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.

Every winter I just feel like I want to die. I'm just so fucking sick of being beaten down by the winter time. I feel like every spring my life is saved and I'm reborn.

You're listening to song exploder. My name is Rishikesh, your way. Jim James is the lead singer of the Grammy nominated band of my morning jacket. Since starting in 1998 they've put out six albums and in this episode Jim breaks down the song's spring among the living from there soon to be released 7th album, The Waterfall.

When spring finally comes it's like in Louisville where I live it's a massive transition. Everybody is so bombed in the winter time and so down and it's grey and horrible and so it finally becomes spring. It just really is like this rebirth.

Everybody is out in their shorts running through the park and falling in love and going out and having fun again. It's a life saver.

I remember I had an apartment in New York City for a while and I had the back door open and I had this really cool backyard for New York. The door was open and the snow was thawing and the grass was starting to come up and it just popped into my head of how glad I was that it was spring again.

So I just remember that moment so vividly and the song came into my head. I picked this song and talked about it because I think it represents what I love about the era we're in now which is true analog performance by a band but also tons of digital editing and smashing together of parts and all the cool things you can do in a comparison.

We played through the song but we never really figured it out at the studio. We had just done the basic tracks and then when I went home I opened up the session and just started putting it together and connecting the dots.

I had this really left right feeling of the drum beat this one's happening.

And then this one's happening. And then they're both happening together.

Yeah and that was something that we couldn't just track like that or figure that out. Well it would be physically impossible because you couldn't play two parts at the same time.

And for me it really came together in that way.

The Jang Jang Jang Jang Jang I really wanted a really horrible sound. And I was like what sounds more horrible than acoustic through an amp. I think it's one of those horrible sounds on the face of the earth.

So we put it through the amp with reverb on it.

I just love it when things sound terrible. I mean sometimes I love it when things sound great but there's just something about the way something sounds.

Maybe I've listened to there's a rye going on by the last stone I think is one of the greatest records ever made. And that record sounds horrible and the vocal is super muffled.

One child grows up to be somebody they just love to learn.

When everything's dirty and horrible and I just love that stuff they were like this is fucking great take. Like we're not going to go fix that vocal just because it blew up. You know it sounds great. It's awesome.

So I'm a big fan of external noises. Like if I do a vocal at home now it's just like I just got to start recording it and if it distorts a little I'm kind of glad.

I was doing a lot of howling on this song and I was like this is fun and I was like oh man it would sound so good. If somebody was howling with me or along with me.

And yeah we had our friend Merrill from Teenyards sing on this and how and because I love Merrill's spirit and her howling and you know her spirit is so big.

There were other girls singing along with her.

...