Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth

I'm Rishi Kesh, here we go.

“This week, I wanted to go back and revisit the episode that I made with Iron and Wine in the fall of 2022.”

And there are a couple of reasons. One, there's a new Iron and Wine album that's coming out this month, called "Hen's Tea." And secondly, I actually have a song of my own that's coming out today, the same day as this episode. And it features Iron and Wine on the track. It's called "Stray Dogs," and it's the first song from an album that I'm releasing in April, called "In the Last Hour of Light."

This Iron and Wine episode of the podcast is what actually led to our collaboration on the song. I'd been a huge fan of Iron and Wine for two decades, and this live taping, which happened in whimperly Texas at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch in Studio, was the first time that I got to meet Sam Beam from Iron and Wine. So before we go back and listen to the episode itself, I thought it could be nice to talk to Sam about how this episode happened, and then how that led to the making of "Stray Dogs."

“Sam, do you remember what your thoughts were leading up to the day when we met?”

Oh, well, I heard some of your podcasts, some of the song exploded, and so I would try to keep up.

When, you know, you're very familiar with someone's voice, but have never seen their face. You know, it's always interesting to put the voice back into the mouth, the real mouth.

And your voice fit right back into your face. It was cool. Yeah, we were talking about bands that we liked, and it was interesting to hear how familiar, and having never met you, how familiar you were with my writing, it was a nice surprise. One of the things that was really special for me, that day was to tell you the story about my mom in 2003 when she'd come to visit me for the first time in LA. And I'd been listening to your first album so much, and my mom, you know, she enjoyed some of the music that I listened to.

Yeah, she's a huge post-punk fan, I'm sure. She's like, "Fugazzy only in the car." - I get it, Rishi. Yeah, lovely. - But I said to my mom, "I just love this album. You got to hear this song, and I played her upward over the mountain, just thinking that she would, you know, really enjoy it."

But then to my surprise, she started crying, and I'd never seen her have that kind of reaction to music before.

And when we met, it had been a couple of years since she'd passed away, but that's just a really precious memory to me. And it was very special for me just to be able to tell you that you had been responsible for this moment of connection between my mom and myself. So it was really, really special to get to do that taping. - Right, back at your body, it was fun. - And then something happened, which doesn't happen too often on the podcast, which is that we stayed in touch. - Yeah, that's right. I came into town with my daughter at that time, and we all went to lunch, and yeah, I just finally like better to have more friends than fewer.

- Yeah, and then a few months later, I texted you, and I said, "Okay. - I'm currently panicking a little." [laughter] In a couple of weeks, I'm going back to Blue Rock in Texas, where we did our live taping. They have a program where they let four songwriters come stay for a week and work on music.

And I've never done something like that. I'm very nervous about not writing anything at all and squandering the opportunity.

I had maybe a weird idea. I was wondering if you might be willing to think of a prompt for me, a sort of assignment.

“I think not wanting to let someone else down might be more powerful than my own paralysis, not to burden you with my problems, but if it would be fun/interesting for you.”

- I love giving other people a word. - It was great, and so you wrote back right away. You said, "Sure thing, try one of these, or all of them, write a confession and defend yourself for something you've never done." Pick a line from an obituary and use it as the first line of your song, and the last one was, describe a street you grew up on from the point of view of a stray dog. - Oh, yeah, honestly, it was pretty random, you imagine your dog. - Yeah, but for some reason it's spoke to you and gave you inspiration, you need it as a starting point to go somewhere else.

It made me immediately think of, when I was eight years old, I went to my mom's hometown in India, and they were just dogs running around on the street, and I was kind of scared of dogs growing up, and the idea of like stray dogs was pretty scary, but these dogs were just having fun. It was like we weren't even there, the people did not matter to them at all, and they just had their own little community, and they were just running around having fun. And so, that is the image that a meal he came to mind.

♪ A pack of stray dogs by my uncle's house ♪

♪ A streak of wild legs and open mouths ♪

“♪ With love with their lives and their speed ♪”

Remembering that, and remembering the feeling that I got from those dogs, also reminded me of the feeling that I had when I was younger and with my friends who I used to plan a band with, I thought about how much I missed them, and how much I missed the way that life used to feel back then. ♪ We used to pee that free ♪ So, before I even got to Texas, I wrote a draft of this song, and I said to you, "Yeah, it's good. I thought it was fun that you jumped in." It's a very meditative style that you have, and I thought it was really fun to hear where you went with it.

You just happened to say the right combination of words to me, and that's a song that I would have never thought of without that phrase to bounce off of.

So then, when it came time to record the album, I wrote to you, and took another big swing, and I asked if you would sing on it, since it was already tied to you, and so much of the albums about my family, and my mom and I had bonded over your music. Yeah. And you wrote back right away, and you said, "Of course, no sweat, which is amazing." ♪ I can't believe ♪ ♪ The joy that poured out of a mangy and lean ♪

“What was the process like for you when you were recording the vocals for this song?”

I kind of listened through a couple of times, and see if something I should sing over a bunch of stuff, or just sort of duck in and out, and just try to make an arrangement thing. So I was just trying to give way to certain sections. ♪ Found a photograph of the four of us ♪ ♪ New York to A. ♪ Yeah, I love digging into other people's melodies and seeing how I can participate.

And then another person on this song is Billy Crockett, who owns Blue Rock, where we did our episode, and read that song, writing residency, and he's an amazing musician, and he kind of brought us together. So I asked him to play the guitar solo on this song. ♪

I've found collaborations are the most exciting I've to me anyway, because you never know.

You've got to be game, and you've got to be vulnerable. But I find that that's the way to surprise yourself. When you get to a point like us, you write a lot of songs. It gets harder and harder to surprise yourself, but you start involving other people, and it gets pretty easy. Well, I really can't thank you enough for being a part of it.

It's really incredible for me. That's amazing. You're so kind. It was a treat to participate. You know, it's making music, because I'm making music with friends is the best. Thank you so much for listening to this extended intro, and I hope you'll check out Stray Dogs, which is out now. You can go to songexploder.net/straydogs to listen.

“And if you want to stay in touch with me about my own music and the album that's coming up, please sign up for my newsletter.”

You can also find that on the song Exploder website. The new Iron and Wine album is out February 27th. It's called "Hen's Teeth". But right now, here's the episode from November 2022 about the Iron and Wine Classic, "Slightless Bird, American Mouth".

In 2002, Sam Beam's first album, as Iron and Wine, was released on sub-pop records.

He'd given them a bunch of demos, and rather than having re-record those songs, they just released the demos themselves. Since then, he's put out five more full-length albums, and he's been nominated for multiple Grammys. For this episode, Sam looked back at the making of his song "Flightless Bird, American Mouth", from his 2007 album, The Shepherd's Dog. A year after that album came out, the song was used prominently in a scene in the movie "Twilight",

and it's been one of the most popular Iron and Wine songs ever since. I talked to Sam at Bluerock Artist Ranch in studio in Whimberley, Texas, in front of a small audience. Coming up, you'll hear the original demo he recorded, and how that transformed into the final version of the song. "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" "Flightless Bird, American Mouth"

"Flightless Bird, American Mouth" "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" I'm Sam Bean, and I have a musical project called Iron and Wine. My family was growing, and I was traveling the world more, traveling the country, and the world,

We had been living in Florida for a while, and we were getting ready to move to Texas.

“That was also in a time right after 9/11.”

It was still pretty fresh, and the way that made us all feel differently about the world, or just the way the world was changing in that time. And I was also a young man coming to terms with histories that I had learned, and I was reacting to this difference between the myth and the reality. I was a quick, went boy, diving for candy, going all of your strength.

Lying eyes, what on my best day, toy. The demo recorded in 2004, and it sounds like those early Iron and Wine records 'cause they use the same process.

“I got to sense pretty early that it was like a ride of passage kind of story.”

It's me talking to America and describing our relationship. But I found you, blind and spurred, yeah, love. I used to alter track the drums one hit at a time, and so my kids and my wife at the time, they always complained. I used to alter track the drums one hit at a time, and so my kids and my wife at the time,

they always complained about, you know, here this boom, boom, boom, you know,

or a ping, ping, ping, you know, as I did in the background. At that point, I was definitely learning about demoitis as well, because if you develop a demo too well, and you try to chase the thing it's impossible. More with Iron and Wine after this. I was building my own studio, so I brought in Brian Deck, who had recorded the record before

that I earned this number of days, we did that in Chicago.

I was my first experience in the studio, and it was frustrating and eliminating everything.

And so I got the bug, bought a bunch of gear, and he came to Texas and helped me set it up, and we got to work. I also had a bunch of kids, and I had taken a school, or changed a diaper or whatever. It was, it was a mess, but it was also, you know, it was part of the adventure, setting up this mad factory at your house and trying to, you know, make a life out of it. And so Brian would make a loop like some interesting loop, and I would play a guitar.

And then go back and we would record everything, help track by track. I had changed one of the lyrics from that demo that you played, because I decided to dive into deep for coins was better than my candy coins. I liked the idea of reflecting on yourself as someone diving too deep for things that you were after. And the other stuff was me just reminiscing about my neighborhood as a kid, you know, running around on the streetlights.

Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long, baby hands, stole me and don't get mad. And called for you and I ran away. I was also really into Alan Gensberg at the time, and some of the other beat poets, just their way of describing America, a lot of incongruous images thrown up against each other.

“I think the beginning of it, the imagery is innocent and then it gets more complex and more frustrated as the thing goes on.”

How have I found you, flightless bird, the innocent part of America, or have I lost you, the American mouth, with a big pill, stop going down?

This is Brian Dick. Brian's a drummer.

“As one of the reasons I wanted to work with him, because I wish I could go back in time and be part of the rhythm section.”

I don't know that good, but that's where my heart is. And so I wanted a producer who loved that as much as me. What's interesting, you can hear this room, it's not like a treated room. I had all of just this round room, it was a terrible idea to record drums in there. That's where I'll burger, plant a piano.

I love bringing other musicians, I mean the demos are, you know, just me, and, you know, I can flesh it out a bunch,

but the fun comes when you bring other people in, and they expand what you're doing in a way that you would never imagine.

Rob, the piano player is also a credible accordion player. I just wanted new voices, new sounds that I hadn't used before, and I had plenty to choose from, because the early records were so sparse. That's an acoustic electric guitar with a tool called Ebo. It basically makes the string vibrate the way a violin boat, and so it gives this long sustain.

“My grandma used to play piano and church, and I remember the tiny kids, like she would sing the harmonies.”

You know, standing beside me, you know, like listen to her, and the music in your ear just kind of starts to explain, like, "Oh, that's fun." Listening to her woke up, something in my brain, or tickled it in a way that just made it really happy. At the time, I just really, like, stacking harmonies. (Music) Pissing all magazine photos, those fishin' who are thrown in the cold and clean blood of Christ's mountain stream.

I hadn't done much of hiking in the sangro de Cristo mountains in the Mexico, and so I was just kind of like using the words. It's a roundabout, long-winded fancy way to say, "There are things sacred things that I don't think are being treated as sacred." You know, there's something vulnerable as being exploited.

“Like, I think advertising is bullshit, that kind of thing. I mean, obviously it serves a purpose, but if you get lost in those things, you miss out on some of this beautiful, cold, clean, blood of Christ's water.”

You know, it was just sort of this American feeling. The high pianist of his rock, we had a really weird filter thing called the Sherman, and any time we had a spot where we didn't know where to go, it was like Sherman. See what happens. (Music) It was my studio, so for better for worse, I could work on it whenever I wanted to.

I was able to approach it the way that I would, a painting. You work on something, walk away, clear your head, look at it a lot of other paintings, work on other stuff, and come back and address it. And it totally different mindset, and usually have a new idea of how to approach it.

Like in the second section of the song where you're just sort of building more and more girth, you know, just making it thicker.

The drones and all the different claims and tambourines. They kind of start quite, then it gets joyous and a little haywireish.

(Music)

“You know, I wrote the song, and oddly enough, it's been the most well known from this movie that it was in Twilight.”

You know, it came out around the time they were filming this movie.

And as far as I've been told the story, a reputable source told me that Kristen Stewart was listening to it in her headphones while they were blocking this dance scene. And she was just watching going, "Oh, this kind of fits, you know, you guys want to put this on some speakers." And they listened to it so many times, and it just stuck in their brain, and it became their irreplaceable song for them. But yeah, it changed my life. You know, we were doing better than I ever imagined.

I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to read music. I don't know how to plan just enjoy making songs.

I never imagined that I'd be this would be my career, and so I had already felt like the lucky as person on the planet.

“And then when I got on the soundtrack and the audience just sort of blossomed and bloomed in this way, I never imagined.”

It was a huge part of the building of my career. You never know, you never know where they're going to land. ♪ Have I found you, my last bird ♪ ♪ Grounded, bleed ♪ ♪ And no lost you ♪

I feel like what happens in the song is a statement.

This is what it was like when I was young, and this is what I'm frustrated about now. Growing up and getting older and trying to understand how things work and just feeling unsettled. I don't feel like this narrator ever reached some kind of resolution.

“I think it's just more like things are different now, and I don't think they're great.”

I don't know who I am. The flight was bird in the American mouth. You know, he feels like somewhere in between those things. Any time someone is griping about the state of their country is because they're frustrated. I don't feel like they can change it except by saying it. And I love America. I mean, it's fine to love America and criticize it at the same time as what we do. But we just criticize the things we love the most.

♪ And now, here's Flightless Bird, American mouth, by Iron and Wine, in its entirety. ♪ I was a quick, wet boy, dive into deep ♪ ♪ For coins all of your street light eyes ♪ ♪ Why don't my black steak ♪

♪ Wait, then when the cops close the fair ♪ ♪ I cut my lawn, baby ♪ ♪ And stole me a dog here and map ♪ ♪ And called for you everywhere ♪ ♪ And what for you ♪

♪ Lightless Bird ♪ ♪ Just wait ♪ ♪ But no lost you ♪ ♪ Never got mad ♪ ♪ Be it good ♪

♪ No ♪ ♪ Now I'm a fat house ♪ ♪ Can't listen to my song ♪ ♪ Don't watch in the morning ♪ ♪ Always in balance ♪

♪ Cracks ♪ ♪ Kissing on my eyes ♪

“♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪”

♪ Why don't my black steak ♪

♪ Lightless Bird ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪

“♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪”

♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪

♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪

“♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪”

♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪

♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪

♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪ ♪ You're through the street light eyes ♪