Episode 63: Late-Night Icon David Letterman and Songwriter Jason Isbell

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 December 2016

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Letterman discusses life after late night and songwriter Jason Isbell talks about songwriting while sober.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:25.3	Today we've got a special show, two live interviews from the New Yorker Festival.
0:28.5	One of the great songwriters working today, Jason Isbell,
0:33.1	will talk with John Seabrook about writing songs, about getting sober,
0:36.9	and about how much better it is to write songs while sober,
0:38.6	and he'll play for us too.
0:50.0	Staring at the pictures of the runaways on the wall, it seems like these days you couldn't run away at all.
0:56.2	That's a little later this hour. But first, a king of late night who's now able to sleep a little in the morning.
0:59.5	The New Yorker's local authority on comedy is Susan Morrison,
1:05.0	and she's called David Letterman without question the most original television voice of his generation.
1:13.3	Letterman was on late night TV for 33 years, and even now, more than a year after his his retirement it's kind of hard to get used to his absence here he is with Susan Morrison at the New Yorker
1:18.1	Festival
1:19.6	thank you how are you nice to see you thank you very much thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, folks. Thank you. Thank you.
1:28.3	All right, that's enough.
1:30.3	Thank you.
1:31.3	Anyway, well, here we go.
1:33.3	I'm...
1:34.3	Well, first of all, thank you very much for thinking of me.
1:39.3	It's a great honor, a great privilege, and I can't tell you how nice it is to be out of
1:45.5	the house.
1:46.5	Well, we're so glad that you're here.
1:50.5	We even put on the nice shiny shoes.
	...

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