How Does Music Work? with Carolyn Kendrick

My high school show choir did Go The Distance, and I still love it! I can’t hear it without singing the alto part and doing a dramatic “bust thrust” in the final chorus

I need y'all to break down every one of your favourite songs like this tysmmm because it felt like running a tiny rake through sand but the equivalent for my brain

There's also another gender: drumsssss

I've never been able to commit to music theory education, but anytime someone who grasps it explains songs, my brain feels so so good. Thanks gals, this episode was a banger.

I like Carolyn’s version of every song better than the original. I’m not a country music fan but Carolyn performing Speed Trap Town 😍😍😍

maybe you guys need another podcast 🤔

Drums is the third gender of music I think

Is it just me or did Tenacious D really channel Yesterday Once More when they wrote Friendship? It sounds very musically similar to me

Just wanted to say that i recently signed up for the patreon after being a fan of the podcast for about 3 years. I realize the format changed a little after Michael left, which makes sense bc of course things couldn't stay exactly the same, and I wanted to take a minute to say how much I've been enjoying the episodes since then. Looking forward to many more to come. Thanks for continuing to make such a great show.

This episode is so therapeutic somehow 😌

I would love it so much if you would do a Bruce Springsteen episode. My dad recently started listening to your podcast after I showed an episode to him, and he is a die-hard Springsteen fan. Like the kind that follows Bruce around the country whenever he tours. Plus Bruce is a classic example of a misunderstood cultural figure.

Petition for Sarah to release her vampire daddy issues novel against her agent’s wishes? Patreon audiobook tier for it? I want to read it 😂

I am so pleased to hear something on a podcast that I do for fun when I’m alone in my house sometimes. Contemplate why music can completely gut me, and compile lists of said songs. Please start taking listener song suggestions and having these episodes from time to time! I loved the ease of access for playlists too. So so good- and touches the humanity in all of us, no matter how we live or what we do or even what we think and feel. Music is such a universal and powerful experience. Thank you for this!

I just started this & my heart is singing. Man, something’s in the air today! Another example! 😂😌🕯️

This episode absolutely wrecked me in the best way

thanks for including tidal :)

I absolutely love this - thank you so much for getting so in depth about all of it. I love playing music and learning about how to construct it feels like magic. And thank you for going to hard into the emotions they give you! I love that you know how much that's a huge part of the equation. Also this is completely besides the point but they did make a movie about how birds shouldn't tap dance, Happy Feet 😂 (which like. THAT movie is a whole thing on its own but that's the other podcast lol)

What a lovely episode to listen to. Time for another whole new podcast series?!?!

I had never heard "Sheridan Square" before, and my first listen made me full-on ugly cry. Thank you so much for that.

Feeling extremely vindicated in my tendency to listen to Disney hits when I'm pushing through the hardest part of a shift!

this was amazing i love hearing carolyn talk about music

What would I give to have Carolyn walk me through some of my favorite songs 👭 What would I pay to read Sarah’s vampire novel 🙏

Happy Feet already got to the tap dancing animal niche but I'd still watch a movie about a tap dancing seagull :D

This was incredible. Thank you both for sharing so deeply. 💕 Also Carolyn, how can we find your covers album? 😂🙏🏻

I've loved Jason Isbell for years and his ability to write the most devastating lyrics are unparalleled

I feel like Michael Bolton is the Nicolas Cage of music. He's not always involved in high art, but he will consistently commit.

The recommended playlists on Spotify underneath this one made me chuckle. Such a good episode!

I deeply appreciated this ep! Wow wow. Thank you both for being so vulnerable. Also, the poetic structure Sarah was talking about is called a villanelle!! I had to memorize the villanelle “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath for a high school English class and boy did that experience settle deep into my core. At the time I was just starting to deal with intrusive thoughts and rumination related to anxiety— and the repetition in that poem + Sylvia Plath writing about madness in such an embodied way made me feel less alone.

This is random, but I’m pretty sure Carolyn Kendrick’s mom was one of my professors in college. I went to school for music education and she was my advisor!

Beautiful episode.

"It's not nostalgia exactly, but I feel this deep sadness about, like, there was so much time in my life that I didn't even feel like I had the option to be fully present during." "Yeah, like, the years where my body was cooperating the most, my brain was the least online." Oh, ow, straight to the heart.

Carolyn Kendrick dropping her cover album when?? The first note she played/sung for go the distance literally made me freeze in the middle of my work. Truly beautiful voice and musicality!

thank u so much for this. also speed trap town. what a fucking song

Go the distance is very important to me because it was the #1 song in my first Spotify wrapped in 2014 (I was in college lol)

Crying because I just love listening to people talk about things they’re passionate about even if I know nothing about them. Also crying because I love Carolyn and I love her voice. This was a great episode!!!

I loved hearing Caroline talk about loving sad songs! I love some good melancholy, my favorite Bee Gees and Beatles songs are the sad ones. Even though I'm a huge metalhead with all of its bombast I am drawn to bands with contemplative and downbeat styles like Katatonia. Even when I'm in a good mood sometimes a sad song just hits, I love having a breadth of different emotions and states of mind to choose from in my music. You guys have been killing it with these bonus episodes about music, I almost feel like it could be a whole other podcast of its own.

Bette Davis said the best time for a woman was 35, Happy Birthday!

Ahhhh... Howard Ashman. 😭😍😭 I feel Sheridan Square so deep inside my bittersweet queer heart. I've already had to stop to learn how to play Go the Distance on the ukulele. I'm so happy y'all did this. I didn't know I needed this till I had it. More Sarah and Carolyn talk about music episodes, please!!! -Much love and appreciation from a professional clown bimbo.

I haven't listened yet, but want to say a huge thank you for going to the effort of making playlists for 4 different music apps! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Yall make me so happy! The Sinead episode brought me to such a profound place. Really appreciate your insights and explorations into people who's meaning got culturally lost along the way