Aimee Mann Live, with Atul Gawande

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Aimee Mann, the celebrated Los Angeles singer and songwriter, recently released an album called “Queens of the Summer Hotel.” The album was inspired in part by Susanna Kaysen’s best-selling memoir “Girl, Interrupted,” about Kaysen’s time in a psychiatric hospital. Mann sat down with Atul Gawande at The New Yorker Festival to talk about the new album, the lessons of living through a pandemic, and how liberated she felt when she broke her ties with major record labels. “When you’re at a record label and you’re trying to ascertain whether something can be a hit or a single, you listen in a different way—and then everything sounds like garbage,” she said. Mann decided that she didn’t “want to keep baring my soul to people who hate everything I’m doing.”

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:08.8	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:12.0	If you're familiar with the musician Amy Mann, it may be because of this 1980s earworm.
0:18.1	The first comes, keep the down and down, pushes carry. 1980s earworm.
0:30.8	Or you may remember her soundtrack for the film Magnolia back in 1999.
0:36.2	Amy Mann has been celebrated for her mastery of the craft of songwriting for a long time.
0:38.4	In a review in the New Yorker years ago,
0:45.5	Nick Hornby said that man writes, quote, proper lyrics instead of 10th-rate poetry. Her new album is called Queens of the Summer Hotel, which was inspired by the memoir, Girl Interrupted.
0:51.5	Last month, Amy Mann appeared at the New Yorker Festival, and let's start with a song.
1:08.5	There's a girl up in her bed blade against her skin
1:13.6	I see you
1:16.6	Hoping the pink cup is the dread keeps the secret said
1:25.6	I see you
1:30.3	You think there's no other
1:33.3	to hear your plea
1:39.3	that I can see
1:54.0	There's a girl on her a clue trying to break her fall I see you
2:00.0	Hope that she'll find one of her live will cling it to the wall
2:05.2	I see you
2:08.0	whether it's black to spare
2:13.4	or just on we
2:18.3	I can see
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.