INDEX
Like Moving a Lengthy Thread
-When I look at the credits, I see that most of the music was composed by the two of you. Can you tell us a little more about what the process of composing together was like?
Norah: For many of the songs, we started with a structure, with Leon playing drums and me playing piano or guitar. Sometimes we’d sing at the same time while we were working on some structure. We would write songs in this way, and then we would play the finished songs alone again, and record them.
-For example, in “Begin Again,” “Little Broken Hearts,” and “Day Breaks,” there were songs where the writing credit was jointly given. Is your method different from those?
Norah: I think it is a little different. I write songs with Leon because it is quite unique. On the other hand, each one is a creative process no matter who you are working with, so I guess you could say that it is different every time, not just this one in particular. If we were to do things the same way, I think the songs would have the same feel every time. I think it is always different.
-Has there been a past instance of playing various instruments and creating solely with just two people?
Norah: When I wrote with Jeff Tweedy (“Begin Again”), he played guitar, I played piano, and we both played guitar. When I worked with Danger Mouse (“Little Broken Hearts”), we also used a variety of instruments. He would play drums, I would play piano or keyboards, and he would play guitar or keyboards, and we would weave the songs together. The instruments were different, but I think we wrote songs in the same way.
-What do you think is the difference in what comes out of a composition in this way, with a small group of people playing various instruments, and your usual compositions?
Norah: Of course it is different. When I compose with other people, they have a different energy. For example, they develop a chord progression that tends to be different from the one that comes to mind for me. It’s not all explainable, but I think all things affect all things.
-Which songs did you write from ideas you had?
Norah: Rather many of the songs. “Visions,” “Queen Of The Sea,” and “I’m Awake” are songs I wrote at home and brought into the studio to arrange together. I wrote them at home and brought them to the studio and we worked together on the arrangements. Songs like “On My Way” and “All This Time” were written from old voice memos I had. The first part was my idea, and we rearranged it and came up with other parts together.
On the other hand, some songs, like “Staring At The Wall,” we wrote together in the studio from the beginning. Leon said, “Let’s do something fast tempo,” and he started playing the drums, and I said, “I can’t play the piano that fast! (laughs), and I started playing the riff on the guitar. We wrote “Alone With My Thoughts” together in the studio, but there were no lyrics on it at the time. I went through my voice memos and found a verse I had written before, so I tweaked it a bit to fit the song and finished it.
-Which song was the seed of an idea that came up on the spot and grew from there?
Norah: “Alone With My Thoughts,” “Staring At The Wall,” and “Swept Up In The Night ” are the ones that did.
-Do you have an example of one idea that came up at some point that changed the song?
Norah: Well, I wish I had a good example of something like that: ……. Everything we do in the studio affects the music. It’s the interaction that changes it. To use an analogy, it’s like a long string that changes its flow every few minutes, and we are moving it together. It’s hard to explain, but I think everything changes like that. If the same song had been written with different people, it would have been completely different music and a different sound.
-By the way, why did the idea come to you in the middle of the night or before going to bed?
Norah: I think songs are created when it is quiet. But quiet moments are hard to come by. Phone calls come in, and my mind is always busy with various things. So I think I can often do it at night, or when I am meditating, or in the bath.
