0:00

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take

0:02

apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell

0:04

the story of how they were made. I'm

0:06

Rishi Kesh, here away. Last

0:11

year, Vagabond released her third album, Sorry I

0:13

Haven't Called, which I've been listening to a

0:15

lot. So, I wanted to revisit an

0:17

episode that I recorded with her back in 2020

0:19

about her breakout song Water Me

0:21

Down. The episode also features

0:24

the voice of Eric Littman, who co-produced the

0:26

track. He passed away in June 2021,

0:28

way too young. Vagabond's

0:31

new album is dedicated to him. If

0:34

you haven't heard this episode before, I hope you like

0:36

it. When

0:40

Leticia Tamko started making the second Vagabond

0:42

album, she really wanted to produce the entire

0:44

thing on her own. It would be a

0:46

new sound, and producing was still a relatively

0:49

new skill for her, but she wanted to

0:51

tackle it head-on and do it all herself.

0:54

On this song though, Water Me Down,

0:56

Leticia actually had a co-producer, Eric Littman.

0:58

It's the one exception to her otherwise

1:01

entirely self-produced album. In this

1:03

episode, she breaks down how she and Eric

1:05

collaborated to make the song, and why it

1:07

was worth making that exception. It

1:09

really waters me down. Hi,

1:18

I'm Leticia Tamko, and I make music

1:21

as Vagabond. I

1:24

was at my friend Eric

1:26

Littman's house in Bushwick, New York.

1:29

We met at a mountain show.

1:32

Our friend used to host these shows

1:34

where you hike up a mountain with

1:36

your instruments in Cold Spring, New York,

1:39

and you play at different points

1:41

of the hike. I performed

1:43

one, and Eric just needed a

1:45

ride. We met through the carpool

1:48

and became great friends. He

1:51

is someone who has been really supportive

1:53

of my journey as a producer. During

1:56

the winter, every Wednesday, we would get together and

1:58

make music. So, we were in his

2:00

very small bedroom. And the

2:03

plan was to demo

2:05

a vagabond song that I had

2:07

started writing a few days earlier.

2:10

So I came there with the intention

2:13

of recording another song. And

2:15

then he showed me the synth

2:17

line that he had started working

2:20

on for another project. I

2:25

heard it and I was like, oh my God, what is that? I'd

2:30

been playing around a little bit with my mini-logue

2:32

and I made this patch. It's

2:35

this very like soft keyboard kind of sound. I

2:42

was just playing around with a couple of chords and

2:45

then was playing around with a lead line

2:47

with some delay where the notes kind of

2:49

cascade into each other. And

3:00

then I added this fluttery

3:02

MS20 lead line. ["L

3:30

And I heard this 909 kick." I

3:39

didn't have a big intention going in. I was just kind

3:41

of chasing a feeling and was just kind of excited by

3:43

it. And it was this

3:45

kind of like soft pulsating little housey

3:47

song. ["L This

3:58

is all kind of going on and let's see." she had come

4:00

over and made some sort of letter in or something,

4:02

and she kind of overheard me kind of playing around

4:04

with this, and her ears kind of pretend like, oh,

4:06

what site are you playing around with? Oh,

4:09

I kind of want to play around with this, actually. And I

4:11

don't know what we were planning on doing that day, but

4:14

this became our focus. I

4:16

was like, I have to have this song. And

4:19

so I asked him if I can hop on it

4:22

and just do some vocals. So

4:24

he gave me the room for 30 minutes,

4:27

and immediately I had

4:29

an idea for melodies

4:31

and lyrics. Oddly

4:33

enough, I had just gotten

4:35

off the phone with someone

4:37

I was dating at the time, and it

4:39

was the most infuriating phone call

4:42

that I had been on in

4:44

a long time. And I think I had

4:46

this epiphany moment where I was like, wait, I

4:48

don't need any of this. I'm

4:50

not in survival mode. I don't

4:52

need anything that doesn't serve me

4:55

or make me feel good. I

4:57

need more. I was having

5:00

this conversation in Eric's room, so as soon

5:02

as I got off the phone, I

5:04

had just had all these things that I wanted to

5:07

say to the person. And so

5:09

I sat on his bed with a microphone

5:11

to my mouth, and I just sang the

5:13

entire song. Never meant to

5:15

be you, never meant to be me,

5:17

never meant to be yours. It

5:20

was very much like I wish I said it on

5:22

the phone, but I used

5:25

those feelings very much in the moment, and that's

5:27

why I came pouring out. I was just in

5:29

it. In a time when you

5:31

don't know how to communicate with someone, it

5:34

has served me well in my entire career

5:37

so far to put those

5:39

messages that I wish I can

5:41

have with people into songs. Never

5:44

meant for all of this, never meant for

5:46

you to laugh, never meant for you to

5:48

trust. I

5:51

was entirely freestyling

5:53

and improvising. I've

5:55

come to find that my strengths

5:57

are just getting on a microphone.

10:00

through collaborating, you can actually make

10:02

something really special and open

10:04

a part of your creativity. So

10:07

trusting the person that I'm collaborating with,

10:10

not just their tastes and their technical

10:12

ability, but just how they are as

10:14

a person, made it easier

10:16

and I'm a better producer for it.

10:31

That's Oliver Hill on Viola. He

10:34

made this three-part harmony that's

10:37

very mournful. I

10:40

wanted these strings that sound sad

10:42

if you isolate them. If you isolate the strings

10:45

on the vocal, you have a whole different song

10:48

with these lyrics that

10:50

are really raw and

10:52

emotional and ending.

10:54

It feels like an ending. It

11:00

really warms me down. But

11:04

within the context of the

11:06

beat, you have

11:09

a whole other world because the

11:11

instrumental feels like the beginning. That

11:13

is exactly what that phone call

11:15

felt like and so

11:17

I really wanted to chase that. I

11:22

wanted to express the triumph of

11:24

feeling this thing but not feeling

11:26

like it's the end of the

11:28

world. You

11:30

know me better than that. You know I hate

11:32

it like that. It really warms me down. You

11:38

know me better than that. You know I

11:40

love you like that. It really warms me

11:42

down. Water

11:46

me down, it means to

11:49

be diluted like

11:51

someone taking away from the

11:54

pure concentration of a person and so

11:56

the way that I'm using it in this song is

11:59

this really dilutes everything that

12:01

is good about me. Do

12:04

you know if the person who you were talking to on the phone

12:06

ever heard this song? I

12:08

don't know for certain, but I'm positive. I'm

12:11

sure of it. Almost

12:17

immediately I was like, I know he's gonna hear

12:19

this, so that's perfect. You

12:25

know, a little petty behavior turned

12:27

into a pretty good song. This

12:30

was a very specific time

12:33

in my life too. I

12:37

demoed this in March of 2017, which

12:43

is right when my first album came out.

12:45

And here I am, my

12:47

life has changed. I

12:50

am a computer engineer by work.

12:52

Like I'm full-time coder at the

12:54

time and I'm about to

12:56

quit my job. So it really was a time

12:58

of such transition and really

13:01

coming into who I am going

13:04

to be and this person just

13:06

didn't fit the mold. And so I

13:08

had this like breakthrough moment and I

13:10

wasn't sad. This was not an ending

13:13

that was sad. That

13:15

was exciting to me. That is. Coming

13:25

up, you'll hear how all of those ideas and

13:27

elements came together in the final song. Song

13:30

Exploder is brought to you by Progressive,

13:33

where drivers who save by switching saved

13:35

nearly $750 on average. Quote

13:38

now at progressive.com. Progressive

13:41

Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National

13:43

average 12 month savings of $744

13:46

by new customer surveyed, who saved with Progressive between

13:48

June 2022 and May 2023. Potential

13:52

savings will vary. Thanks

13:55

to Apple for supporting this episode. Get

13:57

3% daily cash back when you use

13:59

Apple Card. It

18:31

really waters me

18:34

down It

18:39

really waters

18:41

me down To

19:02

learn more about Vagabond,

19:04

visit songexploder.net/Vagabond. You'll also

19:07

find the music video for Water Me Down and a

19:09

link to buy or stream this song. This

19:13

episode was originally produced by me and

19:15

Christian Koons with production assistance from Olivia

19:17

Wood. This reissue was produced

19:19

by Craig Ely, Theo Balcom, Kathleen

19:21

Smith, Mary Dolan, and myself. Our

19:24

artwork is by Carlos Larma, and I made

19:26

the shows theme music and logo. Song

19:29

Exploder is a proud member of

19:31

Radiotopia from PRX, a network of

19:34

independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can

19:36

learn more about our shows at

19:38

radiotopia.fm. If

19:41

you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up

19:43

for my newsletter, which you can find on the Song Exploder

19:45

website. You can also follow

19:47

me and Song Exploder on

19:49

Instagram, and you can get

19:52

a Song Exploder t-shirt at

19:54

songexploder.net/shirt. I'm

19:56

Ruchikeh Shirwe. Thanks for listening. RadioTopia

20:03

from PRX.

20:10

If you aren't already listening to the Peabody

20:12

Award winning podcast, Radio Diaries, now's a great

20:15

time to start. They're a

20:17

fellow RadioTopia show and they're back with new

20:19

stories. One of them is called

20:21

Dust Bowl Diary and it's about climate migration,

20:23

but it's not in present day. It goes

20:25

back more than eight decades following a family

20:27

fleeing Arkansas in the wake of the Dust

20:29

Bowl to find a better life in California.

20:32

They also have a new mini-series coming out

20:35

in October called Making Waves about the rise

20:37

of talk radio in America. To

20:39

hear those stories and more, subscribe

20:41

to Radio Diaries wherever you get

20:43

your podcasts or visit them at

20:46

radiodiaries.org.