0:00

One of my recurring life fantasies

0:03

is to be in a family band. Like,

0:05

can you imagine having

0:08

a family where you could be on

0:10

a stage at a crowded amphitheater or

0:12

just hanging around after a Sunday dinner? Everyone's

0:15

got out their instruments, you know

0:17

the same songs, all

0:20

that you know of each other gets put

0:22

to sound, and the ways

0:24

you're different mix together to create

0:27

distinct harmonies? What

0:29

a dream. And

0:32

also, as Martha Wainwright

0:34

tells us in this episode, being

0:37

part of a sprawling family

0:39

of talented musicians is

0:41

not without its complications.

0:44

You're contending with fame, you're

0:46

contending with egos, you're

0:49

comparing yourself to your family

0:51

members all the time while

0:54

you're trying to be in relationship with them. When

0:58

I go on stage now, I feel, you

1:00

can see I'm a bete de seine, you

1:03

know, a beast of the stage, you know, somebody

1:05

who likes it. And I

1:07

was always like that, you know, I was always sort

1:09

of trying to stand up in front of everybody and

1:11

push people to the side and sing loud and stick

1:14

out, which was quite hard to

1:16

do considering who was around me. And

1:18

also folk music, you also

1:20

need to learn how to sing together. This

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and need to talk about more. I'm

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2:20

Martha Wainwright comes from a family

2:22

of folk musicians. If

2:24

you're picturing milk toast buttoned up folkies, like

2:27

from the movie The Mighty Wind, you've

2:29

got the wrong image. Picture

2:32

instead lots of hard partying,

2:34

complicated romantic genealogies of who

2:36

was with which person when,

2:39

and lyrics that can be personally

2:41

cutting, Taylor Swift style. You've

2:45

got a girlfriend and I can

2:47

only talk about her for so

2:49

very long. My

2:55

heart was made for bleeding, I

2:57

don't want to speak for

2:59

you. This

3:02

is folk that makes you

3:04

cry because it knows heartbreak

3:06

and disappointment. And

3:08

also why it's still

3:10

great to gather the music festival,

3:12

shoes and bras off, showing

3:15

off what Martha calls folk

3:17

tits. To me what

3:19

folk tits are, are not so much

3:22

sexy, wood stock, young boobs.

3:25

But I just, you know, being on stage

3:27

with my parents, the

3:31

audience are older, you know, in their

3:33

forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and they have

3:35

chairs and they're sort of comfortable and

3:37

they're wearing socks maybe with

3:39

their sandals. I mean

3:41

it's starting to happen to me as

3:43

I approach menopause. I notice that my,

3:45

I'm getting kind of a big uni,

3:47

more of a uni boob is happening.

3:50

It's just this sort of, you know, a

3:52

lady who's comfortable with herself and listening to

3:54

the music and not really being

3:57

so concerned about your tits.

3:59

Yeah. even though they're there, you

4:01

know, in a big way. They're

4:03

there, they're abundant, they've been through

4:05

some things. Yes. They've nourished people

4:07

or not. Martha

4:10

is 48, entering the folktits' time

4:12

of life herself. She's got

4:14

two sons. When we talked, one was in the

4:17

other room, staying quiet on his tablet. She

4:19

was on a video call from her brother

4:21

Rufus Wainwright's place near the beach on Long

4:23

Island. Her half-siblings,

4:26

Lucy Wainwright-Rosh and Alexandra Kelly

4:28

Wainwright, were also musicians, as

4:31

was her mother, Kate McGarrigal, and

4:33

her father, Loudon Wainwright III, who

4:36

Martha lived with for a year in New York City when

4:38

she was 14. He

4:41

didn't know how to talk to his kids

4:43

because he never really brought us up, so

4:45

he didn't have that wall or that kind

4:47

of filter that you have when you're sort

4:49

of more protective of your children. Oh,

4:52

interesting. The

4:54

things you hold back, the restraint. Yeah,

4:57

the restraint, exactly. Because ever

5:00

since they're little, you're sort of lying to them. And just

5:02

editing, editing a lot, just protect them. And

5:09

he said to me, I

5:11

love you, but I don't like you. And

5:14

it was just very honest, but

5:17

I didn't appreciate it. It

5:19

hurt my feelings. I'm

5:22

so happy, I'm so

5:26

happy, that

5:31

I'm here to help you. I'm

5:36

here to help you.

5:39

Mostly, Martha was raised in Montreal,

5:42

Canada, with her brother Rufus by their

5:44

mother, Kate, who died in

5:46

2010 after three years of living with

5:48

cancer. Music was

5:50

always around and performing, too, so

5:53

much so that career and

5:56

creative advice co-mingled with parenting.

5:59

I will make a video. I remember I was at a party

6:02

and my mom was

6:04

there and it was late. People

6:06

had been drinking and stuff and there

6:08

was some stars there and

6:11

we were all sort of going

6:13

through, you know, people were playing their songs

6:15

either on the piano or at the guitar

6:18

and there was a young pianist and he just

6:21

got up on the piano and just

6:24

played beautifully and confidently and for quite

6:26

some time. My

6:29

mother kind of leaned over to

6:31

me and she said, that's confidence and that's the

6:34

best thing that you can have and

6:37

basically saying you

6:39

need to get on this

6:41

wagon because this is your competition. How

6:43

old were you when your mom said

6:45

that to you? I was younger. I

6:47

was like maybe 20 and

6:50

certainly since then I've gained confidence but

6:52

I've had to do it not so

6:54

much by having this super

6:57

confidence from day one. These

6:59

were mostly young guys. These were mostly

7:02

young first born children, guys that had

7:04

been totally told they were amazing their

7:06

whole lives. But my

7:09

confidence came from doing shows over

7:11

and over and over again and

7:14

sometimes embarrassing myself for

7:16

failing and then I had

7:18

to find it somehow. I

7:22

wish I hadn't had to but

7:24

I did. It's

7:26

interesting to know that when you call

7:29

up that memory, you remember

7:31

your mom not just saying

7:34

look at that confidence, that's

7:36

something that can be a real asset

7:39

in life. You heard it as like

7:42

this is a place you need to work. You

7:44

don't have enough of this. Absolutely. I

7:46

think that that's what she was telling me and

7:48

I don't think she meant it in a mean

7:50

way and I wasn't offended.

7:55

I heard her and then I

7:57

worried about it. that

8:00

she just, she knew that I was coming

8:02

up after my brother and he had just,

8:04

you know, signed a major record contract at

8:07

21 years old and he had a lot

8:09

of confidence and a lot of also work

8:11

ethic and I think she knew

8:13

that I could be great too, but she just

8:16

wanted to let me know

8:18

how I could be. And

8:20

when you think about your mother and how

8:22

she sort of presented, you know, she was

8:24

an artist, a performer, she was

8:28

also your most present caregiver when you were

8:30

growing up. How

8:32

do you think about her relationship to confidence

8:34

and how she presented? Well,

8:37

I suspect now that she was also

8:39

telling me this because she really wanted

8:42

both of her kids

8:44

to reach heights

8:46

that she didn't and

8:48

would have wanted to, you know, and

8:50

her career she sang with her sister

8:52

and a McGarrigal and once

8:55

they had their children, their career really

8:57

slowed down. And I think my mother

8:59

would have liked to have taken it

9:01

further and she saw Joni Mitchell and

9:04

Joan Baez and these other female singers

9:06

who were really confident

9:10

and succeeding and I think that the

9:12

part of her wish that she could

9:14

do that too. So

9:17

I think she was telling me, but she

9:19

was also telling herself. But

9:21

for her it was too late and she wanted us

9:24

to do it, you know, and that's what she really wanted.

9:26

She wanted Rufus and I to be a duo

9:29

really is what she wanted, but then once

9:32

Rufus was, he was

9:34

writing songs, he was really, he really

9:36

did not want that and eventually I

9:38

did not want it either. And

9:43

you still make beautiful music together.

9:45

Oh, absolutely. Made very beautiful music

9:47

together. We like singing together, you

9:49

know, and that's fun. While

10:05

I was preparing to talk to you, I

10:07

watched an old video of a performance of

10:09

Talk to Me of Mendocino with your mom

10:11

and your brother and you from 1999. Wow.

10:17

It's just so beautiful. Do

10:20

you like watching old performances or listening

10:23

to old performances of different versions of

10:25

your family and people who are gone?

10:28

Some of them. I

10:31

like watching old performances of my family. Sometimes

10:33

I cringe at some of the stuff of

10:35

myself, not so much because some of it's really

10:37

good but some of it I don't maybe like

10:40

the way I look or something. I

10:44

like it. I've always liked to listen

10:46

to my parents and

10:49

of course seeing them when they're younger, it's

10:51

like a total crazy trip and how

10:54

beautiful they were. My

10:58

parents didn't have a long or

11:00

great marriage but I'm such a

11:02

huge fan of both of them.

11:07

My dad, he

11:09

always had a lot of girlfriends

11:11

and he talks

11:15

about it openly. He's a ladies

11:18

man and I've seen

11:20

some footage of him when he's younger

11:22

and playing and it is pretty remarkable

11:24

how sexy they both

11:26

were. I was like, we're trying to

11:28

be sexy. I

11:32

was maybe trying to be sexy. I

11:34

don't know what happened but we're trying to be sexy.

11:39

Then you go back and you look at your parents and

11:41

you're like, oh no, no, no, no, they were really

11:43

sexy. I

11:46

think it runs in the family. I think everybody's

11:48

got a little touch of sexy. Yeah. I

11:51

was like, whoa, this guy's sexy. You

12:00

ain't some waiting, all

12:03

you can think is when the

12:05

rock for your home's gonna shine.

12:10

Twenty years ago, when my first

12:12

record came out, I was

12:14

not a kid and I had been making

12:16

music for a long time. And,

12:19

you know, no one wanted to

12:21

sign me. The music was kind

12:23

of weird. It wasn't straight up

12:25

folk. It wasn't rock. It wasn't

12:27

pop. It was kind of confusing.

12:30

My brother had already just been signed.

12:32

My parents were semi-known.

12:36

I think it was kind of a... I

12:39

seemed like a long shot. And

12:41

then finally, when the first record came out,

12:44

I think people were happy to see it

12:46

happen, you know, and to get some attention.

12:49

And so listening back 20 years on,

12:51

I mean, it's like the most potent

12:53

kind of photo album you could have. What

12:55

does it feel like to listen to? It

12:59

feels good. I mean, I think that, you

13:01

know, the subject matter has remained the same.

13:04

There's a lot of songs about my

13:07

dad. There's a lot of songs

13:09

about dicks.

13:11

It's like Dicks and Dads. There's a

13:14

lot of that, you know. And

13:17

now I have

13:19

two boys and a male dog and

13:21

a boyfriend, and I'm like, I'm still

13:24

swam by dicks. I'm like, Jesus Christ.

13:26

It's a lot of... a lot of

13:29

penises. You

13:46

know, you've been entwined

13:49

with your brother both

13:51

in your family and

13:53

professionally. your

14:01

entire life. Do

14:03

you feel like, I don't

14:07

know, do you still bicker like siblings or has it

14:09

taken on a different character?

14:13

We don't bicker so much but

14:15

maybe, you know, once every couple

14:17

of years we will have an

14:20

argument, you know, but it's not,

14:22

it's more intense.

14:25

Uh-huh. It's more intense.

14:28

But beyond that I would say, you

14:30

know, no, we don't really bicker or

14:32

fight anymore. Our

14:34

roles are so determined

14:37

and we're so

14:39

appreciated. I think

14:42

we both appreciate each other so much that

14:44

we don't want to ruin

14:48

that. Right

14:50

now we're really leaning, we lean on

14:52

each other a lot and we appreciate

14:54

the other person's point of

14:56

view and it's not worth

14:59

it to blow it up. And

15:03

I know what bothers me about, you

15:06

know, Rufus, you know, when I sing on

15:08

his records and I think my vocals

15:11

are too quiet. That's what bothers me.

15:14

Turn it up a little bit. But that's,

15:17

he's not gonna. Covering

15:19

Justice delivers its death. Please

15:22

welcome Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

15:25

There's been tension and

15:27

harmony. Listen to their

15:29

voices together. This is Martha performing with

15:32

Rufus on The Tonight Show in 2023

15:36

as Rufus was promoting his latest album. Looking

16:03

back when your mom was getting sick, how

16:08

do you think about how you responded? That

16:11

you were there by her hospital bed, that you

16:14

showed up, that you were sleeping

16:16

beside her on a cot? Is

16:18

that surprising to you? Well,

16:21

it was... I

16:23

was sad because I wish

16:25

I had had more time with her

16:28

because our relationship was more strange. When

16:31

I was a teenager

16:33

and in my 20s I pushed

16:36

her away somewhat. And

16:39

then very quickly she became

16:41

very sick. And

16:44

so I had to make up for that. So

16:47

I really quickly had to sort of, with

16:51

the time that I had left, try

16:54

and have

16:57

all the good experiences I could with her because I knew

16:59

I wasn't going to have her for very long. And

17:02

so that was sad to me,

17:04

to have to

17:08

sort of have three years to have a

17:10

great relationship with my mother. When

17:13

I thought I would have 20 or more to fix our difficult years.

17:24

Was it difficult for you that other

17:26

members of your family didn't respond with

17:28

that same tenderness? No,

17:31

I think everyone responded the way that

17:33

they needed to with the short period

17:35

of time that they had. Ruth is

17:37

who had always adored my mother and

17:39

was very close to her and they

17:41

were very, very

17:43

tight. Now when those three years of

17:46

illness resented her and became angry

17:48

with her, because he only

17:50

had three years to do that. And

17:56

to blame her,

17:58

whereas I had blamed her. always

18:00

before. I think

18:02

it made my aunt see

18:05

her own mortality. Everybody

18:07

had their own way

18:10

of dealing with it that

18:12

was really about themselves, of course, partially.

18:16

Because Kate was almost like a, I

18:19

don't want to say a martyr, but

18:21

it did feel like that because she

18:23

was such an interesting person and then

18:25

she got sick and she was so

18:27

young and she became very beautiful and

18:29

really interesting and she was almost like

18:31

this kind of, there was

18:35

like a saintly thing about it.

18:37

There was this kind of religious thing that she's

18:39

here to show us about ourselves,

18:41

or to teach us about ourselves, or she's going

18:43

to die for us. It felt like that a

18:45

little bit. Can you

18:47

tell me more about that? How

18:50

did that

18:52

manifest? What did that look like? Just

18:56

because she became very graceful

18:59

and she

19:04

wasn't angry. I mean, she was angry. I

19:06

know she was angry, but she saved it

19:08

for herself probably and she was probably scared

19:11

too. But she got

19:13

into Greek mythology and she wrote

19:15

that song Proserpina, which is such

19:17

an incredible song about the cycle

19:19

of life. And she traveled with

19:21

us whenever she could. And everything

19:23

was this kind of huge grand

19:26

gesture, even though she was really

19:28

ill and sometimes very, very

19:31

much in pain. But she just

19:33

sort of did it for us and for

19:35

herself too, with the little time that she

19:37

had left to make us feel okay

19:40

about the fact that she was dying, even

19:42

though none of us were and neither was

19:44

she. I

19:50

shall burn down the

19:52

heat. I shall take

19:54

away every morsel to

19:56

eat. I shall turn

19:58

every field. When

20:00

her mother

20:03

died, Martha

20:06

was in

20:09

the UK. She'd

20:28

gone over to do a show while

20:30

pregnant with her first son and went

20:32

into labor prematurely. Her first

20:35

son, Archangelo, spent months in intensive

20:37

care. It wasn't always clear

20:39

he'd survive. Martha was

20:41

a new mother, losing her mother.

20:45

After Kate's death, Martha had to get

20:47

her family back to Canada for a

20:49

Catholic funeral. Me

20:51

and my husband, Brad, we were

20:53

in bits. We were just really

20:55

emotionally drained and completely...

20:58

I think I was smoking again.

21:01

I remember when I found

21:03

out my mom had died, I just was

21:05

like, I grabbed some bottle or something. I

21:08

was drinking out of the bottle. It

21:10

was like, oh my God, I can't believe this

21:12

is happening. We were really upset,

21:15

as you can imagine. We

21:18

got on the plane. I got first

21:20

class tickets because I was like, I just can't

21:22

deal or business class. It was

21:24

really expensive. I

21:28

was holding the baby with the nurse and

21:30

I was just really watching Archangelo because I

21:32

was scared. We have to get him over

21:35

this ocean. I did not want anything to

21:37

go bad. He had his oxygen tank, a

21:39

little oxygen tank. My

21:42

cousin, Lily, and Brad were

21:44

just so freaked out themselves.

21:46

Brad was so relieved to get out of England because

21:48

he hated it. They just started

21:51

pounding down the drinks and

21:53

were just celebrating. I was

21:55

getting more and more mad at them. Then

21:58

we got off the plane. Brad

22:00

was kind of careening, he was

22:03

kind of swaying drunkenly with the

22:05

tank. I was like, we still haven't

22:07

gone through immigration. We have

22:09

this kid that's born in England, he has

22:11

a US passport, he's not even Canadian. Like

22:14

there's a lot of questions that

22:16

are going to be asked of us

22:18

right now. We have a lot of

22:21

bags. This

22:24

is good. You know what I mean? So

22:26

I was really pissed off and I

22:29

told him to, a guy had come

22:31

to pick us up at the airport and I

22:33

was like, you take Brad, I'm going in another

22:35

car. But we

22:37

got home and we were happy

22:39

to be home. Coming

22:57

up, Martha deals

23:00

with the unraveling

23:03

of her marriage.

23:14

It was such a painful time and I

23:16

had to be so careful about what I

23:19

could say in writing songs, especially

23:21

in reference to the children or the

23:23

children's father. But at the same

23:25

time, I felt as a songwriter, I

23:28

needed to be able to express really

23:30

how I feel and to not edit

23:32

myself and feel like it

23:34

was the right combination of being

23:36

honest and true and worth saying.

23:54

We have been getting lots of messages

23:56

and voice memos from you about your

23:59

bodies. and your romantic life.

24:01

Thank you for sharing. As I

24:03

said in our episode from a few weeks back called The

24:05

Weight of Love, there's a

24:08

lot of new stuff that some of

24:10

you are navigating as weight loss drugs

24:12

like Ozimpic have become more widely available.

24:15

We're still collecting stories and your

24:17

advice questions about how you are

24:19

and aren't talking about body size

24:22

and body changes in your sex

24:24

life. Record a voice

24:26

memo and send it to us

24:28

at deathsexmoneyatslate.com if you have something

24:31

to share. And

24:33

we have something special for Slate Plus

24:35

members this week in your feed. I

24:38

talk with one of my favorite

24:40

personal finance writers, Charlotte Coles, about

24:43

the aftermath of being scammed.

24:46

Charlotte wrote about this a few months

24:48

ago in New York Magazine and an

24:50

essay that went viral called How I

24:52

Fell for an Amazon Scam Call and

24:55

handed over $50,000. There's

24:58

the expression like the scales fall from

25:00

your eyes and it kind

25:03

of physically almost felt like that. Like

25:05

the whole room kind of shimmered. And

25:08

I just like suddenly

25:10

felt like I was gonna fall over.

25:13

You know, I was just like, oh my

25:16

God, like this is all just

25:18

one huge lie. In

25:20

our episode in your Plus feed, you can hear

25:22

Charlotte and I talk about what it was

25:24

like to be so lied to and

25:27

to be out $50,000 you can't get back because

25:30

you believed the voice on the other side of

25:32

the phone. And months

25:34

after that piece came out, I asked Charlotte

25:36

why she thought it was a good idea

25:38

to tell all of us about it. The

25:41

experience has become sort

25:44

of intertwined in that like

25:46

I got scammed but also everyone

25:49

knows I got scammed. And

25:52

including, you know, millions of people

25:54

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25:56

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25:59

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26:01

really interesting conversation that will make

26:03

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26:05

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26:08

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26:11

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30:37

is Death, Sex, and Money from Slate.

30:39

I'm Anna Sale. Two

30:41

years ago, Martha Wainwright published a

30:44

memoir. It's called Stories I Might

30:46

Regret Telling You. Writing

30:48

it took many years while

30:50

her life was changing. At

30:53

one point, her now ex-husband tried

30:55

to use draft chapters as evidence

30:57

against her and their contentious divorce

31:00

proceedings. In the

31:02

memoir, there are a lot of

31:04

stories of partying, performing, writing different

31:06

songs, but it's that time at

31:08

the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010, when

31:12

her mother was dying and Martha was just

31:15

becoming a mother, where you

31:17

feel her life crack open and

31:19

reassemble itself. How

31:22

much do you think about what

31:24

those few months were like at the end of

31:26

that year when your mom was dying, you

31:29

were worried about whether your son was gonna

31:31

live? So

31:35

much happening at once. I

31:37

don't think about it anymore. Maybe

31:40

I will again, but I don't think about

31:42

it these days. I think that writing the

31:44

book, and

31:49

that's really the biggest part of the book. The

31:52

book took a long time to write too, but

31:54

the biggest part of the book is that period.

32:00

I think the process of doing that really

32:02

helped me, because it

32:04

was years after. It

32:07

was like a decade after that you were

32:09

finishing the book. Yeah, almost. And

32:15

up until that time, up until that book was

32:17

published and was sort of done with, it was

32:20

really haunting all of us

32:22

still. We sort of went, Rufus and I

32:24

have a tendency maybe to be a little

32:26

bit sort of dramatic, but we

32:28

were doing our tribute concerts to Kate for

32:30

a couple of years, which just makes sense.

32:32

But we were still writing songs about it.

32:34

I remember at one point a journalist in

32:36

Quebec did this interview with me, and she's

32:38

like, you guys are still talking about this?

32:40

Basically is what she was saying. You guys

32:42

are really milking this shit. You know? And

32:49

it was true. And Mark Handel,

32:51

my other son, there was

32:53

pictures of her all up on the wall, and he would

32:55

talk about Grandma Kate. It was like this thing. And I

32:57

was like, you know. And then once the book was done,

33:00

I was like, this has got to stop. We've

33:02

got to take this. This can't only be about

33:04

this. I don't know. I think

33:06

it makes sense that one is grieving their mom for a

33:08

long time. Yeah, it's nice. It was a

33:10

way to keep her with us. And

33:13

in a way, it's sad to not

33:15

grieve, because there's more emptiness, you

33:18

know? In

33:20

the years after Martha's mother's death,

33:22

her marriage ended. And it

33:25

was complicated. Her ex-husband

33:27

had been her producer, and they played

33:29

music together. So it was a professional

33:31

rupture, as well as a marital one.

33:35

I really like the

33:37

makeup sex. It's

33:40

the only kind I

33:42

ever get. The

33:44

long days are lonely in

33:46

your eyes. It's not for

33:49

you, but the self I

33:51

left behind. Can

33:53

you believe? You can hear the

33:55

separation and divorce coming in all

33:57

of my records. like,

34:00

oh, there it is. But then

34:02

on this last record that I

34:04

put out now three years ago,

34:06

you know, that gave me the

34:08

opportunity to write, you

34:10

know, a good four or five songs on the

34:12

subject. There was a place where

34:14

I could get a little bit pissed off. There

34:48

were some daggers in there, as

34:50

well as some really some,

34:53

you know, hopefully some

34:56

kind words too. And

34:58

so that that was really helpful

35:02

and singing, going

35:04

out and singing and expressing myself

35:07

and is a really, it's

35:10

a gift, you know, that really

35:12

helped me from,

35:14

you know, falling apart. For

35:18

you, after your marriage ended,

35:21

what did post divorce

35:23

sexiness feel like? Did it feel

35:25

like something totally new? Yes.

35:30

I mean, I felt better

35:33

about myself than I think I

35:35

ever had. I also

35:38

got really thin after my divorce because I

35:40

was so anxious and upset. I think it

35:42

was also because I was sort of freed

35:45

up, but also kind

35:47

of crazy. Yeah. It's like

35:49

really nuts, like kind of

35:52

like, you know, and I

35:55

was playing a lot of shows and

35:57

I was kind of like really emotionally.

36:00

I was just really, everything was very

36:02

intense. And so I looked

36:04

intense and I kind of got

36:07

into it. But one

36:09

thing that was interesting after I got divorced,

36:14

I realized that my impression of me

36:17

and what I looked like and my, if

36:21

I was attractive or not,

36:23

was completely skewed. And like

36:26

all these people sort of, kind

36:29

of almost came out of the woodwork saying, well,

36:32

Martha, I would have totally, I

36:34

totally liked you, but you were married. Or

36:36

I always had a crush on you or

36:38

all this stuff. And I just was like,

36:41

I had never known that because

36:44

I never felt good about what

36:47

I looked like when

36:49

I was married. And

36:52

I don't know, how did that change the way you

36:55

moved through the world, hearing that, that there were these

36:57

admirers of yours that you hadn't? I

36:59

felt, what the heck was I doing? And

37:03

what a huge mistake I made. No,

37:06

I felt, well, at least there's that because

37:08

everything else was very difficult. I missed my

37:10

kids and there was a lot of financial

37:13

issues. Unfortunately, my

37:16

divorce was a really difficult one.

37:18

So there was trials and money

37:21

and everything was

37:23

terribly anxiety-causing. Does

37:28

that make sense? So it felt good to

37:30

at least know that, well, all these men

37:33

always were attracted to me. Not

37:37

that it really mattered that much, but it kind

37:39

of did matter. And I also remember

37:42

thinking, God, maybe

37:44

if I had known that, I

37:46

might have, maybe

37:49

there would have been less songs about me

37:51

not being good enough and more songs about

37:53

me being great. And maybe that would have

37:55

changed my career. That

37:59

concept. maybe would have come a little earlier. I'm

38:04

not such a good lover. I'm

38:06

a better talker. So when you

38:08

touch me there, I'm scared

38:10

that you'll see. I don't

38:13

wait and I

38:15

don't love you. But

38:18

the way that I

38:21

don't love myself. You

38:26

know, it's weird when you talk about

38:28

when divorces happen because there's like a

38:30

date of when a divorce

38:32

is final. And of course

38:34

the unraveling of a marriage can

38:37

take a long, long time. How

38:39

long do you think of your divorce as

38:42

taking? How many years? Well,

38:46

you know,

38:50

my... in

38:52

stages and unfortunately it's not

38:55

really over because we are

38:57

still in contact with children

38:59

and it's still not beautifully

39:01

amicable. So that draws it

39:03

on for a long time. You have to

39:05

be in relationship because you're raising kids together.

39:08

Exactly. And it's not a friendly relationship, unfortunately.

39:10

I mean, we try. We

39:13

do the best we can. So, but it is

39:16

over. And

39:18

it became over for me a couple

39:20

of years after it was

39:23

finalized. I met somebody

39:25

else and I wouldn't have thought that

39:27

that would be the thing that would kill it.

39:32

But it definitely was

39:35

great to replace somebody and

39:37

with somebody better. To turn a page. To

39:39

turn a page. And I remember

39:42

thinking, you know, when

39:45

I was falling in love

39:47

with Nico, my partner, and

39:49

it was very romantic and I was 42,

39:52

which was really surprising to have. I

39:55

didn't think, you know, it was the

39:57

most romantic time of my life and I would

39:59

not have thought of it. thought that at 42. And

40:03

I remember, you know, kind of feeling

40:05

his face and looking at his face,

40:07

who was maybe he was lying on

40:09

top of me, and sort

40:12

of thanking

40:15

him or thanking somebody to

40:17

myself that this would be

40:20

the male, this male face is

40:22

not the face that is

40:25

beauty and perfection, and it

40:27

replaced the other one. And

40:30

I was so relieved for that. That

40:33

you had a new face to think about.

40:35

I had a new face and a new

40:37

body and a new kind of exterior to

40:40

sort of now become the object of my

40:44

desire, you know, and

40:46

love, you know, because

40:49

of course I loved my first husband and of

40:51

course I desired him. When

40:55

you met Nico, your partner,

40:57

he's a creative person and is

41:00

around musicians but isn't a musician himself,

41:02

right? Correct.

41:05

He was a

41:07

musician in his

41:09

20s and he plays saxophone with me sometimes

41:12

on the road, but his profession, he's a

41:14

carpenter, he's a builder. When

41:17

you noticed this time of romance hitting you

41:19

when you were 42 after being through a

41:21

really wounding divorce,

41:26

did you feel open to it? Yes.

41:30

It was very fast, the seriousness,

41:32

because we were not

41:35

kids. We weren't going to kind of

41:38

date or whatever. We just sort

41:40

of went in because

41:43

we really trusted each other and I think

41:45

that that's because I had been burnt before

41:47

and I could

41:49

now recognize, I think, more

41:51

clearly when someone

41:53

is good or something I could see it.

41:58

What did you notice? good, like

42:00

what were the qualities that you kind

42:02

of noticed that felt different? Well,

42:05

and this is probably the thing that made

42:07

me invite it, want it, you

42:09

know, and accept it. Complete

42:12

and utter kindness, lots of

42:14

like adulation, you know, which

42:16

I had never really

42:19

experienced because I had all the

42:21

men before were always men who

42:23

were unavailable, maybe

42:26

difficult, maybe a little

42:28

bit distant, maybe

42:33

cheaters, you know, things like that.

42:35

And so all of

42:38

a sudden, there was somebody who

42:40

was adoring, didn't seem mischievous

42:43

or two

42:45

faced or dangerous. They

42:48

were completely open

42:50

and honest, but also just kind and

42:52

I was like kind of shocked. But

42:55

it was exactly what I needed. And

42:59

I think I also opened my arms to it because

43:01

I was, I

43:04

thought that I had a lot of pain

43:07

and anger and hatred in

43:09

me towards my ex and I was

43:11

vengeful. And

43:14

then when this love arrived, I

43:16

thought, well, you know, instead

43:19

of God, taking

43:21

down my ex is going to bring me

43:24

love. Now, I don't really believe

43:26

in God, but it just felt like I'm

43:28

going to accept this positive thing and I

43:31

need something. Yeah. I

43:34

like that God brought you love, but I don't really

43:37

believe in God, but it was welcome. Coming

43:54

up, Martha and I talk

43:57

about her latest album called Love Will

43:59

Be Reborn. and her

44:01

career ambitions in her late 40s. I'm

44:04

always like, you should be trying harder. You need

44:06

to be more driven. You need

44:08

to be more on social media. You need

44:10

to do this, you need to do that.

44:12

And I know the things that I'm supposed

44:14

to do to be more successful, and I

44:17

don't seem to be able to do them.

44:19

So. I

44:30

said to Roger, the last thing you are,

44:32

fair and balanced. That should have been my

44:34

slogan. When the

44:36

Fox News Channel first went on the

44:38

air, it promised to change television. Few

44:40

broadcasts take any chances these days and

44:42

most are very politically correct. Well, we're

44:44

going to be different. It's gonna be

44:46

kick ass and I wanna be part

44:48

of it. I'm

44:51

Josh Levine. In this season of Slow Burn,

44:54

we'll look at the moment in the early 2000s when

44:56

Fox News became a political and cultural

44:58

force. I'm okay with wearing an American

45:01

flag. And if you're not, I think

45:03

you need to examine who you are.

45:06

You'll hear from Fox insiders, many who've

45:08

never spoken out before. I

45:10

was not told about that beforehand for good reason.

45:12

I wouldn't have gone along with it. And

45:15

you'll hear from the activists and comedians who tried

45:17

to stop it. He said, you're

45:19

being sued by Fox. I

45:21

went, really? That's fabulous.

45:24

Slow Burn season 10, the rise of

45:26

Fox News. Out September 18th,

45:29

wherever you listen. Martha

45:32

Wainwright's latest album, Love Will Be

45:35

Reborn, has a lot of songs

45:37

that could be considered midlife anthems.

45:40

It came out in 2021. 31

45:43

years after Martha's mother, Kate

45:45

McGarrigal, put out her own

45:47

midlife album with her sister, Anna. There's

45:50

so much connection between those two

45:52

records. First of all,

45:54

they were produced by the same producer. Oh,

45:57

really? Oh, I didn't realize that. It's kind

45:59

of their comeback record. It's called Heartbeats Accelerating.

46:02

It's about midlife. It's about not

46:05

having any more romance, about

46:07

your parents dying, about dying.

46:09

It's like so dark and

46:11

intense and so

46:13

beautifully made and crafted. And

46:15

they had this young producer that they

46:17

found who was like 28 at the

46:20

time. And my

46:22

kids started listening to that record

46:24

obsessively a couple of years

46:26

ago. So it's just really interesting how things

46:28

come back. You know? I

46:31

just really love the image of

46:33

two little boys jamming to a

46:35

midlife women's anthem. Exactly. Midlife album.

46:37

Yeah. There's

46:41

a song that my son loves the most.

46:43

And it's called Leave Me Be. Leave

46:46

me be. I'll

46:48

make my own friends. Don't tell me

46:50

who to love. Don't

46:54

tell me who could it be. I

46:59

will find out on my own. Don't

47:01

make them go to my room. I'm

47:05

a stray. Cut

47:07

to 30 years later. And

47:11

you know, that same producer's had a

47:14

lot of success. He did Sarah

47:16

McLaughlin. But I was like, I

47:18

want to make a record with him because

47:20

he makes great records. And

47:23

it's my midlife record. It's a different record.

47:25

It's kind of a little bit more happy,

47:27

I would say, in some

47:30

ways. And it was, you know, but

47:34

it's more of a celebration of midlife. But I

47:36

think it's, you know, I was probably just such

47:38

a terrible thing that I was coming out of

47:41

that, you know, this needed to be positive. So

47:44

you know, they're both sides of

47:46

midlife. And do you

47:49

have a favorite song? I know that's a

47:51

hard, kind of dorky question. But when you

47:53

listen to your latest album, what's

47:55

your current favorite song? I

47:58

really like, I don't perform a lot.