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00:00So the entire vocal stack of the chorus, which to me, in my head,
00:03sounds like the heavens opening up, is...
00:05Please, please, please, don't prove I'm right.
00:11It's literally eight vocals, and three of them barely count.
00:17Please, please, please, don't prove I'm right.
00:25I started hearing Sabrina's music a few years ago.
00:28I was always in love with her voice.
00:30There's something about certain voices, like all the greatest voices,
00:33you just kind of stop even thinking about what's happening.
00:36You just hear the voice, and you're like, oh, it's always existed.
00:38I feel that way about all the great singers of all time.
00:41It's almost like a thing that's been an old friend.
00:44You don't sit back and dissect and be like, oh, how...
00:47But it's just there and brilliant.
00:49So I was aware of that voice. I heard it.
00:51And there's not a lot of those voices,
00:53so when you hear one, you never forget it.
00:55And now it's become, in the context of my life,
00:58like an iconic day in my life,
01:00because we sat there and we made
01:02Please, Please, Please, Lie to Girls and Slim Pickings
01:04all in that one day.
01:06Not finished, but the general feeling of those songs
01:10and then all the writing and the general production done.
01:13And so we talked a lot about these references,
01:15like ABBA and Jeff Lynne and ELO and The Beatles and Dolly
01:19and how at any given moment, it's utterly euphoric.
01:23You're like fucking roller skating with a disco ball,
01:26and then 5 seconds later, you're weeping in bed,
01:29and then there's a joke, and it really is my favorite kind of music,
01:33which is music that is really embodying
01:37what the human mind is actually feeling.
01:39The songwriting process was so fun
01:42because her and Amy Allen have a thing
01:45that is so magic and locked in.
01:48I caught that really quickly, and from that day
01:51when we made Please, Please, Please
01:53to everything we've made since, it's been this 3 of us
01:56figuring something out, where are we going,
01:58and then as soon as we have that magic moment
02:00where we know what it is, then there's a split-off point
02:03where they just kind of go like this,
02:05working out what they're working out,
02:07and I'm over here working out what I'm working out.
02:10So on the song, like Please, Please, Please,
02:12I didn't touch a lyric.
02:14So there's this funny thing where they're working on lyrics
02:16and I'm running around the room
02:18just trying to find something special,
02:20and that was when I started doing the bubbly Juno things.
02:30Please, Please, Please starts with a concept,
02:33and I'm on an acoustic guitar,
02:35and we're getting that structure of the song,
02:38but it was written in many ways
02:40kind of like a country song, you know.
02:45This is how it happened in the room in terms of writing.
02:49The second thing I did is when I started to get this world of...
02:58That reference point of ELO or ABBA,
03:00one of the great hallmarks of that is you have incredibly organic,
03:03I hear a person playing guitar, I hear a person playing drums,
03:06I hear a vocalist, and you hear a human being
03:09like struggling with a machine.
03:11I love that sound.
03:13I always want to play things in some way
03:15like it's the first time I've played them,
03:17but one thing that gives Please, Please, Please great character
03:20is this grand push and pull
03:22between things that are great and on time
03:24and things that are like floating around.
03:26It makes you feel like a little bit drunk,
03:29a little bit dreamlike, that interplay
03:31between hearing a human being
03:33very humanly playing an acoustic guitar,
03:36a full take all the way through,
03:38and then hearing a human being express humanity
03:41through a synthesizer by not feeding MIDI,
03:44not feeding click, I'm playing an arp,
03:46and this is the hallmark of the whole song.
03:49So if I have a super, super tight lindrum,
03:52so if this is like dead locked,
03:54then I start playing around with something
03:57that is not locked to tempo.
04:09The rockness of the lindrum makes the song looser
04:13because now I know where the beat is perfectly,
04:16so now I'm like, who are these people doing this?
04:19What you start to feel is these exciting moments
04:22that to me are very reminiscent of ELO or ABBA
04:25where there wasn't the technology to make things too great,
04:28so people are expressing themselves
04:30on synthetic instruments,
04:32and it gave this song an incredible character.
04:34But that moment when I started doing those bubbly things,
04:37I remember Sabrina and Amy were just like,
04:41and I knew I was going to go back
04:43and get meticulous with certain things,
04:45but I had the emotional center of the production.
04:48We all know in the room that it's got to be this huge chorus,
04:52this huge, shimmering, massive vocal stack.
04:55What's interesting about recording and about this song
04:58is there's actually very little going on,
05:00so what you really have is...
05:02Please, please, please...
05:04You have one lead.
05:06You have 3...
05:08stacks beneath it.
05:10So it's a 4-stack, but it's not.
05:12So this is the main vocal.
05:16So essentially what I'm doing here
05:18is instead of using too much reverb or delay,
05:21I'd rather just have someone do a few more takes
05:23that I can spread out.
05:25You have 2 harmonies doubled each.
05:27So the entire vocal stack of the chorus,
05:29which to me, in my head,
05:31sounds like the heavens opening up, is...
05:33Please, please, don't prove I'm right.
05:38It's literally 8 vocals,
05:41and 3 of them barely count,
05:44and the only other thing I have going on
05:46is I have that stack running through a copycat
05:48and a space echo,
05:50which I'm manipulating in real time.
05:52Please, please, please...
05:54Don't bring me to tears...
05:56So the EQ of this, the tune, the pitch,
05:58it's all getting fucked with.
06:00If I got a super-locked lin drum,
06:02and then I'm doing acoustics and bass
06:05and synths floating all around it,
06:07then okay, I got Sabrina's pitch-perfect,
06:10one-of-a-kind amazing vocal.
06:12Let me also run that vocal through a copycat
06:15and mess with the pitch,
06:17so it's like playing with it,
06:19going in and out of perfect pitch on the effects.
06:22To my ear, it further proves
06:25how brilliant her vocal is.
06:275 vocals, and then one through a copycat,
06:30and one through a space echo,
06:32sounding like this.
06:34Please, please, please...
06:36Don't prove I'm right...
06:39It's, you know, what in my head
06:42I thought would be 20, 30, 40 tracks of vocals.
06:45You start to realize, no, that's it,
06:47because the impression of it being massive
06:50versus filling the sonic space
06:52to the absolute rim.
06:54If we're leaving all this space,
06:56then I like the idea that at one point
06:59we can completely go there.
07:01So it's only on the very last line
07:04do you get this 15 stacks of vocals.
07:06Please, please, please...
07:08Don't prove I'm right...
07:11At that point, it's like,
07:13I feel like we've earned the right to blow it out.
07:16For as massive as it feels and sounds,
07:18I think the reason why it sounds that big
07:20is because we left a lot of space for the listener.
07:23The heart and soul of the song
07:25to stick with her voice, to play bass,
07:27all these sort of drunk things going on.
07:30Please, please, please...
07:33Don't prove I'm right...
07:36You know, there's little moments,
07:39I added just a sub, just...
07:42sub and a high Juno.
07:46Sometimes you do something,
07:48and you spend a ton of time
07:50and an amazing amount of effort,
07:52and it really is not meant to be
07:55anything but a passing moment in the song.
07:58Perfect example of this,
08:00I recorded Evan Smith from Bleachers on flute,
08:03Bobby Hawk on violin doing...
08:11And as you can see, I'm barely using them.
08:17Here's the flutes for one second.
08:22Here's the whole flute stack.
08:24These are all the takes, and this is what's going on.
08:26And it's absolutely gorgeous.
08:33I didn't use any of that,
08:35which is a real...
08:37It's tough when you hear something that beautiful,
08:39but the song didn't need it.
08:40But the song needed,
08:41and you can see my automation here.
08:43The only time I use the flute is right here,
08:45going into chorus two.
08:49In the context of the song...
08:53It's a fucking passing moment
08:55that just was a moment right into the second chorus.
08:58I just wanted to introduce one new sonic
09:00that just that even if you didn't
09:02specifically hear it emotionally,
09:04you're like, what the fuck is that?
09:06Another welcome into a new place.
09:08I did the same thing at the end of chorus two,
09:10and then the only other time you hear the flute
09:12is at the very end, and once again,
09:14this is not something you really pick up in the recording.
09:16It just kind of rises up on the final outro.
09:19In context...
09:24And so that's a moment where it's like,
09:26I used this element, this character
09:28just flew across your head for one second,
09:30introducing you into another chorus.
09:32I just want at the end of the song,
09:34almost at the end of a play,
09:36everyone comes out and takes a bow.
09:38Does every character just say hi one more time?
09:40You don't think of Please Please Please
09:42as a big orchestrated string song.
09:44It's about her vocal. It is about her vocal, period.
09:46♪
09:50These are really ornate moments
09:52in verse two, which is not something
09:54obviously your mind goes to the key change,
09:56but the first entrance of the strings,
09:58these, I call them sergeant pepper chugs
10:00just because of the way they scratch.
10:02In context of the song...
10:04♪ I have a fun idea, babe
10:06♪ Maybe just stay inside
10:08What you really feel in the song
10:10is the sputtering 16th note
10:12of the beat pickup,
10:14most important is her voice,
10:16her lyric, and the key change.
10:18♪
10:22♪ I have a fun idea, babe
10:24♪ Maybe just stay inside
10:26But these little elements that just start to creep in,
10:28they do a thing to me that is really powerful,
10:30which is they create a space
10:32that honors how brilliant the listener is, right?
10:34You take them out, the song works,
10:36the song's great, but why not spend,
10:38you know, 15 hours
10:40recording, orchestrating
10:42the best string,
10:44you know, orchestration
10:46and flute parts
10:48only to have this like absolute magic
10:50just come and go for one second.
10:52It's almost like a vote of confidence
10:54in your listener and yourself.
10:56And that theory extends, you know, like so...
10:58♪
11:00These are things that are just moments
11:02that I liked when I was just...
11:04So there's a flute, you know.
11:06Here's a... whatever the fuck that is.
11:08There's this...
11:10Like waterfalls
11:12of tubular bells.
11:14There's an interestingly random
11:16percussion moment.
11:18It's not the theme
11:20of my song. I don't want to have a song that just like
11:22changes sounds every second, but if you have
11:24these tight parameters,
11:26I like to get on things and literally
11:28just search around, search around. And these takes are
11:30hilarious, you know what I mean? Like 15
11:32out of 16 things are like, you know,
11:34the fucking Seinfeld bass sound.
11:36They're just like so not right. But then you grab one
11:38of these moments, and it just
11:40rips people back into the song,
11:42reminds you that we can do
11:44anything, anything can happen, and that it is
11:46a journey. And then if you choose to peel back
11:48and dive into the production,
11:50it's like a whole incredible
11:52world. I really invest in those
11:54things emotionally and spend a lot of time
11:56on moments that someone
11:58else might say, ah, it's passing.
12:00♪
12:08♪