Also you recorded “Jesse’s Girl.” So cool to hear that at a slow tempo.
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It was one of my favorite songs of all times. I think everyone’s had that feeling, that there’s someone they want to be with, but they can’t. Also, as a member of the Gay community, I know it’s very common to be vying for someone in the straight community. [Laughs] Everyone has had that straight crush that they’re not supposed to.
And I love the gender neutrality of the name Jesse. I think it’s inclusive of both genders. It was a feeling everybody had, and I think the lyrics are profound and beautiful. I love that line, “She’s loving him with that body, I just know it.” You can just feel it. It has that intense longing. But my favorite part was figuring out how to say “moot.” It’s the strangest word, that line.
When you write, do you work at the keyboard, or do you get away from the instrument?
It depends on what setting I’m in. On this record, I got to stretch myself as a writer and see what capacity I could write in. My whole life, I’ve sat down at the piano and written the song, and taken a couple hours here and there, and knocked out a song. Or I was wasted, and crying on my kitchen tile at 2 am and thinking that was the only way I could come up with something brilliant – I had to be in complete chaos.
So for me, this record is a statement for me as a writer. Because I wrote in so many different capacities and styles. A lot of it was writing to a track. Benny and Eric would often write the music itself. Which was a big step for me, to let go of chord progressions. I have a very distinct style of playing piano, but I let it go. I also found that when people are a part of the writing process, they’re definitely more invested. And I wanted my producers to feel as equally connected to the music.
But when it came to the words, that was you?
Yeah, no one’s allowed to touch my words. There might be three or four lines at the most that somebody else wrote. I was very particular.
How did Macklemore choose you to do “Same Love”?
He knew my mentor, Hollis Wong-Wear, who suggested they listen to me. Hollis and I did spoken word poetry together. She called me out of the blue and asked, “Do you wanna do a song with Macklemore?” I said sure.
She had Ryan [Lewis] send me the track at about 2 pm, and I had about three hours. The track was done, it just had gaps where the chorus would go. Everything was done but the hook.
What did you think about it when you first heard it?
I loved it. But I didn’t expect it to do well because it’s such a niche song. I thought it would hit locally well here in Seattle, cause the referendum for gay marriage was up. I never expected it to be heard much beyond that.
So how long did you work on it?
I spent three hours, came up with four different choruses.
Four?
Yes…
Amazing you wrote this without even meeting them first. What was it like when you got together?
I went into their studio to meet them. I was terrified. Because they were big and I was playing venues to like four people. I felt like this was my moment.
I sang them what I had. And they looked kind of bewildered. Then Ryan said, “That was it. I never say that, but I don’t want you to change any of that.”
I also tracked the “never cry on Sundays” part, and they used that later in the song. I thought that could have been the chorus, but they liked the other. Yet the found a way of weaving it in at the end which is beautiful.
What you came up with is so essential – very simple language, and haunting tune, that says so much. Did you think about it much or did it just happen?
I did think about it. I realized the song, his rap, was pragmatic and rational, and I wanted to bring something that was a universal truth. And I think that is why it resonated with people; everybody wants someone to keep them warm.
I know this song is very close to your heart. This is your story.
Yes, it is. I was raised Pentecostal, and went to an evangelical high school. I came out when I was 17. Coming out in the church and going through high school was one of the most terrible, awful experiences. You feel like a freak already in high school. And then to be part of a community that tells you that you’re gonna go to hell is awful. I was really depressed. But I still continued to go to church.
I knew I couldn’t change myself. I had always been attracted to women. But at least I could apologize. And I apologized to the community and I apologized to God. It was a ritual to repent every day, and apologize for being gay. I would be sitting in church and crying. I cried every Sunday for a year.
But then gradually, I woke up out of it, and stopped going to that church. I was in prayer and closer to God. So when they sent me the song, I felt this was a real gift, because this was my story. I felt I was supposed to write this song.
I know how much meaning this song has in the lives of so many who went through what you did.
Yes. You have no idea, it’s been amazing. Hard to believe really. So many people. They have told me this is the first time they felt someone was on their side. They’ve told me that because of this song, they were able to come out to their families. All this pain I went through, I see it was for a reason.
You can’t change people; they can only change themselves. But music can be a catalyst for change.
Is it still surreal for you, this level of attention? You went from local artist to international sensation in a very short time.
It is very hard to believe. I think it will take me a long time. To say getting to write this was an honor is an understatement.
Do your poems sometimes become songs, or is the poetry separate from the songwriting?
It’s very rare that a poem becomes a song. I usually write a poem with the intention of it staying in poetry, or in prose form. Because I feel it’s something I can’t quite express in a song. Usually very wordy and it doesn’t make sense syllabically in a song. And it’s nice, because they’re two different animals. It’s nice to have that variety in writing, and for self-expression, because if I can’t get it out one way, I can get it out in another place. If I can’t put it in a structure of verse-chorus-verse, there is the option to have spoken words on top of chords. Which is another element, which is fun. There are so many combinations.
Is writing a poem a different process than writing a song?
Definitely. Writing a song for me, I have to start at the piano. I have to come up with the chords first. And then I write melody and words simultaneously. I don’t write melody first or lyrics first. They have to come together. I want those two to be married.
Oftentimes you hear lyrics that sound shoved in, because they want the melody to be the same and the lyrics had to fit. For me, poetry is something that I have to be provoked by something to make me want to write. It’s usually by some intense exchange, or something that I feel I have to get out.
