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 Hirwe.

On September 5th, I'm going to be doing a special live Song Exploder event in Los Angeles with Boni Vair.

Justin Vernon and producer Jimmy Stack are going to be joining me on stage to tell the story behind one of the songs from the new Bonie Verre album, Sable Fable. So if you've ever wondered what a full, unedited Song Exploder conversation is like, this is your chance to be in the room. This is going to be a live event only. It's not going to be live streamed or repeated on any other night. So I hope you can make it. It's going to be

at the beautiful Palace Theater in downtown L.A. You can get tickets to this special Song Exploder

Live event with Bonnie Vair at SongExploder.net slash live. Again, it's on Friday, September 5th in

downtown L.A. And you can get tickets at songexploder.net slash live.

Riders Block is something I experience with every record in one way, shape, or form. I have the

feeling of the universe allotted a certain number of songs, and I hit my quota. now I'm never going to write another good song again.

But usually the darkest moments of writer's block, right?

When it really gets hard and you're really kind of borderline panicking over it,

that's usually when you push through in my experience.

It's like I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, kept doing the next thing,

and before I knew it, I wrote fire, and it really felt like, okay, I got this. It's going to be okay.

I'm Katie Crutchfield from Waxahatchee.

Katie Crutchfield is a singer and songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama. She's been making music under the name Waxahatchie. Katie Crutchfield is a singer and songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama.

She's been making music under the name Waxahatchie since 2010.

Her fifth album, St. Cloud, came out this past March.

Pitchfork named it Best New Music, and The Guardian called it the best album of the year so far.

In this episode, Katie breaks down how she made the song, Fire.

For some of us, it ain't enough. It ain't enough. As I was preparing to write the song, I was traveling. I had been spending a lot of time here in Kansas, which is where I live. It was winter, and I was sort of hammering away at writing the record. And then I went on a trip with

my partner, Kevin, to Birmingham, Alabama, which is where I'm from. We were visiting my family,

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