How Sara Bareilles became a Broadway writer, Sondheim star, and sitcom lead

Alchemy with Anthony Mason

Host Anthony Mason interviews singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles about her career evolution, her new album 'Good Grief', and the intersection o

Key takeaways

• Sara Bare and her new album 'Good Grief' explore themes of grief, infertility, and political shifts.
• Writing for the musical 'Waitress' helped Sara develop 'radical empathy' by writing from perspectives far from her own.
• The song 'Forever' was deeply influenced by the passing of collaborator Gavin Creel.
• Sara utilizes morning pages/journaling as a meditative practice to process mental noise and set intentions.
• Her creative perspective has shifted in her 40s toward more existential and universal truths compared to her younger, more urgent songwriting.

Main topics

• Album Good Grief
• Songwriting process
• Musical theater and Broadway

Notable quotes

Grief is just love. It's just the ache of loving.

Conclusion

The episode offers a profound meditation on how enduring life's hardsh

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) It's weird to just sit and have a camera on you and talk about yourself and you get asked the same question over and over again and that starts to make you feel crazy. Like, are you gonna write me a love song? No! Speaker 1 (0:25) Welcome to Alchemy. I'm Anthony Mason. Thanks for joining us. One of my favorite singers, Sara Bareilles, is our guest this episode. Sara's released five top ten albums, written the music and lyrics for the hit Broadway show Waitress, and starred in a Sondheim musical. Well, she's back with her first new studio album in seven years, and it's a beauty. Alchemy is presented by our founding sponsor, the Flag Art Foundation, a great nonprofit that supports artists and exhibitions around the world. Now my chat with Sarah Bareilles. Thank you for doing this. Speaker 2 (1:02) Hi, I'm so happy to be here. You have so Speaker 1 (1:03) much going on. Speaker 2 (1:04) I do feel busy right now. Do Speaker 1 (1:06) you? Speaker 2 (1:07) Usually, I always say that usually there's like a differential between how busy... person seems and then how they might feel but I don't have a lot of differential right now I feel really busy. You Speaker 1 (1:17) have an album coming out, a movie coming out, a tour coming up, a musical in the works. Speaker 2 (1:26) Yeah. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. I don't know Speaker 1 (1:31) but it's kind of feel very fulfilling. It's Speaker 2 (1:33) incredible It's like a really I can't think of another time Where I've had sort of this much creative output. That's like lined up. I Mean it didn't work the way I had I was hoping to sort of stagger all of this, but it just yeah life has other plans for you. And, um, it all Speaker 1 (1:53) gets to the finish line when it gets to the finish line. Yeah. And sometimes Speaker 2 (1:56) you're just like carrying this, you know, two big things to the finish line at the same time. Speaker 1 (2:00) Yeah. But Speaker 2 (2:00) how Speaker 1 (2:01) do you do, do you do that well? Or is that, I Speaker 2 (2:04) think you'd have to ask my husband that question. I'm not, I think I'm doing it better in my forties than I did in my thirties. And like, I think I have a better toolbox towards Like the truth of the matter is that I'm juggling two or three big projects that I am madly in love with. So like what is there to complain about? Except for the fact that it is demanding on your time and energy and attention. So sometimes I'm just I'm fatigued. But it's really like, oh, I'm just exhausted because I'm working on these things that I really care about. But I'm not doing things I don't want to be doing. Yeah. Speaker 1 (2:46) You know, which is. Wonderful. Speaker 2 (2:48) It's so great. Yeah. But Speaker 1 (2:51) it can be, I mean, you want to give each of those things the love that you want them to have. They deserve totally. Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:57) Yeah. Yeah. I think for right now, I'm not, I'm not that great at. Speaker 2 (3:05) Like when I'm working on the musical it's kind of all-encompassing and when I'm working on you know the tour prep for example or you know the album release like I'm not that good at switching gears like sometimes I find that a little disorienting but I'm really getting to work that muscle right now Speaker 1 (3:22) Let's talk about the album good grief. I love the title. Thank Speaker 2 (3:26) you. I came up with that phrase. It's mine. Speaker 1 (3:30) I know what it's come out of but Did the album the theme of the album take shape as You were writing or it was did you start writing with the idea that you wanted to deal with this subject? Speaker 2 (3:43) Hmm. Uh, I think it was more in retrospect like once the album had kind of accumulated and I don't know how other people do it, but I when I'm making a record I'm Speaker 2 (4:00) Yeah, I've never gone into it that way being like I want to write an album about yeah It just seems to be like I end up with a collection of songs. Yeah, and there's usually some kind of unifying thread Yeah, Speaker 1 (4:11) and Speaker 2 (4:11) yeah I mean since the pandemic the the I think the emotion the emotional state the mind state that I have spent the most time in has been grief about so many things and It's it's been like a beautiful Speaker 2 (4:28) transformative time for sure. Speaker 1 (4:30) You lost an old friend who was for a time your manager. Yes. Speaker 2 (4:34) You Speaker 1 (4:35) lost Gavin Creel who you performed with and worked with on Broadway and you were also dealing with infertility issues which is its own form of grief which is very interesting. Speaker 2 (4:46) Yeah, yeah. In the country, the political grief. Speaker 1 (4:50) Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:50) The grief as a woman watching Rights get stripped away. What's happening to it? Like that you can just go on and on and on I mean, I think the average person right now is carrying so much grief. Speaker 1 (5:02) Mm-hmm and Speaker 2 (5:03) so much of it is about what feels like is happening in their communities and they're like all these like kitchen table issues are Riddled with grief right now. Did Speaker 1 (5:13) you write about it? To process it or in processing it. Did you decide you wanted to write about it? or both i Speaker 2 (5:20) think it's a little bit of both yeah i mean there is Speaker 2 (5:24) A song, for example, one of the last songs on the record is called Forever, and it feels like it belongs to Gavin. That's like a Gavin song. But the seeds of that song were born in 2020 when I was living in London, and I got a call from a high school friend that her mom had scheduled her death day. She had been in chronic illness and a Speaker 1 (5:48) ton Speaker 2 (5:48) of pain, and she wanted to die with dignity. And I was so struck by, I mean, I was leveled by the idea that it was just to imagine being close to someone and you knew there was going to be a day you were going to say goodbye. That was like scheduled to say goodbye. I couldn't even fathom that. So the beginnings of that and I was dealing with Chad Joseph, my manager and very old best friend. He had his diagnosis at that point, but he was still with us. So I started writing a little bit about the idea of the person who's leaving. Speaker 1 (6:22) And Speaker 2 (6:22) then that song sat dormant for years until after Gavin's memorial actually and I went to Australia to spend time with my husband Joe that he was working down there and I finished that song like staring at the ocean and Speaker 1 (6:37) they Speaker 2 (6:39) just these songs go on the a similar kind of journey where there's just like processing that's happening and a kind of metabolizing of the experience and I've always felt so grateful that I have that outlet as a human that you Speaker 1 (6:55) can like put Speaker 2 (6:56) these experiences somewhere whether it's um, you know, not every song feels like a complete thought it can be a very narrow experience, but um Yeah, but it's it's it's been such an evolution these last years. Speaker 1 (7:11) Do you, I think I read somewhere or heard you say that you write every morning? Speaker 2 (7:18) No. Speaker 1 (7:18) No, you don't. Speaker 2 (7:19) Oh, in my journal. Speaker 1 (7:21) That's what I mean. Speaker 2 (7:22) Oh, yeah. Not song. I mean, not music. So Speaker 1 (7:24) that's a different thing. Speaker 2 (7:25) Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:27) What is it? Speaker 2 (7:27) It's like a brain dump. Speaker 1 (7:29) Yes. So I did Speaker 2 (7:30) the artist's way. Yes. Well, I did part of the artist's way. Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:33) Have Speaker 2 (7:34) you ever done the artist's way? No, but I know what Speaker 1 (7:35) it is. Yeah. Speaker 2 (7:36) Okay. So for those who don't know, it's... I don't have Speaker 1 (7:38) the discipline to write every morning. Speaker 2 (7:39) Neither do I. I mean, like... I don't write every single morning, but I write Speaker 1 (7:43) very, Speaker 2 (7:44) very often. But I have done since I was like 11 or 12. I have like boxes and boxes of journals. Speaker 1 (7:50) But Speaker 2 (7:51) the idea is that you get up in the morning and you just, it's a brain dump. And you don't even go back or read the pages again. You don't have to have any, just sort of stream of consciousness. Speaker 1 (8:03) And Speaker 2 (8:04) it is very helpful. Sometimes it just unearths, you don't even realize something's rattling around in there. And you just write three little pages or sometimes more, sometimes less. And it's, I think to me, feels very akin to a meditation. It's just like a time to be present with what is, like with what is. Yeah. Speaker 1 (8:25) I first heard about it actually from Chris Martin, who does the same thing. And he was just, he described it pretty much the same way. And I know that's what the book tells you to do. It's very interesting. I like the idea of making an appointment for something like that. Speaker 2 (8:38) Although Speaker 1 (8:38) I think for me it's very hard to keep those appointments. I Speaker 2 (8:41) know. I feel the same way. You know? Speaker 1 (8:43) Yeah. But I mean, I grew up with a stepfather who was in the studio every morning painting at almost exactly the same time. And I was like, oh, that's how you do this. Speaker 2 (8:51) Yeah. Speaker 1 (8:52) I Speaker 2 (8:52) like those kinds of rituals, like the morning coffee and the pages. It's like a very grounding way to kind of just, I don't know, set. an intention sort of. Yeah. Or not even that. It's just a moment to like be with yourself. If I don't do it, there's so much noise that's like asking for your attention all the time. And you can get through a whole day kind of like unconsciously, you know, sometimes you're just like, you're like, I don't even know what happened today, but here I am going to sleep. Speaker 2 (9:30) And it's only two in the afternoon. I should really, you know. Speaker 1 (9:33) I find it interesting that you're doing two different kinds of writing. Because you write, as you said, you've been working on a musical. Speaker 2 (9:38) Yeah. Where Speaker 1 (9:39) you're writing about somebody else's story. Speaker 2 (9:41) Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:42) When you're writing songs for your album, you're obviously mostly writing about yourself. Yes. Speaker 1 (9:48) Is there a big difference for you? Speaker 2 (9:50) I think that writing for a musical has had a big impact on my writing for myself. How's that? Speaker 1 (9:56) In Speaker 2 (9:56) the sense that I think I like to use the term of like it sort of opened the aperture of like what I felt I was able to process and hold in my writing. Speaker 1 (10:12) So Speaker 2 (10:12) for example, when I started writing for Waitress, I had only ever written autobiographical. like autobiographically. So my little mechanism for getting inside the brain of these or inside the psyche of these characters was to sort of do an exercise in radical empathy where I'm like, how do I speak as Sarah, but also speak for the abusive husband, you know, like a character that's kind of far away from me. And I found it to be really interesting. That it was like there was more to relate to than to feel separate from. Speaker 1 (10:51) And Speaker 2 (10:52) that the writing felt more true and the writing felt better to me when I was also speaking from that kind of place in my own perspective. So old Joe, who is, you know, towards the end of his life and giving wisdom to Jenna. I was like, oh, I can tap into that part of my psyche that can... reflect on and see this person going through these hard experiences and have some wisdom to offer. Speaker 2 (11:21) So I think that while... So when Speaker 1 (11:25) you take that and you go back to writing... Speaker 2 (11:27) For myself, I think I am able to just kind of zoom out a little bit more. That it's less about that urgent kind of... It feels young to me now. Like the feeling of like, oh, I got to get this feeling out. I got to get this. And my perspective is... Frankly older, you know, I'm I'm in my 40. I'm 46 now Speaker 1 (11:51) and Speaker 2 (11:52) you just through the through the lens of life experience and and as sort of and the work that I've done on myself personally Meditation medication therapy, but just like the perspective is wider and I think there's more holding of Some of these like universal truths of being alive that are kind of harder. They're more existential. You know, the writing is a little bit It's less about like I fell in love with a boy and he doesn't love me back I'm like, ah Speaker 2 (12:26) My kingdom for a simple problem Yeah, it's just like