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.
Sarah Watkins began her music career when she was only eight years old as one of the founding members of the Grammy award-winning band Nickel Creek.
In 2016, she released her third solo album, Young in All the Wrong Ways.
In this episode, Sarah breaks down her song without a word.
The interview for this episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Chicago Podcast Festival.
This song started when I was on tour with my bandmates.
We were driving in England,
and I just remember sort of leaning against the passenger door and singing the basic melody.
And I leaned over in my phone and just recorded.
The lyrics started with this image of someone coming through the front door and just wreaking all kinds of havoc in the living room,
twirling around like a Tasmanian devil,
and then out through the bedroom window and just running out of the driveway and down the street and feeling the emotional equivalent of all that.
That feeling of just what happened, how everything was...
Fine, and now there's disaster.
By the end of the tour, I had the first two verses.
And I played it for my friend Gabe Witcher, who produced the record.
I asked him to help me finish it.
I've known Gabe since I was eight.