The Town Hall Spark Sessions with The Spark File

Episode 7 Transcript: Sara Bareilles

Laura Camien:

Welcome to the Town Hall Spark Sessions. I'm Laura Camien.

Susan Blackwell:

And I'm Susan Blackwell. We are creativity coaches at the Spark File, where we help people fear less and create more.

Laura Camien:

As creatives ourselves, we are obsessed with one of the most dynamic cultural centers in New York City: The Town Hall.

Susan Blackwell:

For over a century, the Town Hall has been a champion for artistry and advocacy, amplifying the voices of icons and emerging artists alike.

Laura Camien:

And now, aren’t we lucky, the Spark File and the Town Hall have joined forces to elevate and celebrate artists who are gracing the stage at Town Hall and using their creativity to fight for the powers of good.

Susan Blackwell:

So, without further ado, let's get into the Town Hall Spark Sessions. Laura Camien. I have got a good spark for you today. I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Sara Bareilles. Sara is such a special artist and a special human being. Many of our listeners might know her from her music, things like Love Song–I’m not going to write you a love song, Laura!

Laura Camien:

Not today!

Sara Bareilles:

Not today, Baby. And then things like Brave, Gravity, the hit Broadway show Waitress, which features songs like She Used to Be Mine.

Laura Camien:

That song!

Susan Blackwell:

So good, so good. I think I said this to her, maybe the last time she was on the Spark File podcast. One of my favorite songs that she does is her arrangement and cover of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Anybody? Do yourself a favor, go dial that up. It’s so good. So, we are talking to her today because she’s going to be appearing at Town Hall on September 15 as a part of a concert celebrating Rufus Wainwright’s musical Opening Night. We talked about this with Laura Benanti as well. So this event is going to feature performances by Laura Benanti, as well as Darren Criss, Patti LuPone and a bunch of other stars, and all of it will benefit the ACLU. In addition to being a completely inspiring creative, Sara is also one of my favorite humans. She’s just the best.

Laura Camien:

She really, really is. Inspired and inspiring.

Susan Blackwell:

She really is. So, let’s get into it with Sara Bareilles. Intro Music. Welcome, Sara Bareilles! And thank you so much for joining us on the Town Hall Spark Sessions podcast. We are so happy to have you here, you beautiful angel.

Sara Bareilles:

Oh, you beautiful angel! Mutual admiration society, that’s what we’re in.

Susan Blackwell:

For reals, 100%. I’m going to ask you a little handful of questions, but before I do, can you tell all of us, how do you identify, creatively speaking?

Sara Bareilles:

I think as I have…blossomed, lets say, evolved as an artist, the, my perspective on that has gotten wider and wider and wider, and I identify in a lot of different ways as an artist, and usually when people ask me what I do, I just say…artist, because it encapsulates so much. But I think when I was starting out, I sort of strictly saw myself as a singer-songwriter. And then that has sort of expanded into actor, I feel like my activism lives in that artistry as well. Producer, author, composer, um, I wouldn’t say dancer yet. But I can dance.

Susan Blackwell:

But a mover!

Sara Bareilles:

And a shaker. . .

Susan Blackwell:

I love hearing you say Artist, because I have observed in real time how the container that would be able to hold all of the parts of your creativity has just expanded and expanded and expanded, and it feels so limitless. So, I feel like we’re right on the precipice of dancer.

Sara Bareilles:

We can only hope. We can only hope, Susan, that the world will be ready for the gift I am about to give as a dancer.

Susan Blackwell:

I feel like we planted the seed here today. You are part of something really cool that’s coming up at Town Hall on September 15th, a concert celebrating Rufus Wainwright’s musical Opening Night. Can you please tell me more about this?

Sara Bareilles:

I am, like many people, a lifelong Rufus, like stan. I have listened to his work for so many, many years and it…he remains one of the sort of, like, principal artists that I started consuming a lot of at a really important, pivotal creative time for me. And I think his ambition as an artist and as, like, a sonic designer was so mind-blowing to me. He was like another Radiohead. Obviously in a different world, but I was like, oh my god, there’s so much you can do through your music. And I think his voice remains a singularity, and I just love and am in awe of how he uses his incredible instrument. So, yeah, I sang with Rufus for the first time, um, we did a duet of my song She Used To Be Mine at the Kennedy Center before it was taken over by President Rump (sic), and we got in under the line before that incredible institution was mangled, but it will return. I know it will. And we did these incredible concerts, and Rufus joined me for the first night of the concerts. So, I know the first time we got to engage as artists together, and he asked if I was around for this, like, a concert—not even a reading, it’s just a concert of the music of opening night. And I said, yes, I will kind of go where he goes. I’m just following the leader here.

Susan Blackwell:

I’m so excited about this, the source material, him, the artists that he’s bringing together, and it all benefits the ACLU, so the activism piece, which is so perfect for Town Hall, and I love that you’re part of this. Alright, besides this upcoming event at Town Hall, what is sparking your creativity right now?

Sara Bareilles:

Grief.

Susan Blackwell:

Oof. Say more.

Sara Bareilles:

So, I’m working on a record right now, and it is almost exclusively about grief. And, it is, yes, about losing friends, which I know we have all done in many ways over the last–it’s really the first music I’ve put out since the pandemic, and I think since the pandemic, I really have just been steeping and stewing in grief, and I think actually, I think that’s a huge part of what’s going on in our culture, and our politics. There is a lot of repressed and unprocessed grief. And what happens with that is it really poisons the well, and people get very angry and scared, and they do horrible things because they’re so scared of this ultimate unknowable, uncontrollable thing that is this life, you know. My therapist always reminds me in a beautiful way, even though it sounds tender, it’s just that everything we love we lose. And it’s true, that’s life, it’s the lesson we learn over and over again. And so grief has been, you know, I think it’s like a miracle. The intersectionality, because I think awe and wonder are braided through there as well. Grief and love are so intertwined. And if you can just stay open to the grief, the love that is woven through that experience, it’s so tenderizing. It’s so soft, it’s so childlike.

Susan Blackwell:

I love hearing you talk about this. And if I can ask you, how are you taking the grief that you have experienced, are experiencing, how do you then distill that into song? Do you think something, and you think it enough that you’re like…I think I want to process that into music? How does that work in your creative process?

Sara Bareilles:

Oh, gosh, it’s complicated. It’s coming from a lot of different directions, I mean, I think I would say that the more sort of focused and deliberate, um, whoever the storyteller is, can be for writing…Like, I have a song on the record that’s from the perspective of a person who’s dying. And I have a song on the record inspired by a story I heard Stephen Colbert say on Anderson Cooper’s incredible podcast about grief. I basically wrote a song about Stephen Colbert.

Susan Blackwell:

Does he know?

Sara Bareilles:

He does. I sent it to him. I was like…this might be really weird, but I was so moved by that conversation. I highly recommend that people go and look it up.

Susan Blackwell:

Google it.

Sara Bareilles:

But Steven lost his brother and father in a plane crash when he was eleven, and he just talks about the fallout from that, and the repercussions of that loss on his family and his mother, and, just Anderson has had so much loss in his life, too. They’re just really both so tender about it. It’s really moving. I have grief about children, oh god, grief about the world. About relationships ending. Just so many things to grieve.

Susan Blackwell:

When does this come out?

Sara Bareilles:

I’m hoping next year. I’d say we’re about 75% there.

Susan Blackwell:

It’s so beautiful when you or any artist takes their lived experience and makes art out of it, because it becomes something that all of us can make, whether it's a painting or an album, it becomes something we can all process our own grief with. So, um, I’m so thankful that you’re making that, and I just know it’s going to be such a gift. So, thank you for doing that.

Sara Bareilles:

Thank you for saying that. As art tends to be, just the act of making it and the collaboration that was a part of making this record… I kind of did it a little differently, I’m producing it myself. I’m co-producing with, just my favorite players and bringing in, um, yeah, there’s something…I feel closer to this record than kind of any of the records I’ve made since my very first one.

Susan Blackwell:

Wow!

Sara Bareilles:

And I don’t know if that’s because the material is so intimate and so tender, or if I’m just…there’s a sort of ownership over this material that I haven’t felt ready to/able to/empowered enough to take until now, so I feel the act of creation is such beautiful medicine for grieving, and feeling disconnected, so I keep coming back to that and I just am like, oh my god, there’s so much medicine in it for me, without knowing it, without knowing how it will live in the world.

Susan Blackwell:

Yeah, absolutely. Oh my god. I love it, and I love you for making it. You’ve already done this but I’m going to ask you again anyway, because it might yield something interesting. Tell us something real about your creative process.

Sara Bareilles:

I, like everyone else, get so bored of my own ideas. I’m like… yup, that’s the same song you’ve written fifty times before.

Susan Blackwell:

Oh my god, yes, of course.

Sara Bareilles:

Pick something else, Sara. Do something… do anything else. And every once in a while if I hit something that feels especially true, or, eah it’s really just about truth, I will sort of spontaneously start crying. And it feels like a little, um, like a little tuning for that gets…there’s just a resonance of truth that happens and I start crying and I’m like…oh, I’m onto something!

Susan Blackwell:

Same, same, it is like a visceral reaction. Different people experience it in different ways, for some people it can be, um, they recognie a feeling that rises up in their bodies, like our eyeballs become cry-balls. For some people it can be…they’ll notice a shift in the way their thoughts are processing. I love that you recognize it though, and I feel similarly. I was like…I keep making the same thing in different forms, whether its a piece of curriculum or a song, or some piece of theatre, I’ve discovered for myself that most of the time it’s about getting to freedom. It’s something about freedom. Freedom, freedom, freedom. Freeing myself, freeing anyone that wants to come along for the ride. I wonder if you held up those things that the tuning for rings if there might be a theme that runs through all of them.

Sara Bareilles:

Ooh, that’s really interesting.

Susan Blackwell:

Something to look for!

Sara Bareilles:

I totally will. And I think that, you know, again, as we blossom and bloom into these new decades of creativity, I think that idea of freedom, and just feeling the most uninhibited, the most honest you can be without any attachment to how it shows up, what form it fits in, just that, you know, our job as artists, I think, is that beautiful Martha Graham quote, to keep the channel open. I just… we’re supposed to keep making without any attachment to what we’re making.

Susan Blackwell:

It’s so funny to hear you say that you feel like the same things, sort of, rises up in you because, and maybe this has been a driver for what I’m about to say. You have done so many different kinds of things, at such a high level, whether its songwriting, or starring in a sitcom, or writing a Broadway musical, you go in so many different directions. I would never suspect that you have any internal feelings about being repetitive.

Sara Bareilles:

Oh my god, yes. Joe and I went—my partner Joe and I walked to get coffee this morning, and he was like you want a, like I normally get an Americano with a little bit of oat milk steamed, and I was like.. No, today, I want an Americano with a little half and half. He was like… tell me more. Tell me why. And I was like…I just don’t want to do the same thing all the time. It is like, I have an allergy to it. I always have. I’ve always blamed the sagittarius in me, that I just get restless, but it also I think with the writing of music in particular, I just have some limitations. Like I’m not a prolific piano player, I’m a decent piano player for what I need to do, but I can’t play anything, and so, the more I can stay playful, and just be like…I don’t have to know how to do everything. I just have to try. It’s one of the things one of my favorite poets, Andrea Gibson, talks about, the trying. That like there are no good or bad people, it’s just the people who are trying and the people who arent.

Susan Blackwell:

Oh, I love that! I love that. Thank you, Andrea Gibson. So, as a creative, how are you navigating this particularly moment in time?

Sara Bareilles:

One of the ways I am trying to be intentional about how I’m metabolising this time which feels so fraught and so inflamed and so angry/anxious/cruel. There’s just so much to say about what doesn’t feel great about right now and I’m really trying to be intentional about staying soft and staying open. Like, that I’m not allowing what I think is a real cancer of the culture, this hyper individualized, I gotta get what’s mine, anti-community sentiments, that I don’t fall victim to those thinking patterns, becuase I really think those are ultimately just not what’s good for the world. So, really leaning into community, like face to face in the same room, breathing the same air, looking into people’s eyes, having conversations, vulnerability, sharing, naming the pain, allowing people to see what’s painful. That’s a really intentional action right now for me, and that, I think the artists and the people making art…there are so many good people trying right now, it’s really important to really tune into that as well. The groundswell of small coalitions and political activism and artists and just sweet people, moving through the world, doing the best they can to be kind to each other, that that is very much in play. But what is amplified and regurgiated over and over and over again is disaster after disaster after disaster. And so I just, I’m trying to just calibrate a little bit, and I do notice and we were talking about this offline a little bit, getting off of things like instagram is really helpful right now. Not to be uninformed about what’s going on, but to balance real life with really just one sliver of what’s going on.

Susan Blackwell:

I love that so much, Sara. This conversation is such good medicine for me, just reminding me about staying soft, staying open, staying playful. And also really connecting with people.

Sara Bareilles:

It’s been really helpful for me, and I’ve had wonderful teachers and therapists remind me and guide me toward that, those kinds of practices because they really do make a difference on your nervous system, you can feel it. You can feel it really quickly.

Susan Blackwell:

Thank you, Sara. Thank you, Sara’s therapist! If you’re listening, thank you. Finally, Sara, you work so hard. You’re so committed to your creativity…What’s it all for?

Sara Bareilles:

Oh, what a beautiful question. I think it’s…I think it’s for love, which I feel is synonymous with God, which is synonymous with people, which is synonymous with… I think this, I really believe love is the answer to everything. And, um, and I make things I love to give them as an act of love. I mean if anything I offer strengthens the quality of a loving presence, then that’s what I feel like my life’s work is, then I feel proud to be in pursuit of that.

Susan Blackwell:

I’m here to tell you. From an outsiders perspective, that you are making such great use of your time on the planet. The things that you make, the love that you introduce into the world, I feel like you fight so hard for the powers of good. So, for what it’s worth, I feel like you’re really…You’re really doing it. You’re really doing what you set out to do in terms of just bringing more love, more life, more love.

Sara Bareilles:

That’s so beautiful, Susan, and I feel the same way about you.

Susan Blackwell:

I don’t know how much time you’ve spent at town hall, but I love that you’re going to be on that stage because your mission aligns so beautiful with their mission. Your creativity, your activism, and so, rock the fuck on Sara Bareilles. Thank you for being here.

Sara Bareilles:

Thank you, and I’m so excited to be there, Town Hall is…I’ve been a part of so many unforgettable nights where I’m like…Well, it can’t possibly get any better than this and you go back and you’re like… well, it can’t possibly! It is just legendary, legendary.

Outro Music

Susan Blackwell:

Thank you so much to our guest Sara Bareilles, and be sure to check her out at The Town Hall on September 15th in Rufus Wainwright’s Opening Night and it’s all benefitting the ACLU. Hey, and thanks to the Town Hall, who make all of this possible!

Laura Camien:

The Town Hall and this episode of the Town Hall Spark Sessions were made on the lands of the Lenape people.

Susan Blackwell:

If you'd like to learn more about the Spark File, creativity coaching and how we can support you as you clarify and accomplish your creative goals, visit thesparkfile. com, and you can follow us on socials @ thesparkfile.

Laura Camien:

To learn more about the Town Hall and its exciting upcoming events, visit theTownHall. org, follow them @TownHallNYC and visit them at 123 West 43rd Street in the heart of New York City. It's all happening at the Town Hall.

Susan Blackwell:

And if something you heard inspired you to use your creativity for the powers of good, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

Laura Camien:

We're going to wrap it up, as we love to do, with the Town Hall Ensemble. Take it away!

Exit Music