Marissa Nadler's Personal Best

MARISSA NADLER: I picked this song for the songwriting, not necessarily the production, though I like the production on the record just fine. I was really proud of the odometer chorus, because as well as being a songwriter I’m also kind of a nerd. I was so excited when the odometer reading matched with the rhythm and the meter of the song, because the car I’m singing about was with me throughout the whole relationship with my ex. It's interesting how cars can signify certain periods of our lives, especially here in the US where everyone drives everywhere.

Like the songs on July, and on the album that came after that, Strangers, this record is quite autobiographical, but in a different way. There really was a bullet that went through the car roof, just like in the lyrics. I love Janel Leppin’s string arrangement on this song. It’s very Beatles-y. It’s a shame that I’ve never really been able to perfect this song live, because of all the vocal layers. That’s something I’ve really been trying to figure out lately, how to bring in that luscious vocal sound. I think the real beauty of this song is the part where it goes “And the sky turned black” and there are all these layers of vocals as it comes up.

For My Crimes was a very California record. It was so cool to get Angel Olsen, Sharon van Etten, Kristin Kontrol, Mary Lattimore, and all these friends of mine to come and sing on it, because they were all living in LA at the time. It’s just me singing on “Said Goodbye to That Car”, but the record in general was really special in how collaborative it was. I always think of Kristin’s harmony on “Blue Vapor” because I would never have sung it like that in a million years and I loved it immediately, especially the way it interacts with the saxophone at the end.

I feel like this song’s place in this list is kind of a tie with “All the Colors of the Dark”, which is really a favourite song of mine. Although, if I did it over, I’d probably take the drums out. I always heard it more like a Townes van Zandt song, but once you put the drums on it the song feels very rigid in a way. But I still really like the recording. It’s got a music box feeling to it. So, on another day, I could have picked that song over “Said Goodbye to That Car” – you can put that in the piece if you want.

BEST FIT: I will, because the Strangers album deserves some love too.

Yeah, this was really hard! I feel like Strangers and July really go together, not just because they were both produced by Randall. They are from a similar era, in many ways, although Strangers is not as confessional. There’s more surrealist writing on there. I was using the cut-up method to get into a lot of lyrical experiments to arrive at songs like “Divers of the Dust”, which was really fun.

I have a lot more demos from that era that I wish I’d pushed a little harder for. It’s interesting now that I produce my own records and I don’t have a manager, I can really see how a manager often comes in, tells you which songs they like, and even which songs to throw off the record. One song that was meant to be on the record, “I Remember the Touch of Your Hands”, has out-streamed any of the other tracks after I put it out on the Bury Your Name cassette. So, it’s just so nice to now have complete autonomy over everything and no one to meld my young, innocent brain with their tastes [laughs].

You’re in quite an interesting position of being on two separate labels and still maintaining total artistic control.

Yeah, I’m really lucky. Both Sacred Bones and Bella Union are very artist-friendly, and I really do appreciate that because I once had a contract, in a previous era, that my records should have at least three songs with drums. Shit like that is so ridiculous for somebody like me, so I’m glad that I don’t get that anymore.

It’s funny, because I remember speaking to you about Little Hells a while after it came out and you were really not happy about the drums.

Yeah, that record is just tarnished for me. I think, if anything, that whole experience has made me a better writer, and a tougher person too. And, as I said earlier, I don’t love my voice on it. My voice just became better and mature as I grew more confident, which, again, is something that I feel happened from July onwards.

Thinking about Joni Mitchell, who is a big influence of mine, you notice that when you listen to her early records and trace the trajectory of her voice through time, she starts off so romantic and idealistic but on the later stuff she can be so jaded. She’s dark, she’s sad, and she’s lived all this life. When you’re young and you haven’t experienced a lot, it’s easy to just write fantasy songs. I didn’t have a lot of love affairs as a young person. I was the art room girl, you know? I didn’t go on dates or go to parties in high school.

Going back to my second album, The Saga of Mayflower May, it’s so out-there. Like, what am I talking about?! I’d experienced my first real heartbreak by then, but I went so over the top with it. By the time I got to albums like July and For My Crimes, I actually had some real-life experience under my belt and I think that’s so helpful for the writing process. I love the therapeutic process of making stuff, and I look back fondly on having that time of recreating myself. I have so many friends who have given up music, who’ve stopped making it for a variety of reasons, and I’d always wonder ‘How could they?’ But at the same time I’d think, ‘Oh, well, maybe I should too.’ So, again, it just shows that if you stick at something even when you’re about ready to give up, it can turn out to be really fruitful.