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, your way.

This episode contains explicit language.

Kesha is a singer and songwriter from Los Angeles. She put out her first song in 2009.

It was a huge number one hit in the US and 13 other countries.

She's had 10 top 10 singles on the Billboard charts and sold millions of albums.

She got famous for songs that were about parting and breaking the rules and having fun.

But this year, in May 2023, she put out the album Gag Order, which was a lot more raw and vulnerable.

She made it with superstar producer Rick Rubin.

And for this episode, I talked to Kesha about her song Eat the Acid, which she wrote early on in the pandemic.

I was really interested in the intense distorted vocal sound that I heard in the track.

And as you'll hear, it turns out most of that was a byproduct of the way she had to write and record when we were all in lockdown.

You said don't ever eat the acid. If you don't want to be changed, like it changed me.

You said all the edges got so jagged. Now everything you saw then can't be on the scene.

Last night, I saw it all. Last night, and I talked to God.

My name is Kesha.

Kesha told me that from 2008 to 2020, she spent her life as a pop star in kind of a bubble.

It was a living life moment to moment for 12 years.

I didn't really have that much time to pay attention to much else aside from what was directly in front of me for the next 10 minutes, hour, whatever it was.

It was just, okay, we're on the bus, okay, we're on the plane, okay, we're on stage.

It was like constant escapism in my music because I feel like most of my music is centered around going out, celebrating, partying.

I think I distracted myself.

But there was always a piece of me that like I wanted to really feel held and I really wanted to have faith and trust in something bigger than myself.

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