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Here 10 other things I thought were worth sharing this week:
“Great things start in little rooms.” That’s André 3000 of Outkast in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech, referencing Jack White of The White Stripes, who told young artists in his acceptance speech to “get your hands dirty and drop the screens and get out in your garage or your little room and get obsessed.” In my opinion, White’s “Little Room” is the greatest song ever written about success. Here it is in its entirety:
“Well, you’re in your little room
and you’re working on something good
but if it’s really good
you’re gonna need a bigger room
and when you’re in the bigger room
you might not know what to do
you might have to think of
how you got started
sitting in your little room!”“I wonder if a single thought that has helped forward the human spirit has ever been conceived or written down in an enormous room.”
—Kenneth Clark, CivilisationWe saw Jeff Tweedy at the Paramount here in Austin, TX playing songs off his new triple record Twilight Override — aka “Sad-inista” — with a band of musicians he’s known since they were little kids: Macie Stewart on violin, siblings Liam Kazar and Sima Cunningham on guitar and bass, and Tweedy’s own sons, Sammy and Spencer, on keyboard and drums. This family-based lineup was particularly special to me because Jeff has the last quote in Don’t Call It Art, my forthcoming book about what I learned from playing with my two sons:
I was 18 years old when I plucked that quote out of a 2002 interview in Newsweek and pinned it on my bulletin board. I found it 17 years later while going through my stuff at my mom’s house, realizing my own boys were about the same age as the Tweedy boys were at the time of the interview! (“Plant yourself like a seed / take your time...”)
Congratulations to Hrishikesh Hirway on the 300th episode of Song Exploder! It’s been a favorite podcast of mine for over a decade. Don’t miss the recent episode about the evolution of A-Ha’s “Take on Me.” One of the things that makes the show great is that Hrisihi is a musician himself and a real student of the craft of songwriting. (Bonus link: Last year he