THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.181 - YOLA

Episode Date: June 19, 2022

Adam talks with English singer, songwriter and actor Yola who plays two songs from her album Stand For Myself.This episode was recorded remotely on February 14th, 2022Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support Podcast artwork by Helen GreenSee Adam and Rosie welcome you to Adam's YouTube channelSign up for the occasional newsletter on my websiteRELATED LINKSYOLA WEBSITEYOLA - DANCING AWAY IN TEARS (JIMMY FALLON SHOW) - 2022 (YOUTUBE)YOLA - SUNSHINE OF YOUR LOVE (JOOLS' HOOTENANNY) - 2021 (YOUTUBE)YOLA - STARLIGHT MUSIC VIDEO - 2021 (YOUTUBE)YOLA WITH MASSIVE ATTACK @ GLASTONBURY - UNFINISHED SYMPATHY - 2008 (YOUTUBE)YOLA - EXCLUSIVE AND SOCIALLY DISTANT INTERVIEW WITH 90.9 THE BRIDGE - 2021 (YOUTUBE)SISTER ROSETTA THARPE - THE GODMOTHER OF ROCK'N'ROLL (Documentary directed by Mick Csáky) - 2014 (YOUTUBE)SISTER ROSETTA THARPE - THIS TRAIN (WANKERS VERSION) - 1964 (YOUTUBE)SISTER ROSETTA THARPE - DIDN'T IT RAIN - 1964 (YOUTUBE)This in an excerpt from the 1964 Granada television production of the American Folk, Blues and Gospel Caravan, filmed in the then disused Chorlton railway station on Wilbraham Road, Manchester, England. BILL WITHERS - AIN'T NO SUNSHINE (JAMES GADSON ON DRUMS - OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST) - 1972 (YOUTUBE)BILL WITHERS - USE ME (JAMES GADSON ON DRUMS - OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST) - 1972 (YOUTUBE)JANE FRENCH '100 HEADS' PORTRAIT EXHIBITION (INCLUDING A BUCKLES)SCHOOL OF LIFE DATING CARDS (SCHOOL OF LIFE WEBSITE)ABRAHAM MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS - 1943 (VERY WELL MIND WEBSITE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here.

And that crunching sound means that I'm back on a farm track in the east of England, UK. There's the techno bird hovering above the wheat field. The wheat is high. The sun is out. There's some beautiful clouds in the sky. The temperature is out. There's some beautiful clouds in the sky. The temperature is good.

It's fresh. It's a stark contrast to the end of last week, which was very hot. Just for the day, though. It just got hotter and hotter and hotter. And then the next day it was cold and rainy but right now it is just perfect my dog friend rosie is up ahead loping i'm going to london later on today with my sons and we're going to see Tim Key

at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre even though it is almost, according to my weather app guaranteed to be raining at that point and I suppose you can't take umbrellas, can you, to an open air theatre

I don't know what the protocol is hats raincoats. But anyway we'll be getting the train in an hour or two so I need to get back and start editing this. Also I have a few bits of news. Nothing earth shatteringly exciting but there's been some developments on my YouTube channel recently which I wanted to alert you to. I'll do that at the end. But right now, let me tell you a little bit about podcast number 181, which features a rambling conversation with English singer-songwriter and actor Yolanda Clare Quartey, a.k.a. Yola.

Yola facts. Yola, currently aged 38, grew up in the coastal town of Portishead, just outside Bristol, southwest UK. By the end of the 90s, a teenage Yola was singing in local jazz clubs and writing her own songs, inspired by heroes Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton and Otis Redding. And by the early 2000s, she was providing guest vocals and in some cases earning the occasional songwriting credit for acts like Sub Focus and Bugs in the Attic, with whom Yola enjoyed some early chart success. Yola spent a few years as a member of Bristolian country soul band Phantom Limb, and a touring gig with Massive Attack towards the end of the 2010s

also helped bring Yola to a wider audience. But the prospect of a career as a guest vocalist and collaborator with other people calling the shots was less appealing to Yola than the idea of striking out on her own. brought Yola to the attention of producer and Black Keys member Dan Auerbach, who ended up recording and collaborating on songwriting for her debut album, Walk Through Fire, in 2018. The album was released in 2019 and nominated the following year for a total of four Grammy Awards. 2020 was also the year that Yola landed a part in Baz Luhrmann's film Elvis,

which, as I speak, is about to be released here in the UK, playing the mother of rock and roll, the legendary guitarist and singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Yola's second album, Stand for Myself, once again recorded by Dan Auerbach in Nashville, was released in the summer of 2021 and features more anthemic songs fusing soul, country, disco and rock with lyrics about tokenism, bigotry and self-esteem. Yola described Walk Through Fire as her getting to know you record, whereas Stand For Myself is a more complete musical expression of the person Yola always imagined herself to be. The conversation that you're about to hear was recorded remotely back in February of this year, 2022, Valentine's Day to be specific, as you will hear, and as well as talking about Yola's

relationship with the Bristol music scene of the 90s, Sister Rosetta Tharp, and the difficulties of hanging on to your idea of what you do best, especially as a dark-skinned black woman in the music industry. Yola was kind enough to play a couple of fantastic versions of songs from her album, Stand for Yourself. It was exciting to watch her via the Zoom feed, sitting on a stage in a recording studio in Nashville and delivering a couple of tremendous performances, exclusively for the podcast. By the way, if you want to see Yola performing, she's going to be doing some headline shows

at London's Coco venue, KOKO, on July 20th and 21st of this year, 2022. She's also at Glastonbury, headlining the left field stage next weekend, June 26th. I shall be watching that from the comfort of my sofa. I'll be back at the end for some more informational waffle slices. But right now, with Yola, here we go. I'll be back at the end for some more informational waffle slices. But right now with Yola, here we go. Have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la Set the scene for us, Yola. Where are you?

So I'm in Nashville, Tennessee at the moment. I'm currently at the new Concord offices and we've just broken in their new live room here. And so, yeah, that's where I'm coming from. What is Concord? is Concord a record company or a recording studio or are you reviving transatlantic supersonic travel I know right Concord is a record label got you and how's Nashville did you ever imagine that you would end up spending large parts of your life in Nashville no No, I think I didn't necessarily have a very accurate image of what it's like to live here. So I don't think I would have ever even known what it would

have been that drew me here until I started coming here to showcase and perform. Here's what I imagine Nashville to be like. All the women look like Dolly Parton. All the men look like Kenny Rogers. Everywhere is playing country music 24-7. Every bar that you go into has its doors wide open and there's a kind of bluegrass band jamming away. Is this the kind of thing we're dealing with? Well, there are definitely places where those things occur but i don't know yeah if uh like the kind of ubiquitous everyone looks like dot dot dot

is i don't know if that's true anywhere in on earth no you know like i try not to put too much stock in the idea of trope even in a place where you know there's probably more plaid per square mile than you would have maybe in new york or la plaid is a fashion perennial though do you know what it is i think once the grungers got hold of plaid yeah then i think it was fine from then on don't you think i feel like plaid is universal because obviously it's Scottish. Right. So number one, you've got Celtic plaids. And then, you know, then you've got the Goths. They got plaid. And then the grungies got plaid.

The folksy country folk have always had plaid as well. It's perennially useful. And so, yeah. But there's definitely maybe a little more of it here than anywhere that I have been traveling around the States. But that's the most ubiquitous thing I can think of. Otherwise, it's very different than what you'd expect because of how it's growing. But your aesthetic is not plaid.

How would you describe it? describe it? I feel aesthetically I'm somewhere in between a rock and roll aesthetic and a disco aesthetic they kind of smoosh together in the way that I like to present myself rock and roll through the prism of soul is a big passion of mine the through lines of those genres and obviously things that are affected by rock and roll like how country is and things that soul affected like frankly everything on planet earth but for me you know disco music as well yeah well it's been really enjoyable getting to hear your music and hear you fusing those well it's more than just those two genres, but it's such a great sound. And congratulations on the new record.

Thank you. Fantastic. And as far as our conversation today goes, as well as asking you maybe a few of the questions that you are regularly asked about what you're doing and your music, I was wondering if you would object to me using some dating cards on you. Oh, wow, because it's Valentine's Day. I keep remembering. Because it's Valentine's Day and we are on a virtual date. Goodness gracious. Well, I'm not trying to be inappropriate. I'm a happily married man. I'm just using the cards. The other

day, for example, I went out for lunch with my family out here in Norfolk, where I live, and we went to the pub. And on the way, I had these dating cards in my pocket, which I bought ages ago, thinking maybe they'll be useful for doing podcasts. And they are made by a company called the School of Life. I'll put a link in the description of the podcast but basically they're there for people who are nervous about dating and it's 52 cards that have questions or challenges on them ranked easy to hard which are supposed to get conversation flowing and maybe help you find out a little bit about the other

person so how do you feel about me springing some of these on that sounds like loads of fun i'm well up for it mate okay if you went on a date and some person got out this pack of cards and started asking you questions from the pack what would you feel about that person um it would depend on the energy that they'd kind of introduce themselves yeah because you know they say you can only make a first impression once and obviously like the brain kind of decides in a very short instance whether you know you think like it makes a summation on the person so yeah what preceded that would give a context because for example it could be that they're feeling somewhat playful and this is like them having a

instead of doing the standard things or you know a way of introducing something a bit more playful and maybe they have an idea of how they might use them maybe it becomes a drinking game who knows what this is there you go um but on the other side if their hand is shaking as they're trying to get the cards out of the packet then one might make the assumption that they might be anxious about the situation and so yeah i think that would be a fair assumption delivery is everything all right okay i'm gonna get i'm gonna get the first card out. Here we go. Shuffling. I'm picking a card at random. And I will tell you, first of all, whether it says it's easy or hard.

And it's, oh, we're starting with a hard one, Yola. Right. As long as I don't have to do cardio, I'm all good. Unfortunately, it says do 50 burpees. No, I'd sooner open fire and completely demolish this laptop it says what would you love it's a bit of a strange question what would you love a kind person to come away thinking about you after you'd met them for the first time? A kind person. I think that's a good distinction because we don't care what douchebags think, do we? True. And so, yeah, a kind person.

I'd like to think that they thought I was kind. Yeah, okay, good. Like, call me crazy, but like kindness is, you know, never ceases to be underrated. And it is an amazing thing to be the recipient of kindness i'm older than you are and i am now i think at the age where i'm sort of randomly sentimental in a kind of uncontrollable way and so when people are kind out of the blue and i'm not expecting it sometimes i really have to struggle not to cry i think that's just what happens. Like you see like something on television

and like someone did something really cute with their mom. Like it's like a daddy daughter thing or something. Or like, you know, someone just does something nice for someone like a random act of kindness. And you're all like, oh, I love it. Like it's really challenging not to be just like a complete sap yeah i think that's just what happens are you a crier yeah but i have really specific triggers for crying like i'm definitely it's valentine's day and i really love love like so hard i really am one of those proper sappy

people so anything kind of like that seems truly genuinely loving i i'm like yeah and anything with dogs i'm a real lover of dogs yeah i think like just too adorable i'm like it's so cute and he really loves it um and yeah and then just like any kind of shows of like true connection and true thought and consideration and kindness like when you see those things especially the things that appear rare those are really cute moments so that's definitely gonna get me welling up like if someone gives you the remainder of their parking ticket like not not not a fine but you know the um i know if they've paid for a parking space and they and they've got half an hour left on it and they come over and give it to you that'd be really sweet

it's pretty nice that would be really kind that's the sort of thing that i do um fyi yeah so yola you were born in bristol yes i grew up there is that right yeah but you lived outside bristol in porter's head yeah that's it and i lived there right until i left home but like uh went to secondary in bristol So like, you know, it wasn't all out in Port's Head, but that's where I lived. And you're a 90s kid. Yes, grew up in the 90s, born in the 80s. But like my musical taste, I was old enough to be, you know, have a little bit of the ability to discern and collate by the time the 90s kicked in so teenager in the 90s in bristol yeah that is pretty much right place right time isn't it what was it like growing up there well here's the irony of the situation like there was obviously loads going on in bristol at the time but i wasn't really drawn to any of it because it was

minimalist. And I don't know if you've noticed about my albums. They go big. You couldn't describe them as minimalist. Let's put it that way. So one of the like, there are things that I'm really passionate about musically. One is harmony. i love harmony vocal harmony specifically melodic harmony between instruments obviously but i love lushness i love harmony i love cascading melodies i love these things things that are floral things that are embellished but also i've got an obsession with time and with grooviness so that's why i love disco i love funk i love like certain avenues how rock and roll um imposes itself into those spaces i love like soul music obviously and how it improves into those spaces these are the things there are certain avenues

where i noticed that things that were countrified that maybe were kind of more on the old country side of things I found interesting like Little Feet for example and I remember the first time I heard Willin or China White and I was like these are also things that kind of feed into this aesthetic of being groovy and pockety but my love of disco is my love of feel as well so i like feel and pocket and i'm pretty much obsessed with james gadsden as a drummer at which governs my perception of time almost completely i don't know that name james gadsden was the drummer for bill withers amongst a gazillion others oh so you would know that um footage of bill withers singing ain't no sunshine when she's gone and they zoom into the drummer and he's got that grin on his face yeah yeah and he's just

laying down that break in like you listen back to it and you realize that's one of the grooviest things you're ever going to listen to like it's very easy to kind of like we remember it wrong go back and listen to it you'll be like wow that is like feel and pocket incarnate and from that point of seeing that I was just obsessed and that's just never ended and every time I looked at the track list of who played on like a favorite soul song a favorite disco disco song, it would be, oh, James Gadsden was in the session. And I didn't even know. I just kept on zoning in on like his performances and I had no idea.

So it's clearly something that has programmed my sense of time. Needless to say, all of these, this kind of luscious things, my love of Barry White, that's like the antithesis of trip hop. Yes. So it wasn't necessarily speaking to my aesthetic as it were and so it kind of passed me by you know but then there was a a

seam of soul and soulfulness in portis head even though that was a kind of gothic soulfulness but in Massive Attack there's definitely a lot of soul in there and of course you ended up touring with them in 2008 right? Yeah they had a vocalist that was ill and they're like can you help us out I'm like sure thing like full disclosure this is going to be like a short-term thing because i've got like a mission that i want to get back on but like uh i'll happily help and so i stepped in for the rest of that year i think like six months there about and uh yeah we went on tour we did glastonbury we did a bunch of things it definitely became like something that was like a fun stop gap in my life but i realized i obviously had another mission and i had to find my way to it yes but did you ever come across any

of those people when you were growing up in bristol 3d and tricky and all that lot no not so much they were a lot older than me i was a child so of course they are older than you yes they're more they're more my age or even yeah and so like i was in the wrong squad and just also i was an out-of-towner so i was like in like in those times i was in you know porter's head yes and they didn't come from there but it was a village so like just like the idea of me being even remotely connected is just we can't even get close to that okay so you weren't running around bristol and doing some tagging with banksy no none of the things and if anything, like I've somehow managed to miss all of the kind of 90s tropes just from, I suppose, being a child and in school like a normal person. wholly myself and not to spend too much of my energy or time or focus on large patriarchal structures that those situations were I think you know I had more than my fair share of talent and

time to focus on myself and what I found to be musically important and so yeah like that's an I think that's an important thing that um that led me to doing this record in the first place to led me to being on this, to be relevant enough to be on, to be talked to on podcasts like this in the first place. It's that I found my own way as opposed to being, um, absorbed by the big structures of the town, because there are many people that fell foul of being absorbed by the big structures of the town because there are many people that fell foul of being absorbed by the big structures and we don't hear about what they have to say about music they just pay into the porter's head the massive attacks the ronnie size represents all the things that that came out of bristol in the 90s but it's 2022 and we surely need to speak of the idols and how relevant they are they're from bristol i knew them are we we hung out they're cutting it and hitting it right now you know the band the idols yeah they're everywhere and but they're bristol born, like really worked hard, you know, in Bristol.

Yeah, yeah. When you said we need to speak of the idols, I thought you meant I-D-O-L-S, the idols of rock. Yeah. Well, we do as well. That's actually an adjacent subject because I'm playing Sister Rosetta Tharpe in a movie. Well, exactly. subject because i'm playing sister rosetta tharp in a movie and well exactly who isn't always credited as the inventor of rock and roll but was the first to distort the guitar and bend the string and shred in the way that we now know epitomizes rock and roll but she was inventing it we didn't know what it was so for people who don't know about sister rosetta tharp give us a potted history when was she active

like when was she at her peak um oh 40s 50s yeah so peak is really subjective but the best way to plot is via her guitars so like in the movie i'm playing one of her mid-50s guitars and at this point in her life she has this night on Beale Street in Memphis Tennessee that is like this happening hotbed for black culture in America and for contemporary music in America broadly. We know later on from that period of mid 50s that Stax came out of that area. We know that we have Sam Phillips Studios, Sun, all of these things we know that came out of this scene in Memphis. But specifically her night at Club Handy was the hotbed for people that later became the people we know as the stalwarts of rock and roll. So she discovered Little Richard and gave him a showcase at her night. B.B. King was younger and a super fan of her and her skill.

younger and a super fan of her and her skill. Elvis was also one of the rare white faces in segregationist America that was exposed to her music at a very young age and used to race home from school to listen to her. So she was the elder statesman and the matriarch of this scene. And so, you know, you'll have the Ike Turners, you have everybody. They're coming down to this night, they're traveling to this night and they're all being influenced by her and other people that are in the scene.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe is the person creating the rock and roll aesthetic and everyone that she's discovering is influenced by her and she's lifting them up via these showcases and she came from a gospel tradition is that right she did she did come from a gospel tradition and so she would she would cross over into the secular space with this new rocking aesthetic the most famous guitar we know of hers is the 63 les paul custom and it's

got the three gold pickups and it's like a cream white um so that'll be the one that everyone would like recognize you might have noticed a friend of mine an artist salice playing with lizzo on snl playing a guitar just like that right and so that guitar is almost like synonymous with black womanhood and guitars. You know, in the UK, our exposure to her came via the train stations in Manchester that you would have seen her playing in a train station to a group of people. Yeah. That was, I think, Chorlton, Manchester. Yes, that's right. The train stations around there. That was, I think, Chorlton, Manchester. Yes, that's right.

The train stations around there. And so she was like a superstar in everywhere, but somehow in the mix of everything because of her gospel past and also segregation, granted, her innovation wasn't held aloft as much as it might have been if she was a white guy yeah and so we've lost a lot of that narrative and it's a real privilege to be able to play her in this movie and like as myself and Baz Luhrmann were talking about before we started filming my parts that our function is to set that narrative straight and to tell a more rounded organic story of Elvis and rock and roll. And when did you shoot that? We finished filming this time last year. Okay. And that is your first, is that your first movie role? Yeah. That's my first movie role. Yeah.

How was the experience of doing that and working with someone like Baz Luhrmann? role yeah how was the experience of doing that and working with someone like Baz Luhrmann it was pretty mind-blowing to be fair you know I I had a lot on my plate yeah learning to shred like sister Rosetta Tharpe who is one of the greatest guitar players of all time she was a demon picker she was the demon picker and so like yeah that's a lot to kind of, you know, to really get your head around. But then as you're shredding and you're throwing your voice to really be in her spirit and you're trying to embody her mannerism and to think about like where she was and what she was feeling, then you've got to keep your eye open like the peripheral vision open to see baz for direction you've got to interact with the people in your scene you've got to look

on the floor and make sure that you're hitting your marks and so there's so much to be thinking out that's like on a practical level yeah that when i first started doing it i was like i don't know how the hell i'm gonna do this but like by like, by the time I was done, I was like, wow, I did that for 15 hours a day. I didn't think I was gonna do all of that for 15 hours a day. But like, we got there. And I'm like in the zone and I'm shredding. I'm like, how am I shredding now? It's like, I just never thought I'd be doing that. So I'm excited for everyone to see it. I really am. Yeah. Well, it's out in June of this year, I think.

Yes, it is. June 24. And then do you think that it would ever be appropriate for you to include some Rosetta covers in your sets, your live sets? It's funny. Like, it would have to be very much in the style that like reflects me yeah so who knows did you ever see a performance that she does which is uh on youtube and she is singing um this train and i think it's in front of uh is it the choir 1964 it's i don't think it's a choir it's in front of of a sort of fairly

snooty looking audience the audience starts to clap along at the beginning and she just shushes them she just puts her finger up to her mouth and says no no no don't clap and they all they're all like oh sorry i i definitely have seen that i think it's like an auditorium that she's playing yeah yeah yeah and i can't figure out if it's like an auditorium that she's playing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I can't figure out if it's a British audience or what, but at one point she changes the lyrics of the song and she says,

this train don't pull no wankers. Do you remember that? Do you know what? That's the bit I missed. Cause I listened to it and I was like, did she just say wankers? And then I played it back and she does. She says that the whole verse is this train don't pull no wankers.

Oh my God. Yeah. Because I think it was the same year that she did the big blues tour in the UK. Right. So she had obviously, she'd absorbed the expression wanker. I'm going to rewatch that. I wasn't, let's put it that way.

I was watching this as like prep for the movie. So I wasn't necessarily focusing in on that. But, you know, I will now. Yeah. Well, look, I'll play you the relevant clip, shall I? Oh, please. You know this train. the relevant clip, shall I? Oh, please. Ha, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This train. Don't pull no wankers.

No crack shooter. And no whiskey drinkers. It's a clean train. This train. There's not enough use of the word wankers in rock and roll. No, I'm assuming. I know, right right i would have definitely suggested that to baz can we put this in yeah surely that he'd love it they say wanker in australia don't they oh aussies think that yeah they're well ready for all of that business

yola let's have some music you have kindly agreed to play a couple of songs for us. Thank you so much. And thanks to your technical team over there for sorting it out as well. Can you tell us a little bit about the first song you're going to play? So the first song I'm going to play is called Barely Alive. And it opens the album. And when I was doing the track listing, one of the most important things I wanted

to do was to get this arc of coming from feeling very isolated like I grew up as I've said in this village and I was one of a very small number of black people in that village and even when it turned into a town it's not like we were drowning in black people for any stretch of the imagination and so like when I went into the city I was this country black girl you know I didn't necessarily grow up in the inner city I didn't have that lifestyle or that kind of cultural exposure All of my cultural exposure came from my mother, who was Bajan, my late mother, and from things that I absorbed musically and via television.

I would always gravitate towards the things coming out of America, but this whole idea of what it feels like to be isolated is really where we start and that the kind of the way that that kind of downtroddenness makes you shrink yourself and and so that's where we set our scene and of course as we get through the record I am jumping hurdles on the way to self actualization of some kind of being my whole nuanced self but we have to start somewhere and this is where we start and this also sounds like it could be a lockdown song it sounds like a song about coming out of the worst of the pandemic is there anything of that in there or

am i imagining that uh probably because of the time that we've written, there might have been a bit stowing away of that. But my co-writer, Joy Ladacoon, I've got Bajan and African heritage. She has African heritage, Nigerian heritage. And we were talking about playing guitar and how disenfranchised we felt from the ownership of the guitar because of just the whitewashing of the legacy of rock and roll. And so it's so much about feeling outside in the cold more than it is necessarily being locked in, you know? And there's so much of that song speaks on, like, all the ways that you try and fit in and you try to shrink yourself to be accepted and you're barely living

when you're doing that anyone that has code switched as i've heard termed here in america has done this at the expense of their own joy like nobody is going to thank you. No one is going to reward you. And so really it's a point that the function is supposed to be a reminder to not do that, to be your whole self, whoever you are, be your whole self. Don't let people talk you into minimizing yourself because you don't fall into a trope that makes them feel comfortable. And so happy Valentine's Day, bitches, you know, like if you don't want to wear heels and you don't want to like wear some tacky lingerie or like whatever it is, if you if the things that make you happy are just different, then be you, bitch. I agree. Here is Yola with an exclusive version of barely alive i've been there and i know how it is i've been living it alone for all these years

Isolated, we're holding our fears And we try to get by And we strive, but we're barely alive I've been there And I know how it feels Take your time As you learn how to deal Isolated

We hold in our tears And we try to get by We strive but we're barely alive When will we start living? Could you even try? Where will you start living? Oh, when? Now that you've survived Oh, and now many you survived

Oh Who can tell how long we'll feel this pain is it here for a spell or will it always remain isolated getting hard to maintain

but we try to get by and we strive but we're barely alive. When will we start living? Oh, when could you even try? you even try? Where will you start living? Oh,

now that you survived, yeah. How can you start living? Tell me when. What will you do with your life? Oh, baby.

Oh, yeah. Oh, they didn't take your life. Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. They didn't take your life. Oh, yes. That is Barely Alive, sung by Yola out in Nashville, America. And what time is it over there, Yola? It's mid-afternoon, three o'clock. It's time here oh yes it is and it is cold it is freezing and it's been raining all day of course it has it's

england love yeah do you miss it do you know what they're like there are people i miss there for sure you know and do you know the thing i do miss like loads yeah country pubs oh yes please you know like who doesn't love a country pub let's just who it's the nicest thing so there are things i definitely i miss people i miss but like also the country pub is a hallowed thing sure Sure. Had many happy walks to the King's Head with my pals Dan and Garth over the years. Oh, yeah. So, Yolofax, am I right in thinking that you went to an opera school? Do you know what? I actually went to an opera teacher for just like I wanted to make sure that I was singing healthily.

Okay. But I didn't actually properly attend that school like my technical musical tuition is hilariously spotty I was I didn't even take music GCSE because um like I don't want to throw them under the bus but like my school had a policy of like, if you join the choir, then we rule your life. Like everything we do, you have to do. If I did music, I had to then join one of the things that would meant they rule my life. And I was like, nah, mate, not on my watch. And I already had jazz gigs.

I was at out of school jazz gigs when I was like 14 or something. And so like I had like someone from another school who was also a kid and his mum would take us to jazz gigs and so like I just had like I was already on it I wanted to do it as a job and I knew that I had to get out there and just like see how possible it was you know coming from a working class background you know a lot of the people that are famous in the uk are trust fund kids they can afford to relax they can afford to be excellent there's been scientific research that's really one ifl science that proved that when you don't have bill worries that there's more space for you to cognitively develop and so when it comes to channeling your powers towards

music then that becomes a really important thing I noticed my ability to conceive of great ideas when I had like a couple pop songs that did great and then all of a sudden I had money and I decided to be my own rich daddy. And on doing that, lo and behold, my whole career lifts off. Surprise, surprise. And it's not like I bought anyone off. I just bought myself time to not have as much bill anxiety. And we've all had that when we don't want to open the mail, right? Like we've all had that.

But a lot of the people that we hold in most musical high esteem have never known what that feels like, ever. So when I was coming up, I knew I was gonna have to start early if I was gonna have a hope in hell and I only had the context of that because I was the poor kid at like a grammar school type situation with a bunch of rich kids and I was not the rich kid and so I was already becoming aware of like how on it I was going to have to be to get ahead I couldn't just be like doing fun school project things or whatever I had to be like getting out of these streets and doing it so that's how I started I started doing jazz gigs and then like I had a school band we did kind of more rock stuff and like they were the two worlds that I lived in and I got out of

school I got into university I tried to use that the year out and that year to get like to a proper job in London I wanted to like get a good touring band job yeah and I auditioned I auditioned I auditioned and like I was waiting for callbacks and the feedback was great but I was just waiting for like to see whether I got the job and then I became homeless and that's when I was living on the streets in East London. So how did that come about though were you down in London sort of couch surfing and then the couches dried up and you found yourself on the street? Well I first it was actually the other way around i was in london like i didn't really know enough people there and whoever i knew was

just the not the kind of person that knew how to care about people and so i wound up on the streets immediately and then i finally kind of like by the power of begging and pay as you go managed to get through to some people to come fetch me back to Bristol and then I was couch surfing when I was there right um but I think I'm right in saying that mercifully you didn't have to spend months and months on the street in London right oh no no no it was very short um I spent more time couch surfing than I did on the streets. I was only like a week on the streets. And then the rest of the time, like a good six months of couch surfing. And then I finally managed to wrangle enough up to get back into some sense of

functionality. The job literally kicks in. And I'm like, I'm back. And I've all of a sudden, I've got work work I've got money I can rent somewhere it's all working for me again but like this is the kind of like you've got to just keep auditioning you've got to keep being well I did at the time I had to just be like in people's minds and people's thoughts all the time the competition was pretty rife and so yeah and I still hadn't got to the point where people understood my voice because I've got this gravel in it you know and like we're definitely still in the smooth voice era you know I feel like the smooth voice era was really like really came to the fore in the 90s with R&b so my voice was like i was like a pariah that could

just about throw my voice clean enough to be accepted but my voice wasn't the voice you know until people started understanding that it had multiple uses you know yeah and so it wasn't easy to be accepted as my whole self for quite a long time yeah but still I mean presumably your voice was always a pretty impressive uh thing prospect yeah yeah yeah so it wasn't as if you were being laughed out of auditions for just being absolutely crap no but I was told sometimes to eradicate certain parts of my voice oh really okay like a lot in fact that was probably the most common thing i was told that that i needed to sweeten up my voice or that i needed to take the base out of it take the gravel out of it that i need there was so much

that i needed to change about myself and like being dark-skinned was a real big thing that would skew the perception of what I was doing, saying or singing. And so that was something that I'd have to traverse just all the time. People wouldn't realise that they weren't holding you as a loft as your light-skinned counterpart. They just wouldn't realise they were doing it because that's what cognitive bias is. And every human on planet earth has cognitive bias and they were thinking presumably that they were

giving you advice on how to make yourself commercially viable and like this is the best way given the current sort of musical climate this is what you should do rather than investing in your specific character and talent yeah it's honestly trying to give advice this will be great this will work for you not realizing that the norms that they're adhering to might even err on supremacist because to move away from the base in my voice to move away from the base in my voice to move away from the base in my voice to move away from the things that make me a very much a black lady you know right to something more homogenized you know we've heard the sister rosettas the teeners the staple singers mavis who's one of my heroes these people with these iconic voices that really

embody their blackness so it was a very interesting time to be building myself in a situation where people just weren't quite aware of how much cognitive bias was affecting their decision making and like if i'm talking to people with a view of working with them that's the first thing i'll ask how many people of color do you have in high echelon positions in this company like how do you deal with these situations how do you deal with those things because it's just it's in society you know in the west which is where we are you know It's just unavoidable and you just have to be prepared to navigate it. And how are those conversations going? Do you feel that the atmosphere and the tone is changing in the industry

and in society in general? Well, I don't think I can comment on society in general because, you know, people are still dying, being killed for no good reason. because, you know, people are still dying, being killed for no good reason. But from my personal experience, I curate spaces that are made for me. And that's what, if you're a woman of colour,

and you're looking to get into music, that is 100% what you need to be doing. Curate a space that wants you to succeed, that has had past track record of doing things that help people that look like you and that live like you in your life experience succeed. That's really all I'm interested in doing from this point onwards is existing and building those spaces and supporting my peers in those spaces as well. that's one thing beautiful thing that I'm getting out of Nashville is this sense of community we've all experienced this myself Joy who I've talked about my dear sister from another Mr. Alison Russell we all have the same

experience and so we're supportive we get it Mickey Guyton who just absolutely slayed the super bowl we've all had this experience and we're all very supportive with each other in this environment and so they're the environments i'm interested in the ones that want us to win you know absolutely how do you feel about another dating question oh come on lad get in okay here we go this is i'm picking another card here at random here's this is a medium one how strict would you be as a parent oh oh i'm really not a breeder like really not no like just so much no that's so just do you know what? Maybe there was a time in my life that I was,

but that ship has sailed. So I don't actually know because it's so far out of my remit of fucks to give, you know, like. Well, as a teacher, I had a bit of a balanced approach. So I was the teacher. I'd once did like a session with young offenders somewhere outside of Bristol and I had to go into the room and you know young offenders

job is going to be like a tough job they're looking to break you all this business right and so you go in and my energy was like I'm going to go in with this high energy slightly unhinged where by the time they figured out where i am they figured that if they play along with me i'm gonna be fun like fun unhinged fun hinged but if they fun hinged nailed it love it um but if they push me in the wrong direction they have no idea how bad it's gonna get for them but they can imagine it's beyond their conception and so that was like my approach it was like i'm fun when i'm fun but when it goes off you do not want to know what comes it's going to be a hell mouth and so like i was like that was

i figure if that's my teaching approach that might be my parenting approach. Aha, fun and terrifying. Is that what your parents were like? Well, I was only raised by my mother and she displayed all the tenements of a clinical psychopath. Like, it's almost a complete other episode. Breaking down her approach is definitely time we don't have. time we don't have but do you think your experiences with your ma had an effect on your impulse or lack thereof when it came to the possibility of having children of your own no it was a real heel turn i felt like i was hella maternal and then i was just exhausted and it just flipped off so I was like

yeah I'm gonna do it I'm gonna be pumping them out and then I just got to a point where I'm like this whole situation life music humans white supremacy everything is exhausting me looking crap out of me and I can't bring myself I don't have the energy anymore for that and so just i if i can just get through life in a way that feels uplifting to me i've won at this point and so yeah like again another thing that privileges affords you more optimism yes all right here's another card for you if you could magically this is a medium card if you could magically invent a drug that could put you in any sort of mood what mood would that be oh it seems fairly obvious no it isn't because i feel no because i feel like everyone goes just being happy but you know i don't ever want to be insincerely happy

because I broke my ankle at the same time I lost my voice. Well, a few months later, and I was on some prescription drugs from the wonderful NHS and I was unannoyable. And just, I found myself, like one of my housemates ended up dating this white supremacist woman who had some really interesting viewpoints that didn't perturb me one bit because I was so high so profoundly high for such a long time I made friends I didn't even remember when I came down

like it was a whole dreamscape and like what was the name of the pills oh i know i don't feel like i want to be advertising things like that it seems like you know like a really slippery slope no of course we don't want to intensify the opioid crisis we really don't babes but luckily i don't have my only addiction is oh maybe um the thing i want so. So my weakness is I love cake, right? Yes. And so the pill would mean that, like, I... That you have the experience of eating cake without actually eating it. Yeah, the experience of having cake without having to eat it, maybe.

But it would delete my sugar addiction immediately. Oh, but then you wouldn't love cake. But I don't, like, i don't need diabetes and like i'm black that's coming and also all the women in my family had it and so yeah i've managed to dodge it so far so i'm like if that's the thing that's taking me down then like the pill would be the thing that just like you know you're not addicted to it you can like it you're just not addicted to yes there you go and i still like you, I've been trying to wean myself off. I'm definitely way better than I was.

But like, yeah, like sugar's still my thing. Not even opiates could get me. Cake. That's my drug, mate. Well, God, I absolutely hear you. But the thought that I would never again get intense joy from a pack of revels because i'd had that part of my brain removed oh i know i can't live without revel joy i know but i don't think it's about addiction isn't about joy true that's the point that is a different thing that's the point

is that when you're enjoying something it's not that you're addicted to it. Addiction strips the joy because you're doing it mindlessly because you have your jonesing for the thing more than you actually gastronomically experiencing it. So conversely, you may be having a more truthful and profound experience of that revel. Yes. Revel wisdom. I was looking at Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Thank you. Have you come across that? I have. I talk to my team about it all the time and they're so over it. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Because I saw that you said about your record, about the new record, that you were trying to trick people into empathy and self-actualization. Yeah, 100%. Maslow style. And I thought that maybe you could say a little bit about that in the introduction for your final song today. Yes. Which is called Stand for Myself. Yes, indeed.

So the second song I will play for you is called Stand for Myself. And it's at the end of the album. So I've bookended you. Nice. And at this point, which would have been a smooth transition, we're kind of at a point of self-actualizing. But this kind of, when I speak on that, I mean that we're in a space where we're most able to do the things that we want to do.

And we're most equipped. The environment is most conducive. We are most able and feeling most motivated to carry on doing what we're doing. Because you can be amazingly productive and profoundly unmotivated. because you can be amazingly productive and profoundly unmotivated. And so it's about all of those things being in concert and joy being the result. And I think you can really feel that by the time I get to the end of the song and I'm singing, I'm alive. I'm alive, I'm alive.

You know, I'm there because it's been a bit of a journey, but somehow I'm not dead and I'm thriving. I don't know how that happened, but I'm there because it's been a bit of a journey, but somehow I'm not dead and I'm thriving. I don't know how that happened, but I'm here. And so as we get through the record, we look at the things that I've kind of, I've had to traverse, a lot of which are to do with these feelings of being well-tended and loved and connected, like the main body of the record's like that, for sure. And so I always love performing this for people because it's just so true to life and it gives people real energy.

Great one for the gym, FYI. Yeah. I've heard you sing this before and you give it some pretty, what I would characterize as raw indie vocals especially towards the end. Yeah. It's loads of different things it's like really uncategorizable yeah yeah which i think is important for the message it's giving it's supposed to be this i am truly individual i'm doing my most me thing

yes you know to thine own self be true exactly And so as a result, it can't be defined. Yeah. Well, we'll let the music define it for us. Thank you so much, Yola. It's been really nice to meet you and talk to you. It's been really lovely to talk to you too. Thank you so much for having me. I understand why Close your eyes Why death your ears Oh, I realize now You wanna feel nothing

Just like I was a coward in the shadows Of you from above Now I'm alive It's hard to explain It took this much time It took this much pain, it took this much pain. You can get here if you're willing. Let go of yourself for a new beginning. It was easier to see Than stand for myself

It was easier to give in Than stand for myself I know why you hide away Why you keep so quiet Not what you say now you think you're too much too hard to handle but you're stronger than anyone

yet still so fragile it was easier to sing than stand for myself. It was easier to give in than stand for myself. It was hard enough to go and live on. enough to go and live on.

I was so tired trying to belong. I was lost in the city you could see in your eyes. But I was still a dreamer in the middle of the night. I'm alive, alive, I'm alive I used to be nothing like you I used to feel nothing like you Now I'm alive, alive, I'm alive

I used to be nothing like you I used to feel nothing like you Now I'm alive, alive, I'm alive. I used to be nothing like you. I used to feel nothing like you. Now I'm alive, alive, I'm alive. Ooh, ooh, ooh, yeah. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, Yeah. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, Yeah Ooh Oh Yeah

Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics, and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace.

Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Continue. Hey, welcome back, podcats. That was Yolaola of course thank you so much to her and team yola for making the time and fixing up all the technicals much appreciated there's links

in the description to a number of yola related bits and pieces. Don't forget she's doing her Coco headline show in London in late July of this year 2022, July 20th, 21st and yeah she's at Glastonbury next weekend on the left field stage. You can see her as Sister Rosetta Tharp in Baz Luhrmann's film Elvis, which is out this week in the UK, as I speak, 24th of June, as well as some official YOLA videos and performances on various talk shows

from the last couple of years. I have posted a link to... Oh, yeah, there's a clip of YOLA performing with Massive Attack at Glastonbury back in 2008, singing Unfinished Sympathy. There's also links to a couple of clips of James Gadsden, the drummer that Yola mentioned, who I wasn't familiar with at that point. But I went and looked up the clip of Bill Withers playing on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972. And I hadn't seen those clips before. Yeah, OK.

Now I see what she means. James Gadsden grinning away and keeping it, to use Yola's phrase, very pockety. So there's links to that in the description and on my website. There's always a post to accompany each new podcast these days. It's just another way to look at the stuff that's in the description, the videos, the links. Although you do also get, sometimes, a photograph of me with my guest also on my blog you can sign up for a newsletter now I almost never send out newsletters if you're a long time listener then you will be familiar with my somewhat lackadaisical approach to the internet and social media.

I find it hard enough just to get the podcast together, so anything extra tends to go by the wayside. I was actually thinking of sending out a newsletter because it's been a while and there were a few things I wanted to make people aware of if they were interested. So you can sign up to the newsletter on my website link in the description and you go to the front page of the website and scroll down and it gives you the option to sign up for it if you do sign up as far as i'm aware your email is not used for anything else annoying or naughty. And you won't receive many newsletters from Adam Buxton. But, you know, the occasional thing will flop into your box if you don't mind me saying that phrase.

So, yes, I think I mentioned in the intro that there's been a little bit of action on my YouTube channel. I've handed over the keys to some internet whizbots. Humans, that is, not actual bots. And they are putting bits and pieces from the podcast on my YouTube channel from now on. Basically, they're uploading old episodes of the podcast in their entirety, just with a graphic, you know, that says what they are. And they're also putting up clips, shorter clips from various episodes that they've gone through and cut into little bite-sized chunks it's i think it's what

you're supposed to do on youtube obviously what you're supposed to do if your shit is totally together is film all your podcasts and then upload the podcasts as film thing i i'm sorry that isn't going to happen as i said it's enough to just get the podcast in audio form the way i want it without doing all that other stuff it's just basically a kind of a one-man operation with with help from my trusty editing and production collaborators, but it's all very ad hoc, this operation. So it's not really practical to go the full Joe Rogan with it, you know. Anyway, having said that, there is a new video on the front of my YouTube channel,

and it's me and Rosie sat in a field, welcoming you, with Rosie looking very beautiful and me looking, well, like a badger, someone pointed out. And yes, over the next few weeks, months, episodes from the archives will be uploaded as well as these clips. And if and when I get it together, the occasional bonus video too. I'm really selling this channel, aren't I? There might be some stuff, I don't know. But yes, as soon as the first couple of videos, the welcome video and a little clip of James Acaster

from a previous podcast episode, went up at the end of last week, I suddenly got a little shiver of anxiety because, of course, then you've got comments. The comments start coming in. And generally, I do try and avoid reading comments about myself on the internet for the sake of the old mental health. But I did read a few of the comments underneath the welcome video of me and Rosie and they were very nice so even though I'm not going to read every single comment on the videos that are posted there I will relay a handful of the ones I saw there the other day uh Ryan Williams says hate to be that guy but I'm

on your YouTube channel and as yet there's no podcasts on here. Do you mean all future podcasts or all that you've done so far and future episodes? I'm not exactly sure how they're going to work it, the WizBots, because I won't be the one actually uploading the videos. I think what they're going to do is sort of curate a selection of whole episodes from the archive, as well as these clips that will pop up. So it'll just be a kind of additional feed that you can go to if you're incredibly bored.

I hope that answers your question, Ryan. incredibly bored. I hope that answers your question, Ryan. Michael Drexler says, I really enjoy the podcast, but I wish they came out nearer the time they were recorded. Recently, the conversations are getting near a year old before we hear them. Actually, Michael, I think that's true. I think recently it's been a little bit better than I normally am. I have been making an effort. I think the last few episodes of the podcast were all recorded just a few months before they went out. Which is quite good for me, I think. But as you'll know if you're a long-term listener, this does bother me a little bit the fact that because of the ad hoc nature of the way the podcast is made sometimes episodes languish in the vaults for months even years before they actually go out because well I'm just badly organized and because the

business of figuring out what episodes should go out next is always tricky I find it tricky and I like having the freedom to just record things when I get the opportunity and not be too rigid about it but the downside of that is yeah that sometimes things slip through the cracks or it gets a bit disorganized. I apologize if you find that frustrating. Personally, I don't mind it. When I listen to podcasts, I'm happy to go back through their archives and I'm not that bothered when things were recorded, really. I think it's one of the nice things about the medium

is that you can just do a conversation as long as it's not super topical which i don't think generally most of the podcasts that i do are then i think it doesn't it doesn't really matter when you come to them that's my personal opinion thanks though michael sexy caveman that is what my wife calls me sexy caveman says frankly if i wanted to listen to the podcast i'd have had many a chance to subscribe to it via my podcatcher of choice i think just putting some clips here is a much better idea oh okay so sexy caveman is saying why would I listen to whole episodes of the podcast on YouTube? I mean, fair point. Luckily, you don't have to. Also, I think it's just an alternative.

You know, it's just sometimes being able to be at your computer and just stick a podcast on YouTube is convenient. I've done that in the past. So it's just another option. All right. Anyway, look, I'm not going to go through all the comments. But as I say, I'm very grateful to those of you who posted nice things on there. Finally, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to a talented artist friend, Jane French, and she is a portrait painter. In fact, I first saw Jane on Portrait Artist of the Year, I think. This is a show I occasionally

watch and very much enjoy, and she got quite close to the final. She's really talented. I love the style of her paintings. One of the good things about doing the podcast has been that I've been able to be in touch with some very talented artists and, you know, work with them as well. Helen Green being the obvious example who does the artwork for the podcast and did all the beautiful artwork and illustrations for my book. beautiful artwork and illustrations for my book but Jane French got in touch as well and she asked if she could paint my portrait so she came over to Castle Buckles earlier this year and I think she's working on a couple of portraits but she did a quick one as part of a project that she was doing called 100 heads and she has an exhibition of those paintings in london at the cass art space in islington which is running from june the 19th to the 2nd of july if you want to go along there and see a really wonderful selection of paintings, including one of Dr. A. Buckle's, then go along and support Jane. Right, that's it. That's quite

enough info for one day. Rosie, thanks very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his work on this episode much appreciated I'm going to say thanks to my wife Sarah, that's her name she also did some legal work getting music clearances etc on this episode thank you Sarah

even though she didn't listen I love you thanks very much once again to Yola and all the people that helped get this episode together but thanks most especially to you for listening right to the end for being broad-minded for being understanding for not getting too wound up by my shortcomings and now just so you know i'm'm going to give you a hug. I'm leaning in. Oh, yeah, I'm coming in.

Watch out. No, it isn't creepy. It's nice. Okay. All right. Respectful, that was. I don't know who squeezed your bum, but it was not me. That was not me.

I was just up at the on the shoulders until next time i love you Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pun when we bums up. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pun when we bums up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Bye. Thank you. Bye.