Key Change: Jason Schwartzman on the ‘Rushmore’ soundtrack

Song Exploder

Hrishikesh Hirway

Music

4.8 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jason Schwartzman, actor, songwriter, and musician, talks about how the soundtrack to 'Rushmore'—his first film—changed his life. I met Jason briefly in 2017, as he was leaving the room where I was supposed to interview the band Phoenix. I was shocked when he stopped on his way out to tell me he loved Song Exploder. Eight years later, I reached out to him to see if he’d want to be a guest on Key Change, and we ended up talking for almost two hours, just on the phone. By the time he came over to record, I felt like I’d met a kindred spirit who’d also been cataloguing his whole life through the songs he’d encountered along the way. The fact that we got to talk about one of my favorite movies, 'Rushmore,' made the experience even more meaningful and thrilling for me.

For more, visit songexploder.net/jason-schwartzman.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs,
0:04.0	and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
0:07.0	I'm Rishi Kei Kesh Hirwe.
0:10.0	This episode contains explicit language.
0:13.0	I think the people you love are the people that you want to show things to.
0:19.0	That's kind of what it comes down to at the end of the day.
0:21.6	It's like you can't wait to see their face when they like experience something. That's like to me
0:27.6	like what I think like love is. This is key change where I talk to fascinating people about the music
0:33.7	that changed their lives. And I'm very excited to be joined today by Jason Schwartzman,
0:37.9	who's been in so many incredible films and shows, including Scott Pilgrim versus the world,
0:42.8	the Darjeeling Limited, across the spider verse, the new movie Mountain Head, and so much more.
0:48.7	In addition to being an actor, he's also a writer and musician. He makes music under the moniker
0:53.6	Coconut Records, and he was also the drummer in the band Phantom Planet.
0:57.0	I was first introduced to Jason's work
0:59.0	in one of my all-time favorite films, Rushmore,
1:02.0	which came out in 1998 and began his long history
1:05.0	of working with director Wes Anderson,
1:08.0	and we're going to talk about some of the music from that time in his life.
1:12.7	Jason, thanks so much for being here.
1:13.4	Amazing.
1:17.9	I feel like I'm just listening to the show, so forgive me.
1:20.3	I forgot that I was talking.
	...

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