A Beginner’s Guide To ‘Song Exploder’, The Music Nerd’s Podcast Of Choice
'Song Exploder' offers access to artists that most music fans only dream of.
At the end of 2013, composer Hrishikesh Hirway came up with a very simple idea for a podcast: Interview an artist about one of their songs, asking them to take it apart piece by piece, detailing their writing process and the meaning behind the track.
It’s the kind of music-nerd fodder that could be a little too inside baseball for most casual music fans, but Song Exploder — which has grown into one of the most popular music podcasts on the planet — feels far from exclusive. The simple format, with Hirway guiding his guest with the aid of the song’s stems, is intimate and illuminating, offering listeners access to the innermost thoughts of some of the biggest artists on the planet.
Over the years Hirway has featured some incredible talent, from Bjork to Robyn to Raphael Saadiq to St Vincent and many more, and also pulled from just about ever genre out there — Song Exploder has explored musical numbers, scores, and even TV soundtracks.
Recently, the podcast made the leap to TV, with four episodes landing on Netflix. Featuring Alicia Keys, R.E.M, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Ty Dolla $ign, the series manages to retain the sparse and simple format of the original. More episodes are in the pipeline, set to feature Nine Inch Nails, Dua Lipa, and The Killers.
If you’ve never listened, the immense back catalogue of Exploder episodes can seem completely intimidating. So, we’ve pulled out a few of the best to get you started.
Alicia Keys feat. Sampha — ‘3 Hour Drive’
In the first episode of Netflix’s adaptation, Alicia Keys and Sampha gently walk through their moody, downtempo collaboration ‘3 Hour Drive’. Sampha reveals his grief over the death of his mother, and Keys grapples with the revelation that she, too, will one day be forced to leave her sons in the world.
“You give me life for me meant my sons,” Keys tells Hirway. “And you give me life for him, meant his mum.”
According to Hirway, Keys — normally quite reserved in interviews — jumped at the chance to feature on the show, and her team went as far as gifting Netflix behind the scenes footage from their recording sessions.
“It was an unbelievable treat,” Hirway told Entertainment Weekly. “It was an unbelievable piece of access that we got. It changes the nature of the episode completely.”
The Postal Service — ‘The District Sleeps Alone Tonight’
What better place to start than at…the start? In the very first podcast episode, dropped on January 1 2014, Jimmy Tamborello painstakingly details how The Postal Service — his beloved collaborative project with Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard — pulled together a track from their first, and only, album.
After you’ve listened, dive into our recent feature on Give Up.
Robyn — ‘Honey’
Robyn’s shimmering 2018 track ‘Honey’ has been labelled her masterpiece, and this episode might just be Song Exploder’s equivalent. There’s nothing particularly outrageous or illuminating in it — it’s a simple dissection of an amazing song — but hearing Robin Carlsson’s gentle voice is a slave, and the isolated vocal lines will raise goosebumps on your arms. It feels like being immersed in cold water.
Courtney Barnett — ‘Depreston’
Barnett tends to play her cards close to her chest in interviews, so to hear her gently unravel the meaning behind ‘Depreston’ — a song written about her experience of checking out a rental house in Melbourne, and becoming overwhelmed by the grimness of mortality — feels incredibly special.
Grimes — ‘Kill V Maim’
Claire Boucher reveals the reason she wrote the frenetic, aggressive ‘Kill V Main’ was because a friend was foolish enough to say she wrote “cute music”. We should all thank that friend, as ‘Kill V Maim’ is one of Grimes’ best.
Grimes’ genius is on full display in this episode — she excitedly explains how she used 40 drums tracks on the song, and recorded her vocals 50 times the ‘B E H A V E’ part of the pre-chorus.
Lorde — ‘Sober’
The relationship between producer and artist is a slightly magical one to the outsider, and to hear Lorde speak on her close working relationship with super pop producer Jack Antonoff is illuminating.
She also goes in deep about her vocals and evolving technique, making this episode a great one for singers and punters alike.
Weezer — ‘Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori’
This episode sparked a bit of controversy among diehard Weezer fans, who were shocked at Rivers Cuomo’s apparently ‘meaningless’ method of songwriting. In this episode, Cuomo revealed that he writes by using spreadsheets to pull together completely random lyrics, song titles, and melodies.
Fans were irked that this seemed to suggest the songs have no deeper meaning to them, that they were almost “contrived” — at least according to one aggrieved Redditor. Songwriter Mitski, who’s also been featured on Song Exploder, even wrote an article about the debacle, defending Cuomo and pointing out that filmmaker David Lynch uses similar methods.
Ramin Djawadi — Game Of Thrones Theme
Even if you’re not a fan of the show, you’ll get a lot out of Djawadi’s fascinating explanation of how he created the now iconic theme song for the HBO series. And if you are a fan, you’re in for a real treat.
Djawadi says he wanted the whole theme to hinge on the tension between the minor and major scales, and he chose the cello as the main instrument due to its extensive range.
MGMT — ‘Time To Pretend’
MGMT have made no bones about the fact they detest some their biggest hits — and ‘Time To Pretend’ was the hit that launched them from their college bedrooms into the stratosphere. To hear Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser pull apart a song they have an acrimonious relationship with makes for interesting listening.
Intriguingly, they reveal the song contains an homage to ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’, hidden in the mix at the 3.53 mark.
Song Exploder is now on Netflix, and you can listen to the podcast on most streaming services.