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.
Julian Baker is from Memphis, Tennessee.
She released her second album, Turn Out the Lights, in October 2017 on Matador Records.
The New York Times called her music, quote,
devastating, and Pitchfork gave the album Best New Music.
In this episode, Julian tells the story of her song, Appointments,
and how writing it helped her work through her thoughts around addiction,
depression, and relationships.
Julian also takes apart the track, Over,
which was originally written as part of Appointments, but then split off as a separate track.
I'm Julian Baker.
Do you ever think to say something and then you know that you should not say that thing out loud?
When that happens to me or I know that a thought is irrational,
I'll just save it and explore it in a song.
Like I felt an inadequacy and like an imposter syndrome when I would talk to my friends or when I would be at a party just standing around.
I would just have this bizarre paranoia that like I'm not what any of these people wanted and I'm disappointing and I'm letting everyone down.
And that recurring thought was, I think,
probably the first idea that cropped up in my brain for the lyrics.