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[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC - TIFT MERRITT, "SWEET SPOT"]
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC - TIFT MERRITT, "TRAVELING ALONE"]
[APPLAUSE]
TIFT MERRITT: Thank you.
Thank you.
This is a guitar I stole from my father.
And it's been on tour for about three months now, and he
is going to kill me.
In time.
It's retiring at Christmas.
Thank you for having me and for being so well-behaved and
for having a kitchen that I could raid.
I've been on tour for about three months straight, and I
was really glad that your cupboard was a little more
stocked than mine.
This next song is a song that I wrote called "Spring," and
it's about--
I don't know.
Good songs are about more than one thing, but you sort of fly
a flag and say it's about one thing.
And this-- it's about the life cycle of a flower.
[MUSIC - TIFT MERRITT, "SPRING"]
[APPLAUSE]
TIFT MERRITT: Thank you.
I feel like I should tell you funny stories about things
I've googled in my life.
But maybe we should get to know each other a little
better first.
[MUSIC - TIFT MERRITT, "TO MYSELF"]
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC - TIFT MERRIT, "SMALL TALK RELATIONS"]
[APPLAUSE]
TIFT MERRITT: In this next song, I was--
I guess on this whole record I was thinking about how much
noise there is and what of it is actually important, and
what of it is actually just noise.
And somehow I got to thinking about how Jesus and Robert
Johnson probably were in the exact same position when they
were about to make these big decisions in their life like,
I need to get born, or, I need to sell my soul to the devil
so I can play guitar.
They probably felt very similarly crazy and very
similarly hopeful that they were
making the right decision.
So--
[MUSIC - TIFT MERRIT, "STILL NOT HOME"]
[APPLAUSE]
TIFT MERRITT: Let's see.
When people are so quiet, I'm so
compelled to tell you things.
I guess I should tell you that when I was writing this
record, I lived fairly close to here.
I'm originally from North Carolina, and I moved to the
City a number of years ago-- not so long ago, but--
I live very close to the City Winery, and--
I love this story.
I think it's such in New York story.
One night I was there to see some friends play, and-- or, I
don't know, I was there doing something.
And I told them that they had this beautiful grand piano
that I-- there's nothing--
there's very little in the world I love as much as having
an instrument in my hands, especially
playing a beautiful piano.
And I said, well--
they said, well, if you love playing our piano so much, you
can come down and play it any time you like.
And I said, you ought to be really careful
saying that to me.
And they said, no, no, no, really, we mean it.
And I said, no, not, really, I mean it.
And so being a writer, being a musician, I think you spend so
much of your time in the landscape inside--
traveling alone--
and I was able--
going to the City Winery every morning when I woke up to get
my cup of coffee, I would go--
and I was really a part of their staff.
They would be getting the coffee cups and the table
settings ready, and the wine was being made, and things
were getting chopped in the kitchen, and
I got to know everybody.
And I never felt so open.
I think writing is a very personal-- it's the most
personal thing I can do, really.
And they made me feel so comfortable, I just was in the
corner, and my hair in a big mess, and practically in my
pajamas, and I would play this piano and get lost, but I
would have this beautiful quotidian life
with everyone there.
Hey, how are you?
How are you doing this morning?
Are you well?
And I would play for about an hour, an hour and a half, and
then when they opened the doors for lunch, I would kind
of walk home with whatever I had been drifting on at that
piano in my hand, and then I would write.
And this, in particular, was a song that was born on that
piano, right here in this neighborhood.
So I thought I would play it for you.
Thank you for having me.
[MUSIC - TIFT MERRITT, "FEELING OF BEAUTY"]
TIFT MERRITT: Thank you very much for having me.
RITA HOUSTON: Welcome home.
TIFT MERRITT: Thank you.
RITA HOUSTON: Because you've been traveling.
Tell us about some of your travels, because you've been
out for a few months with the band, and running around.
TIFT MERRITT: Yeah, I've been out for a long time.
I'm at the point where I'm really lonely if I'm not in a
dressing room, and clean clothes are
totally foreign idea.
I've been on the road since about the beginning of
September, and I've been out with my band.
We were all around the US, and then we were in the UK, and
then we went to Europe, and I just got home on Friday night.
So I don't know what month is, and I haven't
cooked in three months.
RITA HOUSTON: Yeah, that's the weird part.
So you just got home, and then last night and tonight we're
catching you right in the middle of making two
appearances alongside your friend Andrew Bird at
Riverside Church.
How was that?
TIFT MERRITT: It's so beautiful there, and he is
such an incredible musician.
I don't know if you're familiar with him.
And he's an incredible player, but he's also such an
incredible singer.
He's really one of my favorite, favorite people.
And I don't say that lightly.
You know, you sing with people, you sing with a lot of
different people, and when something really rings, you
go, oh, oof, wow.
So he's really one of my favorite people to sing with.
RITA HOUSTON: Did you guys know each other
back in North Carolina?
Like, were there any connections back then, or--
TIFT MERRITT: Not really.
I mean, I think we crossed paths, and I knew he was with
the Squirrel Nut Zippers.
And I think I was probably shy, and--
so we met maybe two years ago.
We did the Cabinet of Wonders together, and we sang
together, and I think we both went, oh.
And then he was kind enough to sing on this record, too.
I wrestled him into coming and doing a duet
with me on this record.
RITA HOUSTON: Which is beautiful, the song "Drifting
Apart," which is really nice.
Tift, so this new album is called "Traveling Alone." And
as the title suggests, and as many of the songs that we
heard, there is a spirit, I think, for a lot of writers of
traveling and gaining perspective when you leave
where you're from, and then you can look back.
As a writer, is that a big part, for you, of where
perspective and inspiration comes from?
Because you almost have to leave your world to be more of
an observer of it and write about it.
TIFT MERRITT: I think that's true, and in fact--
my nose is itching, so that means that my mother can hear
whatever I say about this.
But I think that works on two levels.
I'm from North Carolina, and North Carolina was a very,
very particular place in time when I was growing up.
I mean, it was very different from any other
place in the world.
It was sort of before everyone had a cell phone, and there
weren't any chain stores, and you knew everyone, and
everyone knew your parents, and everyone knew everything
wrong that you ever did.
And I like that kind of closeness.
But I also was always encouraged to leave.
I wasn't chained to a tree in this small town.
And I think that's why I can feel so fondly about it.
You know, you are encouraged to leave your home
to find your home.
But on another level, I think that "Traveling Alone" really
is a way to talk about the landscape inside, to talk
about an interior life, and a home inside.
And I'm not--
obviously, I'm a performer and a loud mouth, and I'm not an
introvert--
but I spend a huge amount of my life in this landscape on
the inside.
And I think that you can kind of sound like a jerk unless
you give it a sort of rough-hewn way--
find a way to talk about it that is real world.
And that's what I wanted to do on this record.
RITA HOUSTON: Do you hear things from fans that are
meaningful to you?
Because when you write songs of such personal nature, I
think people have a way of internalizing them, and
putting their own stuff.
You must hear all kinds of things from fans who like,
relate to your music.
Anything you could share?
TIFT MERRITT: I'm trying to think.
You know, I think the nicest thing is when people come and
tell you that your music has meant something to them.
And must oftentimes they'll say, well, it helped me
through a hard time.
And I don't know, I'm just grateful for that.
I think that making work and being a musician should really
be the reward in and of itself.
I mean you can't--
it's not about being a celebrity.
It's not about numbers.
It's not about making a lot of money.
It's about making something of meaning and beauty.
And when that resonates with someone else, you're just
grateful that your work actually means something to
someone beyond yourself.
RITA HOUSTON: But you're really speaking
like a writer now.
I mean, that's really--
TIFT MERRITT: Well, I think that I am a writer first.
I was a really crappy musician for a long time.
Now I've just been at it long enough that
I know how to listen.
.
RITA HOUSTON: If you guys one start to queue up with some of
your own questions, we'll definitely take some.
Don't be shy.
There are two mics.
So do that.
Here's a question for you.
Do you have to be a great writer to be a great
songwriter?
Or, the reverse, do great songwriters always make for
great writers?
Because you studied creative writing and stuff.
So you have both of those things.
Do you have to be a great writer to be a great
songwriter?
TIFT MERRITT: No.
I think you have to be honest, and I think
you have to get lucky.
And I think that those are the two things that
I can't find myself.
But I also think that--
I think that creativity is one of those things where, when
you start--
before your work is invented, when you're trying to invent
this thing that isn't invented--
you can go so many different mediums.
So when I was starting, I really wanted to be a writer.
I wanted to write books.
I wanted to say heavy, serious things about life.
And I could have gone in that direction, but I would have
needed to commit to that medium.
And instead, I committed to this shorter form, which is--
a good song is about three sentences.
Four if you have a bridge.
And now, I've spent the past 15 years of my life trying to
say something in four sentences.
And when I go back and I try to write prose, I feel very
watered down.
I go, this is moving way too slow.
Get to the point.
And so I think the deeper you can commit to
your medium, the better.
RITA HOUSTON: And for you it's about paring it down.
TIFT MERRITT: I like the intensity of--
I like the one-two punch.
And I don't think there's any going back.
You get used to that.
RITA HOUSTON: It's like cooking, you know?
You've got to reduce the sauce.
TIFT MERRITT: That's right.
Cook down those bones.
RITA HOUSTON: Exactly.
Tift, I read--
when I googled you last night--
I read that your dad's record collection was a big
inspiration to you.
And I'd love to hear some stuff about that.
Because in the performance today, there was one song that
just felt like a straight-up kind of country tune.
And I know your record, so I know a lot of the songs are
fleshed out with pedal steel, and stuff.
But then when you play the tune at the piano, that was a
straight-up soul, R&B kind of number.
You could almost hear the horns and the minor chords.
So I imagine--
I don't know your dad, I don't know his record collection--
but I imagine this visual of country albums right
alongside, like, Otis Redding.
So tell us a little bit about that.
TIFT MERRITT: OK.
The first thing is that my dad really
wanted to be a musician.
And somehow, I talk about him enough that he thinks he's
super famous.
And so I call him and I go, hey Dad, in Sweden today,
somebody yelled out that they know they
you like to go fishing.
And he's like, oh, that's great.
RITA HOUSTON: What fishing?
TIFT MERRITT: He just like--
fishing.
He likes to fish.
So now I'm going to have to call him, and be like, I was
at Google today, and I talked about you, Dad.
Oh, he's going to so glad.
So anyway, my dad taught me how to play music.
And my dad is really why I consider myself a folk
musician, because he played everything by ear.
He played guitar by ear, he played piano by ear in this
very simple, simple, simple way.
And he definitely thought he was a genius at it.
And it turns out he kind of was.
And he had--
I can remember being a child and sitting
with him on a Saturday.
And he would play Bob Dylan songs, and play his harmonica,
and finger-pick.
And then he'd play Percy Sledge songs on the piano, and
then we'd drive around in the car and sing
Dolly Parton songs.
And in a lot of ways, I think part of why I play music is
because I felt so close to my father in those times.
Playing music with someone is such an expression
of the best of life.
So my father really gravitated towards a good song, and he
didn't really think about it beyond that at all.
And I have to say that it's really hard for me to think
about that at all beyond that, too.
So--
RITA HOUSTON: So who are some of the greats that you hold
high in the music world, and then we'll ask you the same
for writers and stuff.
Who are the guys who wrote the blueprints for you?
TIFT MERRITT: Well, Dylan.
I mean, what an innovator.
And I think Dylan, and I think Neil Young--
Dylan for his writing, intelligence, and the power,
and Joni Mitchell for how expressive she is, and how
personal she is, and what unique musical she has.
I think Carole King as a writer, and someone who's
earthy and unselfish, and generous.
I think she's a real role model.
Neil Young, I think, for just the not
intellectual side of it.
Not that he's not intellectual,
but it's all heart.
I think that if you're songwriter it's really hard
not to go worship at those places.
And there's a lot of the country--
I mean, people say, oh, you're a country singer.
And I go, I'm not mainstream country.
But I will say that a lot of those leading ladies-- like
Kitty Wells, and Emmylou Harris, and Bobbie Gentry, and
Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn--
I think they held themselves with a great deal of dignity.
And there was a sense of abandon, and a sense of music,
and a sense of show, but there's
also a sense of meaning.
And when I looked at the music industry and tried to see
myself, and there's like Madonna and Bob Dylan, if that
were the spectrum, where would I fit?
And I thought, these women held themselves with a
sincerity and a dignity that I could relate to.
So--
RITA HOUSTON: That's interesting.
We have a question.
Go ahead.
Give him the mic.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
First of all, I have two questions, if that's OK.
Great performance.
Loved watching you.
TIFT MERRITT: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: I'm going to ask the questions and then you can
answer them both.
Are you a keyboard player that learned to play the guitar, or
vice versa?
That's the first question.
And the second question is, how strong is your emotional
attachment to that guitar with the two holes at the bottom of
the bridge.
TIFT MERRITT: Oh, that's a good question.
Well, the first thing is that I am probably a
piano player first.
I took some lessons when I was really little, but then my dad
showed me, and I got to the point where you had to write
down how long you practiced every day, and I had the moral
conundrum of lying or admitting that I was not
practicing.
And so I stopped taking piano lessons.
So I'm not trained like that, but I find that I play the
piano like a melody instruments.
I can find melody.
I can get lost in a piano for hours and hours and hours.
I started playing guitar when I was a teenager, and so it
wasn't like one really led the way, but I'm probably more at
home at the piano.
Although I have really come to pride myself on being a good
rhythm guitar player.
I consider myself part of the rhythm section.
And I am endlessly fascinated with how locked I can get with
the groove and how deep I can get that pocket to go.
At first I was really ashamed that I couldn't solo, and now
I think that it's pretty important to be
a good rhythm player.
This is my guitar, Little Red, and I'm really attached to it.
Somebody gave it to me-- or sold it to me when I first
started putting out records, because they told me that I
had this big oversized guitar from the '70s, and they said
it made me look really short.
So I really was upset about this guitar, because it was a
short joke to begin with.
But this guitar has been on the road with me for 10 years,
and it's kind of a work horse.
And I play '60s Gibsons because they have this great
warmth, sound that's great for strumming, but they also have
really a small head stocks, so that I-- my
hands are really small.
This other guitar is actually my father's guitar that I
stole from him for this tour.
And he's going to kill me because I've marked it up.
But he says that he won it in a pool game.
I don't believe him.
So that one is actually--
I'm even more attached to that, because he will kill me
if anything happens to it.
So, yeah.
Is that good?
Yeah, OK.
Hi.
AUDIENCE: Actually, I wanted to jump on what you said about
being a rhythm player.
I'm actually a singer-songwriter myself, and
I've been having some trouble with rhythm, and I was just
wondering how you got to be so good at it.
TIFT MERRITT: Well, first of all, it took a lot of years,
and I'm married to drummer.
And I think that things like playing two records that you
love, like Carter family records, where the rhythm
playing is really, really, really important, playing to
the old country records where the rhythm playing is really a
part of the band.
And also, practicing with a metronome.
I mean, I have to say that practicing is so much a part--
people think that rock and roll is just, there are no
rules, and you drink some whiskey and it
comes out of you.
But being a good musician is--
there's a lifetime of study there.
And I think that practice and listening, learning how to
listen, I feel like I just--
every day I get up and go, god, I didn't even know I
could listen that hard.
And I think listening is kind of a Zen thing.
You just have to practice and listen, and know that it adds
up to something over time.
Does that make sense?
Sure.
AUDIENCE: Rita, you started--
you asked about musical and literary things.
You didn't quite get to the literary.
And as much as having been to the FUV Holiday Cheer concert,
and having heard Steve Earl, who has managed to write and
play music, I was wondering if you could list some of your
literary aspirations.
Because when you talk about home, I find myself thinking
of Frost and the idea of, home is the place where, when you
go there, they have to take you in.
And of course, Wolfe saying, you can't go home again.
And whether--
if you could list that, I'd be very intrigued.
TIFT MERRITT: My literary aspirations, or my influences?
AUDIENCE: Influences.
If you'd like to go into your aspirations,
I would very much--
TIFT MERRITT: No, I was about to say, I don't
think I have any.
Except to be a good songwriter.
AUDIENCE: Well, your musical gifts more
than make up for that.
TIFT MERRITT: Well, I appreciate that.
My literary aspirations are to be a good reader.
In the beginning, my main literary
influence was Eudora Welty.
I think she's such a master of the short form.
And she has such a point of view, and
such a sense of voice.
And there were other reasons that I loved
Eudora Welty, too.
One was that she such a unique artist and an
innovator as a woman.
She traveled by herself, she never married, she was a
photographer, she didn't-- she broke a lot of rules, but she
broke them in a lovely way.
And I really loved how multifaceted she was.
I also loved that she was from this small southern town, and
she always lived there, and she always looked out this one
window, and she didn't need to leave completely.
I'm sure she had journeys, but I think that that's such a
beautiful way to make art.
To me, that meant that she always found so much in
humanity that she didn't have to make up false dramas, and
she didn't have to have this crazy life, that she could
come to that window every day and find something of depth to
write about.
And I thought that was really beautiful.
I'm a huge Cormac McCarthy fan.
I think his work is so beautiful, if sometimes so
violent that I have to turn the page.
And Faulkner as well.
I've spent the past year really fascinated by this
poet, Jack Gilbert, who actually just passed away, and
who was something of a character in his life.
And I also really, really love Annie Dillard's nonfiction and
her writing about life and nature and the
nature of being a writer.
The intensity there is really, really, really beautiful.
So I'd say those are those are my staples.
AUDIENCE: I heard-- when at college, Eudora Welty came--
I'm a Vassar boy.
Eudora Welty came there, and she read "A Wide Net." It was
just a lovely performance.
You know, just there, just very calm, just-- the story
spoke for itself.
She just--
that was all she really needed to do.
TIFT MERRITT: She seemed like she was a
really amazing woman.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
RITA HOUSTON: It's interesing you mention the photography,
because you're a photographer too, right?
TIFT MERRITT: Hmmmm.
RITA HOUSTON: You dabble.
TIFT MERRITT: Strong words.
I dabble.
RITA HOUSTON: You dabble.
You have a camera.
TIFT MERRITT: I'm really-- you know, I think--
RITA HOUSTON: You're more than a dabbler.
TIFT MERRITT: Wait, hold on.
I feel like we live in this time where we're all supposed
to be superhuman people.
Where we're supposed to be perfect parents, and perfectly
dressed, and perfect overachievers, and eat
perfectly, and be perfectly skinny, and all that crap, and
I feel like there's this impulse to for artists to
conquer other mediums.
And I don't feel that--
I think creativity doesn't fit in a neat package, and
everything that I do creatively points back to
being a musician and being a songwriter.
So I'm not out to conquer any other mediums.
I think that's important.
I like to just be myself.
I'm not a superhuman.
But I love to take photographs, because I think
that, first of all, using your eyes to see other people is
such an important part of being a compassionate writer.
And you need to look outside of yourself, and you need to
make yourself look outside yourself, and find the beauty
and joy in these small things that you see when you take the
time to really look at other people.
And a camera is a really beautiful way to do that.
And I also think that--
I'm so skeptical of how nice I'm treated in situations like
this, and this sort of being the center of attention.
And I think it's my job as a writer to keep turning my
attention back.
And I think it's really important to not rest on your
laurels and be the center of attention.
RITA HOUSTON: You seem to have this sort of core humility to
everything that you approach.
TIFT MERRITT: I'm a Southern Protestant.
I do not exist.
RITA HOUSTON: But that is a core kind of thing.
At the end of January, January 26th, I just heard about the
show you're going to be doing at 92YTribeca.
Tell us about that, because it's a pretty cool
collaborative kind of thing.
TIFT MERRITT: Yeah.
It's--
it stems from this--
I do a radio show for Marfa, Texas Public Radio, which I'm
really behind on right now because I've been on tour.
But I seek out artists, and I talk to one artist a month
about how they really make their work, and how they
really live their lives.
And usually these people who are making really unique work
are making really unique lives, too.
And people who are doing their own thing, I think, come
across the same problems, but they are so off doing their
own thing that they don't--
it feels more personal.
They forget that this is a common situation.
So I ended up inviting this painter, Anna Schuleit, to
come on my show.
And she was so beautiful.
And we were the same age, and--
I don't know, I just felt like I just met at a much better
version of myself.
Much more evolved.
And we--
RITA HOUSTON: And is she from Texas?
TIFT MERRITT: No, she's here.
She's actually from Germany.
She lives here.
And we had so much in common that we became friends, and I
adore her work.
And so, we were trying to find a way to collaborate, and she
does these beautiful live drawings with a
projector and light.
And she's done it with dance performances before, and we
thought performing "Traveling Alone" with her creating a
life drawing--
"live drawing" is what she calls it--
would be a really beautiful thing.
So I've never done anything like that, but I think it
could be really, really beautiful, emotional.
And she's a very beautiful artist.
RITA HOUSTON: And tell us her name again.
TIFT MERRITT: Anna Schuleit.
RITA HOUSTON: And that's January 26 at 92YTribeca.
That sounds very cool.
Any other questions?
Well, thank you, guys, and thank you, Tift.
TIFT MERRITT: Thank you, Rita.
RITA HOUSTON: I mean, beyond fun.
Very fun, thank you.
TIFT MERRITT: Thank you guys.