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.
Sophie Allison makes music under the name Soccer Mommy.
Her debut album came out in 2018 when she was 20 years old,
and the New York Times named it one of the best albums of the year.
This week, her second album comes out, and it includes this song, Circle the Drain.
I spoke to Sophie while she was in her hometown of Nashville.
And in this episode,
she takes Circle the Drain apart and explains how it was influenced by songs from her childhood.
I'm Sophie from Soccer Mommy.
When I started writing Circle the Drain, I was in the van, actually,
on a West Coast tour, and I was in the backseat playing my guitar.
And the van was kind of the only time I had to, you know,
sit and play guitar somewhere that people weren't going to be listening to me.
I like that, and the fact that there's noise, like white noise,
that makes it kind of hard to hear me in the back.
You know, it's the same as getting privacy at home.
That's kind of some of the only downtime you find on tour.
So it's the perfect time to try to write.