Mix 107.3 with Jack Diamond (June 2nd 2016)
Gwen Stefani
[edited version]
Misery, for me, is - The moment that I said ‘misery’ and I knew that I was going to write that song the next morning. And I did within like fifteen minutes.
Two things I want to ask specifically about the whole artistic endeavour. The writing. You mentioned writing. You said, “I’m going to write it tomorrow.” Once you have the title or a hook or a lyric line on your mind, is it not impossible to get it off your mind until you have it on paper or on your iPad or computer?
It depends on where I’m at in my life. It’s very life-driven and feeling-driven. And at that - Writing that particular song, I was already in, like, I had already written a bunch of songs and then I had turned this corner of writing kinda love songs and happy songs and hopeful songs. I hadn’t really ever done that in my life. And so I had written Make Me Like You the day before. I was, like, we were all blown away by that song. We were like, ‘Oh my god! I can’t believe we have this song!’ It was so exciting. I was actually going home to play it and listen to it, and then I was, I said ‘misery’ and I had the concept for that. Cos, you know, if you listen to both the lyrics, they’re kinda the same subject ‘cos I wrote them one day apart. About missing somebody.
I wonder this, Gwen. When you were a little girl thinking about getting into the music business, did you ever dream that you, Gwen Stefani, would have a hit song, Go Ahead and Break My Heart, with Blake Shelton? That song is huge.
Oh my god. Absolutely not. And you know what’s so crazy? You know with the longer you live, the more you can kind of go back and see the, kind of, quilt, the fabric. You kind of put it all together and you go, ‘Wow. That was gonna happen, I didn’t know.’ The first concert that I ever went to - Because my parents were really into bluegrass and folk music, and they weren’t necessarily into country, but they took me to go see Emmylou Harris. I was in Girl Scouts and I remember they took me out, and it was just me and my parents and there were four of us, so it was a big deal for us to go on our own. I remember sitting there and she’s beautiful and Emmylou’s playing and she had to leave halfway through the concert to go nurse her new baby. I got to, years later, be on the cover of I can’t even remember what magazine it was right now. But we were on a cover together with a bunch of other artists and I got to tell her that story. And so, no, did I ever think I would, have a country song? No.