[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. We have a very musical show this week. As you'll hear later this hour, we're kicking off our public song project in which we invite you to take a song from music history and bring it into 2024. All this week we're going to hear examples of what that might sound like and have conversations with artists and musical historians. We'll learn about the history of Tin Pan Alley and the blues. That is the plan for the week, that is in our future, but right now in our present, we're going to get this hour started with Josh Radnor.

[music]

Alison Stewart: The past few months have been incredibly busy for Josh Radnor. He has a challenging play opening at The Public this week, he got married last month, and he recently released a new solo album called Eulogy: Volume 1. Let's listen to a song from the album. This is You Can Sleep Alone Tonight.

[MUSIC - Josh Radnor: You Can Sleep Alone Tonight]

Back at the same hotel one year ago

I brought her back to this room

There’s not much to say

She came back every day

Twice that one afternoon

It wasn’t just bodies, but oh how our bodies

Tangled so effortlessly

There was much laughter

Before and after

And sometimes in between

I wanna call her up, say: How are you? (How are you?)

How’s things? Are you doing alright? (Doing alright)

But then a quiet voice, it tells me: It’s okay

You can sleep alone tonight

The backstory for the album includes, in part, a post-breakup road trip from LA, Columbus, Ohio, to his folks' house, then Nashville. There he recorded songs that consider loneliness, aging, and what's possible in New York City. Josh is in New York now for a new production at The Public Theater called The Ally, in which he plays a progressive Jewish college professor who's pressured by students to sign a social justice manifesto, which turns out to be more complex than it seems, causing the character to grapple with his own identity. The play opens on Thursday and is running through March 10th.

Josh Radnor is with me in the studio now. We're going to talk about the play a little bit later, but right now we're having a listening party for his new album, Eulogy: Volume 1. Nice to meet you.

Josh Radnor: Hi. Thanks, Allison. Great to be here.

Alison Stewart: I have to say congratulations on your wedding. I think people saw it in the New York Times, this unforgettable happening. Your guests were stranded due to a snowstorm.

Josh Radnor: Most of the guests planned to stay there.

Alison Stewart: Most of the guests.

Josh Radnor: Yes, some of the guests.

Alison Stewart: Considering we're having snow, I thought that was okay to bring up. What was the moment then you realized, "Oh"? What was it like when you realized--

Josh Radnor: Well, they tried to keep some of it from us. I gathered from some of my friends who were saying, "Hey, we're here all night." For some people, I'm sure it was tougher than for others, but it just ended up being a very special night, very snow-filled and beautiful.

Alison Stewart: I feel like I can say this to you after listening to Joshua: 45-46, given the lyrics, I've never seen How I Met Your Mother.

Josh Radnor: Oh, that's fine. Neither has my wife.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: I was telling you, I have a 15-year-old son so it was right in that zone of being a new mom at a young--

Josh Radnor: Of course.

Alison Stewart: I was super busy. I'm aware of--

Josh Radnor: I forgive you.

Alison Stewart: Obviously I'm aware of it because of it in the universe, but you have a lyric in this song when you're talking about people make assumptions, or are overly friendly with you because of it, and they think you're like your character and that that was tough for you for a little while.

Josh Radnor: Yes, if you're on a show for nine years that is that iconic and present, it's a shadow that tails you, but you also have to tally up all the blessings that you get from something like that, too. Like most things, it's a complicated gift.

Alison Stewart: Well, you talk also in the song about how you didn't start to write until you were after 40, and how you wish you'd started in the '90s. Is that true that you started writing songs after 40?

Josh Radnor: Yes, I started writing songs with my friend Ben Lee-

Alison Stewart: I love that. Yes.

Josh Radnor: -who's an Australian songwriter. We put out two albums as Radnor & Lee, and we toured and we had a whole thing. The first record, I didn't play guitar, but we wrote all the songs together, and I fell in love with songwriting. Then halfway through our collaboration, I picked up a guitar and he taught me a bunch of stuff, and I got a teacher, and then songs just poured out of me. By the time I was ready to record this album, Eulogy, I had about 50 original songs. I mean, more than that, but some of them are not even worth playing for your producers.

[laughter]

Josh Radnor: I had written enough songs that I started to get a sense of what my taste was and also what was worth maybe considering to be on the record. Then it ended up being a double album, the one we recorded in Nashville. Yes, I started late, but like I say in the song, I'm not sure I had much to say in the '90s. I think there's something very interesting about becoming a songwriter in middle age where you've been dinged up enough, you've had enough failure, enough success, enough heartbreak, just you have enough life behind you to actually have something to write about. I'm really happy about that.

Alison Stewart: In the song, again, obviously it's not word-for-word truth, but you note that you write every day. Is that still the case? Do you?

Josh Radnor: At the time I wrote that song, yes, I was writing every day.

Alison Stewart: Really?

Josh Radnor: It's hard to rehearse a play at The Public and write songs. I mean, I have so many careers now, and I love that because I don't like doing one thing, I like doing lots of different things, but I have to take off a hat and put on another hat. For the latter part of last year, I was a musician, musician, touring, promoting the record, and now I'm actor, actor, actor, doing this play. I picked up my guitar the other day and I was like, "Wow, this feels good," but it's been a minute.

Alison Stewart: How has your songwriting changed from those first outpourings to what you can do now?

Josh Radnor: Yes, that's a great question. I mean, I think that people who play guitar know this. It's easy to get decent quickly. You can learn seven, eight chords, and you can write thousands of songs. You can write thousands of songs with two or three chords.

Alison Stewart: Three chords and the truth, as they say.

Josh Radnor: Yes, and the truth, that's all you need. You don't have to be a virtuosic- is that the word? -musician to be a great songwriter. In fact, a lot of the best songwriters are not great on the guitar or piano, they just know how to construct a song. I feel like there's a euphoria to your first year or two of songwriting where you're figuring this out and it feels like you're the first person discovering how to put chords together. When you realize, like, "Oh, I can do this and I can do this even without Ben, who has been doing this since he was 11 or 12," there was something so thrilling about it, and songs just poured out of me.

At the time I thought, "Oh, these are quite good," but then I realized, "Oh, no, there's another level of depth and excellence that I could--" but I just kept going. I think maybe some of the-- you get a little harder on yourself because you notice your habits and you notice your tendencies and you want to bust them up. I will say I write songs more as a fan than as a musician, in terms of, I really have an ear for what I like, the kind of sounds I like, or the musicians I really dig. I write more like, "What do I want to hear?" Ben used to tell me, "The longer you're at it as a musician, sometimes you start writing to impress other musicians rather than your audience."

[laughter]

Josh Radnor: He said he liked writing with me because I would say, "What are you doing? No, I don't like that fancy thing. C, F, G sounds really nice, let's just keep doing that.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Josh Radnor. The name of the album is Eulogy: Volume 1. We're having a listening party for it, so let's listen to another track, What If. When did you write this one?

Josh Radnor: I wrote this with my buddy, Kyle Cox, who's one of the producers on the album. He's a great Nashville songwriter and producer. I think we wrote this, this was pandemic time. We were doing a lot of Zoom songwriting. 2021, probably. It's really about being relatively happy in a relationship and also panicking and thinking, you got to get out.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to What If from Josh Radnor.

[MUSIC - Josh Radnor: What If]

I’m staring at the ceiling

My girl is next to me

My hunger for another life has disappeared

I’ve never been so happy

So safe so warm so free

I’ve gotta get myself the hell away from here

She loves me in the morning; I hold her through the night

Sometimes she looks at me

And I can barely breathe

She takes two steps forward

I take a few steps back

Why do I let my love become my enemy?

What if I’ve no gift for prophеcy?

What if things work out in the end?

What if I was slightly less assured?

What if I let myself be loved by her?

I am a storyteller

My brain goes straight to fear

It tells me turn back now--

Alison Stewart: That's Josh Radnor. The line, "I am a storyteller," are you a lyrics-first guy, or are you a music-first guy?

Josh Radnor: It's hard to answer. I think some songs get written and you start playing a chord progression that makes you feel something. You say, "Oh, what does it make me feel?

It makes me feel this." I know for that song, I had a melody kicking around and I brought it to Kyle and we just worked through the song together. Other times you get a really strong lyrical idea. Sometimes I'll be on an airplane and I'll just get struck with an idea and I'll just scribble a bunch of lyrics. Then in some ways, I prefer lyrics first, but I would say they come in all different ways.

Alison Stewart: The story goes, this album, and again, the internet, so please correct me if I'm wrong. How to break up, you're living in LA, you drive across the country, you bring your dog.

Josh Radnor: I think I flew. Oh, no, I didn't drive across the country. I couldn't be at my house for a number of reasons. My ex was staying there for a while. I was in exile from LA. I came to Columbus. I had my dog driven out. Nelson, my dog, he had the cross-country trip.

Alison Stewart: Nelson had the trip.

Josh Radnor: Yes, Nelson had the trip. He met me in Columbus. I was laying low for about-- My parents spend the winters in California with my older sister and her family. My childhood home was empty and I was just nursing my wounds. It was just unexpected change of life plan.

Alison Stewart: Sure.

Josh Radnor: I was laying low and connecting with old friends. My younger sister lives there and then Kyle suggested, "Why don't you come to Nashville? You got some time, you got a window. Let's record an album." Our friends, Jeremiah Dunlap and Corey Quintard were available. I rented an Airbnb in East Nashville and Nelson and I drove my dad's car out to Nashville and they turned it into a music studio. We just lived there for a month, or I lived there for a month, they came over every day and we created this record. Then at night, I would go over to Kyle's after he put his kids to sleep and we recorded these acoustic tracks which became Volume 2, which will come out in a couple of months.

Alison Stewart: First of all, what kind of dog is Nelson?

Josh Radnor: He's a labradoodle.

Alison Stewart: Oh, so he--

Josh Radnor: He's about 28 pounds.

Alison Stewart: He's cute and friendly and hypoallergenic.

Josh Radnor: That's right. All three things that were requirements for me. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: You know what's so funny? I think Airbnb needs to start a new ad campaign because there have been so many musicians I've talked to, especially during the pandemic-

Josh Radnor: Oh, that make their albums.

Alison Stewart: -says, "I got an Airbnb." What is it about being--

Josh Radnor: It's an under-publicized aspect of Airbnb that should really-- Yes.

Alison Stewart: What is it about renting someplace that's not your house straight?

Josh Radnor: That's a great question. I suppose it's not unlike getting office space where you could write at your kitchen table, but it formalizes the work a little bit more. You actually have a destination to go to. I was sleeping there. I think there's something about getting away from it all and becoming a little more of a work hermit and just saying, this is our little cottage where we're making something. There's a sweet aspect to it.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to another song from the album, Eulogy: Volume 1, Pretty Angel. You wrote with Audrey Assad.

Josh Radnor: No, sorry. Audrey, she sings on the track.

Alison Stewart: She sings only, I'm sorry.

Josh Radnor: She sings on the track. I wrote this.

Alison Stewart: She sings on the track. Great.

Josh Radnor: A great songwriter, though. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Why did you want to work with her?

Josh Radnor: She's a friend. She's someone I connected with in Nashville through another mutual friend, and she has a gorgeous voice, as you'll hear. She was also singing on You Can Sleep Alone Tonight. Audrey, she came up through Christian music and has abandoned that somewhat. She's just an extraordinary songwriter and she's an extraordinary person. It's the best when you get to become friends with people artistically who you actually find, like, "Oh, we have more in common than music." She's just a wonderful artist. She's someone I'm really glad I know.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear Pretty Angel.

[MUSIC- Josh Radnor: Pretty Angel]

Read all the news

I know all of the views

Now I got the blues

It’s time to lay down

The house without sound

But my head is loud

It’s three in the morning

And I just can’t sleep

Cause I’m still in mourning

For everything I can’t keep

Sing me to sleep

Please pretty angel

Can’t count no more sheep

Help me pretty angel

There is no escape

From all my mistakes

I keep playing the tape

Why did I say that

Wish I could go back

Why am I afraid to act

It’s four in the morning

My eyes they ain’t closed

I’m over forty

I guess this is how it goes

Sing me to sleep

Please pretty angel

Alison Stewart: My guest is Josh Radnor, discussing his album Eulogy: Volume 1. We'll hear more music after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is Josh Radnor. His new album is called Eulogy: Volume 1, which is out now. As we've got into this, we've arrived at the song New York City, which we have to listen to, of course. When you think about New York City, what was it that you wanted to capture about New York City in the song?

Josh Radnor: To be honest, some of it was just like a writing exercise to myself. I was trying to come up with as many rhymes for city as I could, and I didn't use gritty.

Alison Stewart: Well done.

Josh Radnor: Yes. Some of it was that. Then a lot of it was just that feeling that when you have a romance, that's probably, let's be honest, pretty short-lived, but it's associated with a city. I love those Richard Linklater movies Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.

Alison Stewart: Sure.

Josh Radnor: It's like there's Paris, there's Vienna. Sometimes the romance or what happens with that person is so collapsed in with the city itself that you're not quite sure what you're loving at some point. Is it the city? Is it the person? They're inextricably bound up with each other. New York City is both a love letter to a person and a time, but also the city itself.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear NYC.

[MUSIC- Josh Radnor: NYC]

I’m alone, what a pity

I will be soon in New York City

When I see you, please permit me

To tell you everything in New York City

All our talks, so profound and witty

When we were stoned back in New York City

I am worried you’re still pretty

The way that you were back in New York City

I haven’t gathered up a committee

Alison Stewart: Witty, pretty. I love that.

Josh Radnor: Later you get into stuff like admitty. He must admitty.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] All right. Since we're in New York, this is the segue to theater.

Josh Radnor: Sure.

Alison Stewart: All right. You're about to open at The Public on Thursday. This show, I can't wait to see this. I love your director.

Josh Radnor: Lila.

Alison Stewart: Lila Neugebauer.

Josh Radnor: Neugebauer.

Alison Stewart: Neugebauer who we just talked to her about appropriate-

Josh Radnor: Okay, great.

Alison Stewart: -which is amazing. This, gosh, you would think somebody wrote this a few months ago, but it was written in 2022, correct?

Josh Radnor: No, no. He started this in 2018.

Alison Stewart: That far back.

Josh Radnor: He's been working on it for a couple of years. It's Itamar Moses, the playwright.

Alison Stewart: It's about a college professor who considers himself progressive, confronted by a student to sign a social justice manifesto, turns out to be pretty complex. Tell us a little bit about your character. What are his values? What is he struggling with when asked to do a fairly, something might be seen as simple initially?

Josh Radnor: Yes. His name's Asaf Sternheim. He's American. He has Israeli parents. He grew up in the Bay Area. He considers himself a real progressive, has a long history of aligning himself with progressive causes. He's moved to this university town with his wife who got a job, more of an administrative job, and a student whose cousin was killed in a Black Lives Matter police shooting. Asks him to sign a social justice manifesto, which happens to be authored by a soft-sex girlfriend, Nakia.

He struggles because he reads the manifesto and there's a 98% of it he says he agrees with, but there's this somewhat aggressive anti-Israel language in there. He has very complicated views about Israel, but he's just confused why Israel is singled out, but he ends up signing it. That leads to a whole other series of events, which are the rest of the play which I won't spoil, but it is a fascinating, I don't know if cocktail is the right word, but it's how the political and the personal get intertwined. It's about campus politics and progressive politics and Israeli politics. It really in terms of a timely subject matter, you can't get more timely than this one.

Alison Stewart: Obviously set before October 7th of this year. How do you think a play or a piece of art like this could be particularly helpful at this moment?

Josh Radnor: I did a couple of workshops of this play last year before we were in the official rehearsal period. I remember we read through it and one of the actors said, the thing that is so heartbreaking about this play is everyone's right. Every character that speaks is speaking from their perspective. They're speaking truth. This is something that I felt very strongly in college was the kind of-- Is it Fitzgerald who says, "Hold two truths in your head without losing your mind or something.

Alison Stewart: Yes. Sign of intelligence is to be able--

Josh Radnor: Yes. It's really about holding paradox and also holding parallel histories in one's head. I'm very suspicious not just in the current conflict that this is dealing with, but I'm very suspicious of people who are very certain, who think in ways that are not nuanced, and who can't admit their own biases and their own fallibility. I think we're obviously a little bit nervous about this play just because the subject matter is so provocative for people. At the same time, I would say if you're coming to see this play and you have a very strong opinion about any of these matters, just wait. Your opinion will be voiced. He looks at it almost like a prismatic, he examines every different facet of this thing. It's quite astonishing how much ground he covers in an evening.

I like a lot of people, I'm anguished about all of this stuff, but I'm so grateful that I have a piece that can speak to my own anguish and that I can just throw myself into. Itamar said, I started writing this play because I had all these questions and then I finished the play and I still have the same questions. I don't think it's an ideological polemic. It's more of an anguish kind of hello to the heavens to say, "What do we do?"

Alison Stewart: Are you all going to do talkbacks at all?

Josh Radnor: No. [Laughs] Very intentionally. I think, no. Please come with a friend that you can talk about it with afterwards. I think it'll be great for a post-show discussion, but I think they're sparing us that.

Alison Stewart: You mentioned it before the break, but I want to make sure we talk about it. There will be a Volume 2 of your record.

Josh Radnor: Yes. In a couple of months, I'm going to start dropping a couple of singles from it and it's a more stripped-down basement tapes acoustic vibe than the first volume which is more produced.

Alison Stewart: All right. We've got The Ally, which is opening this week at The Public Theater, running now through March 17th. The new album Eulogy: Volume 1 is out now. We got to wait for Volume 2. We're going to go out on the song, Heaven Knows. What would you like people to listen for in this song?

Josh Radnor: One of the great things about recording in Nashville is you think, maybe we should have some trumpet on this or do we want piano? You say, "My buddy lives two doors down, he is the best trumpet player in town. Let's go grab him." There's just some fantastic musicians playing on this song, Nashville-based musicians. I think in some ways the album has been labeled a breakup record, which I don't know if it is because a lot of these songs were not written around the breakup. They were just recorded in the shadow of this breakup.

However, this is probably, I think the last song I wrote chronologically for this record. This song was written in the midst of the breakup, the one that sent me fleeing Los Angeles to Columbus and into the arms of Nashville and into the arms of my wife on some level because I wrote, I met my wife around the time I was recording this album.

Alison Stewart: Oh, nice.

Josh Radnor: This song is a, I wouldn't call it a breakup song. I'd call it a pre-B breakup song. The kind of song where you think this isn't going well, this might be on its last legs.

Alison Stewart: This is from Josh Radnor. Josh, thanks for coming to the studio.

Josh Radnor: Oh, thanks for having me. It was really a real treat. Thanks.

Alison Stewart: This is Heaven Knows.

[MUSIC - Josh Radnor: Heaven Knows]

It’s the end of the road again

We’ve been here before but it’s different this time

Just a question of when

We separate what’s yours from what is mine

Heaven knows I try to walk away

But here on earth, I make the choice to stay

In the morning I resolve to leave

Alison Stewart: Today's show is featuring music of the past, and we just heard about Josh Radnor's new music available now. What about the future and when it meets the past? Coming up, the All of It Public Song project is back. We'll explain how you can participate.

[music]

 

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