Tegan,

How much of the television show Grey’s Anatomy have you watched? According to the internet, there are 18 seasons and 388 episodes. Can you believe that? Incredible. I found this color-coded chart mapping the life cycle of the main cast and series regulars on Wikipedia that reminds me of the Periodic Table.

In 2005, when our career was blooming thanks to college radio play of our song “Walking with a Ghost” and a tour supporting the relatively new but explosively popular band The Killers, what really changed our lives, arrived in a padded envelope. Inside was the pilot episode of a yet-to-air show about a group of doctors in Seattle. We’d never been presented with a financial opportunity that could change our lives overnight. It wasn’t winning the lottery and retiring kind of money but, it was a down payment on an apartment kind of money. There was no debate. Though I do recall you insisting that we send the DVD to J. so she could review it and tell us if it was legitimate. (J was in medical school, and is now an OBGYN)

Grey’s Anatomy would go on to license many of our songs from So Jealous, but it was the connection viewers made to Where Does the Good Go that stood out. 

The decision to let our music be licensed became a regular topic of conversation with fans at concerts and much discussed in interviews with the press. “Selling Out,” was still a thing people were concerned about back then, though we did all we could to dismiss the notion. As teenagers, we’d discovered Juliana Hatfield watching My So Called Life, so we knew firsthand how powerful a musical moment on television could be.

Where Does The Good Go has now been used in multiple seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, and even covered by other bands for the show. Eighteen years later it still has legs. When we launched our Tik Tok account last year, one of our first videos was a simple 60-second answer to a question about Grey’s Anatomy. It has almost a million views. Thank you, Shonda Rhimes and Grey’s Anatomy devotees!  

This is why doing an annotation for the lyrics of the song felt super strange. It was almost like the history of the song completely changed (or was overshadowed?) I did my best, check it out.

Sara

PS. Until this afternoon I had never seen this episode. So funny to see Sandra Oh dancing to your song! 

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Hi Loners,

It was really cool to see what music and artists you all are listening to! I made a playlist using the songs that you posted in the comments and took it for a spin a few times this weekend. Really loved it, so I’m going to share it with you all! Let me know what you think!

Sara

Know someone who would love to get a new playlist generated by this amazing community? Share this thread!

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Tegan

I keep reliving this embarrassing moment from a few years ago at a wedding when someone put a guitar in my lap, and I couldn’t recall a single piece of music to play. There’s an assumption that musicians are always ready to perform for any audience. The most egregious offenders are always other musicians, in this case, the warm-hearted nephew of the bride.

Does this happen to you? It was a circle of mostly strangers, and the anticipation on their faces turned me into an amnesiac. I also felt like a ventriloquist with a demonic doll on my lap. I slid my fingers up and down the neck, searching for the chords to Walking with A Ghost, but the key was wrong, and I flung the instrument back to its rightful owner. It was a complete choke and afterward, my partner, Stacy, had to reassure me that everyone was too drunk to notice. Really? A professional musician who can’t play a single song.

Something similar happened a few years ago at a piano bar in Ottawa. I had the lyrics to Groovy Kind of Love, right in front of me, and the melody mostly at hand, but I felt an utter lack of control over my voice. Afterward, I couldn’t help but think that the host must have doubted the claim by my friends that I was in a “really famous band.”

In both cases, I was intoxicated. Given that I rarely drink on stage or in the studio, I could blame the entire thing on the Pinot Gris. But, after two and a half decades of daily practice, and hundreds if not thousands of live performances, I must admit that I never feel fully in control of my skills.

Why does muscle memory behave this way? Forgetting a lyric on stage doesn't happen often but when it does, it feels like catching my toe on the edge of a stair. Tripping doesn’t make me worry that I’ve forgotten how to walk. This paralysis when I open my mouth and find I no longer have a music vocabulary is like a nightmare.

I’ve been going back to the piano to re-learn songs and play covers at night before I go to bed. Memorizing, for the first time in my life, the actual chord changes in our best-known work. I blame childhood piano lessons for the lack of pleasure I get from the instrument. But however uninspired it might feel, it is home base. If I ever attend a wedding again, let’s hope I’ve retained at least a song or two.

Sara

Do you know someone who regularly fails to perform effectively in jam circles and at karaoke bars? Maybe they’d like to read this post.

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Sara,

I found your demo of I Bet It Stung!! I also found these photos of us backstage in London during the So Jealous tour we did there in 2005. I am 87.5% sure these were taken backstage at the 100 Club. I miss my baby bangs and our mullets. I think maybe we bring these back in 2022???

Tegan

Do you know someone who used to get their mullet trimmed every month?

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Sara <+++@+++++++++.com>

To Tegan

May 27, 2021, 7:12 PM

Every time you get talking about Georgia, I think to myself, “there’s so much there to mine for lyrics.”

I have heard you talk for hours about how difficult and transformative this experience with Georgia has been. Not just the relationship developing between you and your dog but also how that impacts your relationship with your partner. It’s changed you, how you see yourself, how you see work and touring, how you experience the world. Those are all huge things; you could probably write 10 songs about it all!

What is missing for me in some of your recent songs is the sense that you are really digging down deep inside of yourself to talk about something that is happening *right now*. It’s easy and sometimes safer to mine the past (I do it all the time) but what you’re feeling about Georgia is as substantial as falling in love with another human being or being rejected by another human being! Explore that!

Other possible ideas…your food allergies, your body, the way that you can’t quite get a handle on all of that.

I think the real deep down-dark stuff of what Georgia brings up for you, though, is the gold mine.

-s

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Tegan

Delivering critical feedback to you has always inspired tension and hurt feelings between us. You are a successful artist, brilliant, and full of swagger. But, under the skin, there is insecurity and resentment that stems from your belief that my opinion matters more than anyone else’s. You also believe that I don’t hold your opinion in as high regard, and I know that is a significant wound. Does it matter that neither of those things is true?

In my experience, seeking approval from others has little to do with praise, and a great deal more to do with pain. And haven’t I hurt you more than anyone? These injuries are often minor--you claimed to be only “a little sad” when I admitted that I was struggling to trust your opinion of my new songs—-but the fact that I doubted you at all, seemed to distract from the larger truth, which was that I was no longer able to trust myself. 

We’re not so different, because I too seek out the approval of those who’ve bruised me. And like you, I don’t ever find what I’m looking for. Or maybe it’s precisely the predictability of that searching and never finding that has us both in its grip. Rejection can register as a shock of electricity to a body gone numb; returning to the source of our first great rejection, reminds us that we are still alive.  

I can’t quite tell you, then, what inspired me to tell you the truth, about the songs you were writing for our new album. And, because I’ve never asked, I don’t know why you responded to that feedback so tenderly. We both employ the “shit sandwich” when giving criticism to our colleagues. Which is a nice way of saying, we’re used to telling people what they’re doing wrong by reminding them of what they often do right. Reflecting on the first email I sent you last year, I wonder if that was what was missing from my approach, all along. 

In any case, I think we wrote the best album of our career. This is objectively the truth, because here we are, twenty-six years into our creative process, trying to be better.

Sara

Is there someone in your life to whom you often deliver shit sandwiches?

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Sara,

These Dustin Rabin photos really make me laugh. I had flown from Vancouver to Montreal to see you and Emy for a week after we finished recording So Jealous, as we had agreed to shoot all the press photos for the album there. You guys suggested I get my hair cut before the photoshoot with Dustin. You took me to your hairstylist, Claudia, and somehow I left with this haircut. It resembled the ones you and Emy had but felt extreme to me. I remember feeling wide-eyed and dumbstruck (but also very hip) on the bike ride back to your apartment (we were not wearing helmets).

Tegan

Did you go through a phase where you made art projects in your apartment and cut baby bangs for yourself?

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Sara,

I clipped together the most meaningful and interesting parts of the conversation you and I had on Where Does The Good Grow Instagram Live, about collaboration last year (two years ago? Pandemic brain). At the time, a lot of people commented about how personal the moment felt as if we’d forgotten we were live on the internet. I’ve been thinking a lot about the exchange, and our creative process, and felt like it would be cool to share on Substack.

This was the first time I heard you say (and admit publicly) that you didn’t necessarily trust my opinion when it came to your songs or our music; that we were maybe too close to it, had been doing it too long to really have perspective. At the moment I thought you might be attempting to be tendentious for laughs, but it sparked a shift in the way I approached writing songs for our new album.  I feel like I was so stoked about what you were writing, and you seemed only mildly invested in what I was creating. Which is not a dig.  You were trying something new with not just your songwriting, but the production of the songs themselves. You wanted us to be back in the producer role and have a bigger hand in crafting our new album’s sound.  I think I wasn’t there yet, wasn’t thinking about the big picture. I was just writing songs. Something I love to do. But don’t often labor over. 

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While editing the convo, I was a little sad that you felt that way, and had chosen to tell me in front of thousands of people. But after that, I decided to be more open to hearing feedback from people about our writing.  It was terrifying and fascinating to send songs to musicians in my life, friends whose taste in music I respect, and some of the managers we were meeting with.  They all seemed so excited by what you were making, and so I decided to collaborate with you more and to push you to examine my songs and give more feedback even if it was going to make me feel bad or create more work for me. I wanted the songs I was writing to fit better with what you were making. And I think it worked. 

Also, I found it interesting to go back and watch the conversation over a year later, and hear you say you didn’t know if the songs you were writing were good.  I don’t necessarily believe that you didn’t know if you were writing good songs, but you clearly wanted more voices/ears/opinions than just mine. I have never needed a wide audience of peers or people to make me feel good about what I make. Impressing you has always been my goal. But it did feel good to widen the inner circle, to work harder and write better stronger songs, and allow for the songs to evolve and change, away from what I had intended. I think it made for a better album, potentially a great one.

I’m excited for us to share more about what it feels like to be releasing our tenth album, to be celebrating twenty-five years of writing music together, and dig into why we felt it was necessary to expand the creative universe we work in by writing books, graphic novels, even this newsletter. 

When we had the conversation on Instagram I was afraid of what you were saying, but I agree now: it’s hard to know if what we are doing is good, but we have so many people around us to rely on, who we trust, and I think if we keep pushing each other, we’ll just get better. 

Anyway, check out my edit of the conversation and let me know if you think it’s a good idea to share.

Tegan

Hi everyone

Tegan and I really loved the thread from last week. We think it’s a great way to foster interesting conversations with the community! It was also a tremendously helpful way to gather some interesting topics and questions for us to work into this newsletter.

For this week’s thread, I thought I’d start with a request (from all of you!) about what new music we’re listening to. I have a playlist, that I frequently update, called, Don’t Be Old. By which I mean, don’t stop being curious about music, or seeking out new sounds, voices, and stories. So, every week I do the rounds (Pitchfork, Spot&*FY, etc.) gathering new songs for my personal mixtape.

Here’s what’s on it this week.

I’d love to know what you’re all listening to!

Sara

If you like talking about music, sharing favorite songs, and learning about new artists, think about becoming a paid subscriber to this newsletter!

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STILL JEALOUS- OUT 02.11.22

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Listen to ‘Where Does The Good Go’

Sara, 

We’ve never been great at doing nothing, you and me. As self-described efficiency experts, we are well-meaning know-it-alls and extreme multitaskers. Some who have worked closely with us might also add workaholics to our list of attributes. I don’t think either of us would contest that description, though we might try and tell you we could stop working if we really wanted to. 

We’re terrible at taking time off, relaxing, and the art of doing nothing. So when the Pandemic hit, we didn't really slow down.  Somehow, we got busier.  First, we had to cancel the tour we just announced and then figure out how to promote our still sort of new album Hey, I’m Just Like You. We had remixes made by some of our favorite artists, and commissioned music videos for said remixes, then decided to shoot some of those videos ourselves. That got us through spring. We launched a t-shirt subscription and did monthly zooms with the members to stay connected over the summer. You gardened, I got a puppy, we ate a lot of chips. After six months of being holed up in our respective homes, we sold a TV show based on our memoir High School, pitched and sold a new book about being twins, that will also be an audio series on the same topic. And wrote the first draft of a graphic novel we owed our publisher (about being twins). All that time we were doing an Instagram TV show called, Where Does the Good Grow? (What’s wrong with us?!)

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To everyone around us, we seemed busier than ever. And we were.  But somehow, it wasn’t enough.  At least not for you. I remember in mid-July, on our weekly creative call you told me and our management team that you had an idea for another project.  Basically, So Jealous, but reimagined.  You’d cover my songs, I’d cover yours. Only one rule: we had to record the songs using an acoustic guitar. No keyboards, no programming, no bells, and whistles.  I was thinking, WHY!? But then, on July 21st, 2020, you emailed the first two songs you’d recorded,

“…still fooling around with these but...” 

You Wouldn’t Like Me and Take Me Anywhere downloaded and automatically added themselves to my iTunes.  I grinned goofily as Take Me Anywhere started to play.  I always thought you found my songs from that era too silly or punk-pop.  You’d always tease me a little about them. It was actually really cool to hear you interpret them now.  They were instantly stronger, more melancholy, heavier. I emailed you back sixty-one minutes later, 

“These sound great. Took some time yesterday to start working my way through your stuff on the record Sara, to plot out guitar, etc. I definitely love the idea of this project and also think that it can truly stand on its own. Might be a perfect record to drop at Christmas, if we love it and WARNER is supportive?”

I’d been feeling a bit lackluster about writing new songs but you seemed to have enough creative energy when it came to music for both of us. While I was genuinely enthused, I must admit it was daunting to imagine reimagining anything, let alone your songs from an album we’d released sixteen years earlier.  But it definitely had a hand in reminding me how to write and record —something I’d gotten a bit lazy about.  The bonus was the structures of your songs from that album are so nontraditional. I believe we’ve become better songwriters in the last sixteen years, but our arrangements have become more traditional. Not a bad thing, we just straightened everything out a bit. And it was actually really inspiring to go back and hear how unique and at times difficult the arrangements you dreamed up all those years ago were. 

SO JEALOUS is one of our records people constantly say they love. Spending so much time with it reminded me I could be unique and difficult in my writing again if I wanted. STILL JEALOUS helped me reimagine Tegan and Sara and what we could do next.  If we wanted to. I don’t know what you were hoping for with the album — maybe you really are just a workaholic who can’t sit still.  Either way, I’m glad we finished the album and are releasing it into the world. 

-Tegan

Tegan,

On June 21, 2012, I sent you this email:

"My argument for "closer" over "little closer" is that no one will ever say the full title/think of the full title. It will be "closer" in most peoples brains. Also- hear me out: the word "little" in front of "closer" makes me think of the song as smaller. "Closer" sounds big, confident, easy. "Little closer" is harder to remember and makes the song feel small."

I hadn’t remembered that detail about the original title until I went digging through my sent folder last night. It felt especially apt since we just went back and forth a few weeks ago about the song titles for our new album. I guess some things never change. 

Sara

PS. This audio is from the rehearsal we did at the Warehouse in March last year.

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• Macro structure: HODLer buying has soften recently with this month’s price pull back, however long term holders remain in a region of peak accumulation. Structurally we are still in a bullish macro region. Despite bearish price action the underlying structure has no signs of a bear market.

• Short term: HODLers have been buying the dip. Coins are moving off the exchanges. Coins held by HODLers have been rising, recovering from recent weakness. Our on-chain Supply Shock valuation model implies BTC is presently trading at a $6k+ discount.

• Data from derivative exchanges is showing an uptick in demand, a bullish divergence has formed suggesting the bottom may be in.

• BTC price action expectation: Price recovery from lows with further consolidation over the weeks of December.

• Price action conviction: Medium.

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Scenario 2: OPEN below 4504. I think this scenario could be bearish one especially if we fail to take out 4504 within the IB period + trade below 4480. IB is the first hour of trade. In this case my target will be 4462. An impulse move may test NFP lows around 4440.

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2. If that was not enough, there is a lot of news flow and event risk. At this point, a strong NFP is a liability. A weak NFP may be good for stocks but should not be at the cost of sagging wage inflation.

3. Expecting balance conditions unless a close above or below my 4536 or 4480.

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