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 Rishi Kesh Hirway.

So I just wanted to say a couple words about how this show works.

Song Exploder is part of Radiotopia, which is a group of independent podcasts.

And if you look around these days, independence is becoming more

and more rare. Everything from record labels to movies to newspapers, everything's getting

consolidated and controlled by a small number of corporations. To me, one of the tragedies of this

means you get less original, weird, unexpected, and creative stuff out in the world.

And this podcast is all about

celebrating the surprising ways that creativity gets manifested. That's really interesting to me,

the way that actual people turn their experiences into art. And if you're listening to this,

I hope that means it's interesting to you, too. But in order to maintain this show and that

philosophy, it takes a lot of hustling to keep

things going. This spiel is part of the hustle, and I hope you'll forgive me for it. But Song Exploder,

and all the shows at Radiotopia need the support of listeners like you. It's the annual Radiotopia

fundraiser right now, and we're looking for 1,500 new donors who believe in unique, independent media and the messiness

of creativity, and more importantly, just love listening. If that's you, please consider making a tax

deductible donation at songexploder.net slash donate. That's songexploder.net slash donate.

Thank you so much for making the show possible.

This episode contains explicit language.

This is Key Change, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that changed their lives.

My guest today is director Ryan Johnson, which is exciting for me because I've been a huge fan of his ever since seeing his first feature film, Brick, in 2006.

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