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 Herway.

This episode contains explicit language.

In 1993, Liz Fair released her debut album, Exiling Gaiville.

It was an instant hit, critically and commercially.

It sold hundreds of thousands of copies,

Spin and the Village Voice named it Album of the Year,

and soon after, Rolling Stone put her on the cover of their magazine.

Now, 25 years later, Exiling Gaiville is being re-issued as a deluxe box set with new photos, essays,

and Liz Fair's original four-track cassette recordings.

In this episode, Liz and Exiling Gaiville's producer, Brad Wood,

look back to tell the story of the creation of one of the songs on the album, Divorce Song.

So take a deep breath and count back from time, and maybe you'll be alright.

I'm Liz Fair.

I don't remember when I wrote Divorce Song, but I remember the evening that inspired it.

I must have been a sophomore or junior in college.

I was dating a guy at Oberlin.

It was one of those things where we were friends,

but we were kind of hooking up.

So it was like a non-defined kind of relationship.

And he had this little blue Miata, which stood out on campus.

Like, you know, everyone wanted to ride in Shane's Miata.

...