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.
The New Pornographers are kind of a supergroup, with seven members in the band,
including Nico Case and Dan Behar,
who are both acclaimed songwriters with their own successful solo careers.
But the band's led by Carl Newman, and in this episode,
he breaks down the title song from their sixth album, Brill Bruisers.
Plus, you'll hear some thoughts from bassist and co-producer John Collins.
My interview with Carl Newman is recorded live at the Green Space at WNYC.
I'm Carl Newman.
There was a guitar part I had an idea for.
It sounds really clumsy, but I remember thinking, like, oh, this is a cool guitar part.
The chords are sort of boneheaded.
It's just an A and then, like, an A with a G added,
and it goes to D. It's, like, just couldn't be simpler.
It's the hardest thing to do.
It's just come up with something completely just dead simple.
When I first started writing songs,
I wanted to write something really complex