You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
Lizzy McAlpine released her first album in 2020 and her second album in 2022.
And between the two, she's had a lot of success.
One of her songs, Ceilings, was a viral TikTok hit that's been streamed over half a billion times.
So you might think with all that success, you'd want to keep working in a way that's been working.
But while Lizzy was making her third album, Older,
after almost a year into the process of recording, she threw the whole thing out.
She brought in a new band and started over with a totally different approach.
I talked to her about the song Staying from her new album.
Coming up, you'll hear her original voice memos,
as well as the first version she made in the studio.
and then how it really came to life once she reimagined it.
My name is Lizzie McAlpine.
It was nighttime when I wrote Staying.
I was sitting in my room in my apartment.
I was thinking about this relationship that I had in college.
It lasted for a month and a half.
And then...