Ep. 252: Lizzo | Rock Bottom, #1, and the Game Nobody Explains

And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan

And The Writer Is

Songwriters, Music Interviews, Artists, Music Creation, Education, Interviews, Music, Songwriting

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2026

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today's guest is a Grammy winner, a two-time Billboard #1 artist, and one of the defining pop voices of the last decade. But her real story isn't the anthems or the awards. It's the part that plays like a rollercoaster and teaches like a masterclass: how she almost quit, what going #1 actually felt like, and everything about the music business nobody explains until you've survived it.

The press version skips the touring deficits, the depression at the top, and the moment in an Echo Park apartment when she nearly took a job at Smoothie King. The question underneath everything she says: once you stop chasing the metric and the moment — who do you become?

And The Writer Is... Lizzo!

In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on:

• Why she wanted to quit music the day "Truth Hurts" went #1 — and the 2017 low point that was actually worse

• The touring economics no one explains: how you gross $1M and still finish the year in the red

• Why the indie grind that built her, in her view, no longer leads to the mainstream

• "She stopped giving a fuck about what we wanted" — Beyoncé's self-titled as a blueprint for artistic autonomy

• Why she only talks to people who buy her music — and what comment sections do to her nervous system

• The bumper-sticker hook theory — why "Truth Hurts" works when it breaks every rule

• Writing "About Damn Time": 83 versions of the chorus, and how the simplest line won

• Robert Glasper's lesson: there's no such thing as a wrong note

• Why good songs don't sound great at first — watching "Good as Hell" go from silly to gospel

• "I make whatever the f*** I want" — and why arriving at that sentence took everything before it

And much more...

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A special thank you to our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.

Credits:

Hosted by Ross Golan

Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad

Edited by Jad Saad

Post-Production VFX by Pratik Karki

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We can't think about like dropping the biggest shit in the world. We can't think about ourselves like that anymore. You've got to super serve your fan base. It'll be the biggest shit in the world to them. And that's all that matters. I don't give a fuck what anyone says about the timing. My timing is always on time. You have so many billions of streams. Did you feel like when it went number one that you made it?
0:27.0	No, I was actually very depressed and I wanted to quit music. That was bad. Like, I never wanted to get there ever again. What was fucked up that was going on in your life at that time?
0:31.5	These kids today, they don't know what it's like to have a little rental car driving from 500 cap to 500 cap playing for food.
0:41.3	I was creating a crowd for myself.
0:44.3	Like, I was building a fan base by doing this.
0:46.3	Now I can do my own tours.
0:48.3	I was able to gross a million dollars on my own, independent, no label.
0:53.3	Grossing a million dollars is not the same thing as netting a million dollars.
0:57.6	To teach people about touring economics, when an artist grosses a million dollars, what's
1:03.2	the general take home from something like that?
1:05.5	Oh, honey.
1:07.8	This season is presented by NMPA, the National Music Publishers Association.
1:13.6	Champions of songwriters and publishers everywhere.
1:17.1	Welcome to And The Writer is.
1:19.1	I am your host, Ross Golan.
1:20.9	Today's chart-topping superstar started topping charts by popping off where the streams are.
1:26.9	On your phones, on your screens.
1:29.0	She was seen everywhere when she really, really broke in 2019.
1:35.1	A trained floutist with a pen.
1:37.4	She was so popular when she broke that pop music became her personal subgenre.
1:42.8	All the way from L.A. these days, this artist earned
1:46.1	her place in the business and continues to show why she ain't going anywhere. And the writer is
	...

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