You're listening to Naked League's Amid Music, a podcast about songs and songwriters.

My name is Mark Linton-Mire.

My guest today is Esther Ballant.

She's released four albums since 1998.

Most recent which has been made into a stage show in New York City, you may better recognize

her for her acting work, starting as a teenager in Jim Jarmoosh's first major film Stranger

than Paradise.

The song you're actually hearing right now is Screamin' J. Hawkins, I Put a Spell

on You, which plays incessently throughout that film.

We're of course going to discuss Esther's songwriting work today, starting with the first

day from that new album, I Hate Memory, then exit at 63 from her last album, Airless Midnight

2015, and then all the way back to the song almost gone from her first album Flickr,

in 1998.

Here we go.

So I normally play a little bit of introductory music, the thing that you're famous for, and

as I was looking at this, I think even though it's a songwriting podcast, we're talking

about your songwriting, I feel like it has to be Screamin' J. Hawkins I Put A Spell

on You, because that's the thing that you're known for.

I'm going to tell my director because we're playing with an idea in the show, I just have

to tell you this is so funny.

We've done some versions of this I Hate Memory show where we haven't quite worked

not how this will work yet, or if it works at all, but I did have the idea to put that

...