, you, you played it pretty close to the vest. I had no idea.
Cooking a meal can be an incredibly creative act. you're right, everyone
Has an instinct to creativity. It is part of what makes us human. I.
Aaron: I also think it's the way that we define the acts that we do.
Rosanne: Yeah.
Aaron: talking to a mutual friend, [00:42:00] Joe Henry, and he brought up the quote that like, how you do one thing is how you do everything.
And it's, you can approach your life as embodying creativity or living as an art form in a sense.
Or you could look at it as a group of tasks. It doesn't make the reality any different. It's just how you define it and how you look at it. And I'm saying this coming from my dad was a he's retired now, but a, a woodworker and, and contractor. And now in his retirement, he makes all these like beautiful wood bowls from He lives in Maine, so wood that he gets like. From friends trees that have fallen from my uncle, like whatever it is. He made us a bowl for my wedding out of a tree that I climbed as a kid,
you
Rosanne: Oh my God, how beautiful.
Aaron: And he's made this beautiful and rattles baby rattles, baby rattles. And like a beau, a kitchen that's nicer than our kitchen in our house for our kid daughter.
A little plague kitchen. Yeah. Um, But he will not call it art.
Rosanne: Oh.
Aaron: after about a decade, my mom mostly, but my mom and I have talked him into actually selling these bowls, [00:43:00] because there are hundreds of bowls at his house. So he'll, he'll go to craft shows. He won't actually sit there, but he sells his bowls at craft shows.
But he refuses to call them art, because to him it's just a process. you know, you put it on the lathe, you carve it down, you let it dry you refine it, you sand it, you oil it, and then it's done. And it's very linear and like, it's this task, this task, this task. But he won't call it art. And anybody that grabs the bowl is like, this is a work of art, it's very strange, the disconnect.
Rosanne: I understand that though. I know some musicians who that is their life, their professional musicians who feel awkward about calling themselves an artist. many times. I felt awkward about it at first to some people, it seems like a lofty moniker, you know, or, uh, that you're putting on a suit of clothes that you don't actually own.
maybe he feels like he has to, earn something to be able to call his work art. But, speaking of all of that, can I look at it online?
Aaron: You can't, no, it's,
Rosanne: Oh my God.
Aaron: person. There was, we literally
Michaela: have to take pictures and [00:44:00] email them to you.
Rosanne: Oh my God.
Aaron: Yeah. There's, he has his bowls all the time in one gallery of an artist in Canaan, Maine, which is a very small town of about 500 people in central Maine. And this gallery is about or less, it's like two miles up a dirt road.
So it's very hard. He had his bowls in a gallery. a gallery or a shop in Manhattan
Rosanne: Oh, his bowls for a little while, but only because former clients of his, that he built a house for them in Maine. They loved his bowls, and they bought like 20 of them and brought them to Manhattan and sold them in a gallery.
Aaron: But
Rosanne: oh my gosh.
Aaron: very elusive.
Rosanne: Yeah. I'm very curious to see these bulls. That sounds
wonderful. From a tree that you climbed as a boy. That's so beautiful.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's pretty, special to have around.
Rosanne: I hear something like that and go, wow, you know, I'm a hack. I could never do that. I could never do that.
Aaron: It's, well, which gets into you, you had mentioned, people not wanting to put on the [00:45:00] suit of using the word artist, or they have to feel like they achieve and like, to me, and I think this is, in thinking to my dad, whether he would say it or not it's this reverence
Rosanne: Absolutely. That's the thing. It's like you have to earn it
or else I, I felt like that I have to earn that title at this point in my life. I felt like I earned it. To just say it, out of some idea that's what you want to do,
rather than that's what you are,
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Rosanne: then it feels, it feels awkward.
Michaela: Yeah, I do this exploratory work a lot with, I coach songwriting, and it's really on like the kind of emotional, sometimes spiritual aspect and then refining craft. But I have a student who's a neurosurgeon and
he he's been taking lessons and piano and all this stuff for years and, and we talk about this specifically calling yourself an artist and whether he has a right to, and always talking about is this, does he have a right to pursue songwriting?
And this feeling of like, am I foolish? [00:46:00] Are people laughing at me? And I, said to him the other day, I was like, I'm curious, did you ever feel like, who am I to think that I could operate on people's brains?
And he was like. Well, no. And he was like, but because there's steps to get there. I didn't just decide one day I'm gonna operate on a brain.
He is like, there's all this training, there's things that you do before you actually are running the show. And I was like, okay, with art, some people have the confidence and audacity to wake up one day and be like, I'm a songwriter, and themselves into massive amounts of success.
We've seen it all a million times. So it's really interesting, like our mindsets and our relationship to our self and how that relationship can allow or not allow our work to come through. I'm curious what your thought is on that.
Rosanne: The thing about being an artist, honestly, I think you do have to earn it. I think everyone is creative and [00:47:00] this is tricky. I have to think about this more. if I honest with myself, I do think you have to earn it to call yourself that, it is also a certain way of, as you said before, seeing the world and living the world and what Joe Henry said the way you do one thing is the way you do everything.
And I really hate him for that quote. 'cause I wish I had said that.
I, I love
Aaron: i, he attributed the quote to Tom Waits,
Rosanne: Oh well, okay
Aaron: he didn't, he feel better.
Rosanne: I felt better 'cause Tom Waits has said some great shit. In fact, one of my favorite things is Tom Waits. This was before iPhones, and he said that he was driving on the freeway and he got an idea for a song. you know, he didn't have a cell phone or anything to make a recorder or anything.
And there's no paper and there's no fin. And he's, going 70 miles an hour. He can't write it down. And he finally looks up at the sky in utter frustration and says, don't you see I'm [00:48:00] driving.
Michaela: I love that. Yeah. That's amazing. Oh, man. oh. Well, I feel like we could talk for hours and we know you, cannot talk for
Rosanne: I cannot. But I, I feel like we could go on and on too. But I do have a
meeting coming up.
Michaela: we can part with one last short question. Can you say that because my brain is not functioning. Sure.
Aaron: Yeah. So one way we've, like to wrap up is to ask if there is either something that someone has told you along the way that has really resonated with you in regards to your creativity or balance or conversely, just something you would tell younger you before you really got into this Path art as a career,
Rosanne: it goes back to something we were talking about in the beginning of this conversation about respect. Respect for your audience, respect for yourself. My instincts to what I need on the road, what we were talking about, those little rituals that's part of [00:49:00] self-respect, you know, and it's also part of trusting my own instincts.
what I would tell my younger self trust, it just sounds like a trope though, to say trust your instincts, but to also not be afraid of being surprised and allow the surprise to teach you. there have been so many things in my life that have surprised me and that feeling of surprise has been its own teacher. to find myself in wonder at someplace that I never imagined and let that expand my heart. And my entire life.
Aaron: I love that. being open to the
Rosanne: unexpected. Yeah. Also, I love how you guys actually look at each other with respect when you're talking. That's very, touching and it's also its own lesson, so thanks for that.
Michaela: Thank you. Well, thank you someday. We'll, try and, uh, wrangle you again and have you and John together and talk about creative [00:50:00] partnership
Rosanne: Okay. That's
Michaela: and Life Partnership.
Rosanne: that's a whole other thing.
Aaron: yeah. We've, We've been navigating it for 18 years, so
Rosanne: God bless. I, I feel you.
Michaela: thank you so much. We cannot thank you enough for giving us your time.
We know it's very valuable
Rosanne: Well, thank you. It's, uh,
been an absolute pleasure. Thank
you. Take care you guys. Yeah. Give your babies a kiss.
Michaela: We will. Will do. Take care.