Fail Again: Aimee Mann Is In My Pantheon

Fail Better with David Duchovny

Grace Cohen-Chen

Society & Culture

4.6 • 534 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2026

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode originally aired November 19, 2024 It was a real magic moment to connect with Aimee Mann, a musician I’ve listened to for decades. She indulges my curiosities about lyric choices and instrumental training, and I learn how much goes on behind the scenes of an Aimee Mann production. We talk about the traumas of her past, which hardships do and do not influence her work, and why there feels like a creative imperative to turn pain into art. Then, to lighten things up (at least a little) we bond over some of our favorite artists of years past, like the sneakily somber Steely Dan. Follow me on Instagram at @davidduchovny. Stay up to date with Lemonada on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium. And if you want to continue the conversation with other listeners, join the My Lemonada community at https://lemonadamedia.com/mylemonada/ For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's morning in New York.
0:02.8	Oh, God.
0:06.2	Hey, everybody.
0:07.3	I'm Mandy Patinkin.
0:08.7	And I'm Catherine Grady.
0:09.8	And we have a new podcast.
0:11.7	It's called Don't Listen to Us.
0:14.1	Many of you've asked for our advice.
0:16.1	Tell me, what is wrong with you people?
0:19.2	Don't listen to us.
0:20.3	Our Take It or Leave a Adv Device show every Wednesday, out now.
0:24.7	A Lemonada Media Original.
0:35.7	Hi, I'm David Dukovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are.
0:42.5	Amy Mann is one of the great songwriters of our time, or anytime.
0:46.6	She's released 10 studio albums as a solo artist over the course of four decades.
0:50.7	Her music is melodic, thoughtful, clever, and yet it explores dark themes like depression
0:57.5	and anxiety. We get into the many challenges she's battled through, continues to battle through,
1:03.5	including dealing with physical health problems and anxiety, depression, PTSD, and traumatic
1:09.3	events from her childhood.
1:16.7	I appreciate Amy being so forthcoming and vulnerable and sharing what it's like to keep moving forward and stay creative and stay awake and conscious and to heal and to try to heal.
1:22.8	And of course, to keep creating through successes and through failures.
1:26.6	Here's our conversation.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Grace Cohen-Chen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Grace Cohen-Chen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.