[FEMALE ANNOUNCER] Funding
for Overheard with Evan Smith
is provided in part by
HillCo Partners, a Texas
government affairs consultancy,
the Alice Kleberg
Reynolds Foundation,
Claire and Carl Stuart,
and by Entergy.
[EVAN SMITH] I'm Evan Smith.
She's a prolific,
Grammy award-winning
singer, songwriter,
activist, and
entrepreneur whose memoir
"No Walls and the Recurring
Dream" has just been published.
She's Ani DiFranco.
This is Overheard.
(gentle instrumental music)
[SMITH] Let's be honest, is
this about the ability to learn
or is this about the experience
of not having been
taught properly?
How have have you
avoided what has befallen
other nations in
Africa and Asia?
And you could say that
he'd made his own bed,
but you caused him
to sleep in it.
You know, you saw a problem
and over time took it on.
(people laughing)
Let's start with the sizzle
before we get to the steak.
Are you gonna run for president?
I think I just got an
F from you, actually.
This is Overheard.
(audience applauding)
[SMITH] Ani DiFranco, welcome.
[ANI DIFRANCO] Thank you.
[SMITH] Congratulations
on the book.
[DIFRANCO] Thanks very much.
[SMITH] As we sit here,
it's newly a best seller.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Isn't that amazing?
[DIFRANCO] That is amazing.
I'm amazed.
[SMITH] On the best seller
list with Michelle Obama.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Anna
Quindlen, Jill Biden.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Right, well just,
take a picture, right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah,
that, yeah, yeah.
[SMITH] Capture that moment.
[DIFRANCO] I should.
[SMITH] Why did you
decide to write a book?
I thought, Ani
DiFranco has a memoir,
haven't we heard her story,
(laughing)
over 19 records, 20 records.
Isn't every record
sort of a memoir?
Isn't it sort of your story?
[DIFRANCO] Well, not exactly.
I mean, those are
songs, you know.
I definitely draw
from my experience,
but, you know,
it's storytelling.
[SMITH] It's right for us
to see some of you
in those songs.
[DIFRANCO] Yes, yes
indeed, but it's not
as literal as that is.
[SMITH] Right, yeah.
[DIFRANCO] That's for sure.
[SMITH] What was the
catalyst for this book?
Why decide to do this now?
[DIFRANCO] Honestly,
I have a couple kids,
and, this road doggin'
doesn't mesh well with momming,
and, you know.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] So I needed
to change it up.
I needed to think
of some way to work
and not always be gone.
[SMITH] Right, so it's
a practical decision.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, yeah.
[SMITH] On your part.
[DIFRANCO] Kind of a
decision that started with,
you know, being a mom.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] And also, just
needing a writing challenge
after hundreds of
songs, you know--
[SMITH] Talk about that.
I assume that writing
songs is hard, right,
a challenge in its own way.
[DIFRANCO] Sure, yeah.
[SMITH] But this was much more
of a challenge in the long form.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, for me, I
never did this before, you know.
I mean have, I have
a groove with songs
and I know how it works,
or how it works for me.
And this was scary.
This was, it fit the
bill for a challenge.
There were many, and
in terms of writing,
it's just such a
different process.
I mean it couldn't
be more different.
It's funny to me they're
both writing, you know,
'cause songs are like,
an event, you know,
it's something
just comes through,
you align yourself,
and something comes through.
And this was like
whittling, you know.
It was just like
sitting there for years,
just not really
sure in any moment,
if I'm on track or off track,
or can I do this, or, yeah.
[SMITH] How much of
this had you kept,
in one form or another,
on paper, or somewhere, before,
or did you basically
start with a blank slate
and say I'm gonna tell my story,
and have to go back
and essentially rebuild
and reconstruct?
[DIFRANCO] Tabula rasa.
[SMITH] Seriously?
[DIFRANCO] I just,
yeah, and of course,
the first hurdle is memory.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] You know?
[SMITH] Yeah.
It's so funny when I
started this project,
everyone I knew was like,
oh, I could never
write a memoir,
I don't remember anything.
It's like (stammering).
[SMITH] Same.
[DIFRANCO] Same.
[SMITH] We're all
getting older, right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, seriously.
[SMITH] Many years have passed.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, so that
in itself was an endeavor.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] You know, just
trying to find things,
and then, oh, there's another
thing under that thing,
and right, you know, and yeah,
trying to put yourself back in
a whole other life and time.
[SMITH] Did you go back,
Ani, and talk to the people
who you ran with in those days
to try to get them
to tell you stories,
or to fact-check you,
or to help you, maybe,
remember things yourself?
[DIFRANCO] I thought
that I was gonna.
That was my plan.
[SMITH] But you didn't do it?
[DIFRANCO] Not really.
[SMITH] 'Cause it's remarkable,
the stories that you
tell are very detailed.
They seem to be very
present in your mind.
If it was hard for
you to access them,
it doesn't show up in the pages.
[DIFRANCO] Oh, sweet.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
(audience laughing)
I gotcha fooled.
[SMITH] Yeah, okay, good, well.
[DIFRANCO] No, I mean,
I do have a, you know,
I mean, my memory works like
I know a lot of people's
where it's, you don't remember
the facts and the figures,
but you remember moments,
scenes, you know, feelings,
and even dialogue. I
have a memory for words
because of my life and
songwriting, memorizing singing.
So, I have sort of a
photographic sonographic memory.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Yeah, well, very helpful
in a moment like
this, certainly.
So the no walls in
the title refers to,
the home you grew up
in, at least partly,
which literally had no walls,
except for the walls
on the outside.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah,
yeah, well, yep,
this project is
way more literal,
so I thought I'd start
super literal, yeah,
there were, my parents, my
mother was an architect,
and my father an engineer,
and they designed the
house I grew up in,
which was a carriage house,
and they, yeah, they,
they, there were no walls.
There was one room
on the first floor,
and one room on
the second floor.
I mean, there was a bathroom
with walls around it,
but that was it.
[SMITH] And that was it.
[DIFRANCO] Otherwise,
we were right there
in each other's faces.
Very intimate.
[SMITH] Your parents were
extraordinarily
accomplished people.
They met at MIT. Right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] This is in
north Buffalo, New York,
so western New York.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] And I
actually, you know,
we had the conversation
before we came out
here about Buffalo.
Buffalo's such a great place.
It's such an interesting place.
It's such a, it's very
alive in your mind, right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] It comes across, really,
in an interesting
way in this book.
[DIFRANCO] It's nice
to hear you say that.
Yeah, it's a city with history.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] You know, so,
I always find the places
with longer histories
to be interesting.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] You know,
you can just feel it.
And a lot of
characters, a lot of,
yeah, it's a working class city.
There's a lot of
immigrant populations,
and, yeah, it's an
interesting place.
[SMITH] Would your
story be different
if it were set somewhere else,
if you had grown
up someplace else?
[DIFRANCO] I'm sure.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] I mean, I always,
the first thing I always
ask somebody I meet
is where are you from?
'Cause there's something
very deep about that.
[SMITH] Well, we're
all from someplace,
and our lives are shaped
by where we came from.
[DIFRANCO] Indeed.
[SMITH] And by who raised us.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] And again,
back to your parents,
your parents are very
important characters
in this story.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, they, I mean,
they're very important
characters in my life.
Even though my family, kind of,
dissipated, early on in my life,
my mother's, and father's,
effect was pretty profound.
I mean, I think I got my shtick
from my mother, completely.
[SMITH] Yeah, yeah.
[DIFRANCO] You know?
[SMITH] Talk about her, what
do you remember about her?
[DIFRANCO] I mean she's
not musical, per se,
but super creative and engaging,
and, you know, she's
the crazy hat lady
at the party, you know, and uh--
[SMITH] Very independent,
kinda goes her own way.
[DIFRANCO] Independent.
[SMITH] Which is obviously,
and we'll talk about
this in a second,
but independence is really
the narrative through line
of this book and of
your story, isn't it?
[DIFRANCO] True, yeah.
[SMITH] Right, taking control
of yourself and your life.
Your love of music also
happened as a kid
growing up in Buffalo.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, I needed
an outlet, you know,
troubled family,
stress to the system,
so, like any kid, any
human, I needed an outlet.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] So in the beginning,
I was dancing, I was painting,
I was anything I could, you
know, express myself with.
But music, won.
[SMITH] What kind of music,
before you were
playing yourself,
interested you, when
you listened to music?
[DIFRANCO] Well--
[SMITH] 'Cause I know you've
had many influences over time,
Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Joan Armatrading.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] There were a
lot of people whose work
is obviously evident
in your own work later,
who influenced you,
but what did you like
when you were growing up--
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, early on,
the only recorded music
that I heard was my
father's records,
and he was an Italian immigrant,
and he loved all
things American.
So his records were, I mean,
Aaron Copland, John Fahey.
[SMITH] I mean,
classically American stuff.
[DIFRANCO] Yes, yeah.
[SMITH] Right?
[DIFRANCO] Yes,
celebratorily American.
You know, Americana,
before it was cool.
Yeah, John Fahey, you
know, the guitarist,
that kind of, uh, you know,
alcoholic, uh, character,
who made these instrumental
acoustic guitar records.
I think his playing
had a deep, subliminal,
effect very early on for me.
There were Blue Note Records,
there were Smithsonian
Recordings, you know.
[SMITH] So you took
lessons, again I'm thinking
it's like from the book,
it's like nine, 10, right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, yeah.
[SMITH] But then
not long after that,
you, and I believe it was the
person who was your teacher,
you go out and start to
perform with that person.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] What was that like?
So you're performing,
probably out on the street,
at 13, 12, 13, 14?
[DIFRANCO] Yep.
On the street even, you know,
coffee houses, even, bars.
He just took me under his wing.
His name was Michael Meldrum,
and he was a troubadour
about Buffalo, and, um--
[SMITH] He ends up being a
pretty significant character
in your story, right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] I mean,
but for that time,
this might have turned
out differently.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, he really,
sort of, gifted me with my path,
you know, he introduced me
to the job of folk singer.
[SMITH] Yeah, so I'm thinking
about the time of all this.
So you're 48 now?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] So go back
to when you were 14,
so we're talking
about the mid-1980s,
the concept of the singer
songwriter, and of folk music,
it had kind of come and gone,
and had not really come
back, in that respect--
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, it
was way out of fashion.
(laughing)
[SMITH] Right, it was
way out of fashion.
So, it's interesting to me that
that's what interested you,
you gravitated toward,
and you were able to
make a life doing that,
because it was not
a certainty that
that would be something
that would work out, right?
[DIFRANCO] No, and it's funny,
just to even, for you to ask,
like what music did I,
you know, listen to,
as in, you know,
recordings, like consume.
And so, yeah for me,
there was my father's
records really early on,
but as soon as Michael came
into my life at the age of nine,
music was, not something you
buy, it's something you do.
[SMITH] You make.
[DIFRANCO] Something
you make, together.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, and I'm so
grateful for that experience
coming really early on.
Music is a thing you do
when you get together.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] I wanna jump ahead to,
your first record is in 1990?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] So you're 18 years old
when this record comes out?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[SMITH] And not long after that,
you make the decision that
the music business needs
to be overthrown, or disrupted.
(laughing)
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] And you
start Righteous Babe,
which is your own label,
which persists to
this day as a home
for a lot of musicians like you.
[DIFRANCO] Still kickin'.
[SMITH] Still kickin' and,
again, like folk music,
or like being a
singer-songwriter,
you were a little bit
out ahead of the fashion.
The disruption of
the music business
had not really
begun at that point.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] You were out
ahead of everybody else
in rebelling against
the old order.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Can you talk a little
bit about your mindset,
what drove you to take
control, and to do that
because it was not, again,
no guarantee of
succeeding at that.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, yeah, I talk
about it a little in the book.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] I think that my goal,
was to connect, you
know, with people,
and songs were a way
of opening myself and making
myself completely vulnerable.
And then when somebody
would join me there,
you know, and share
that moment with me,
that was so fulfilling to me.
That's what I was searching for.
So, that I just, I think,
you know, it's not that I,
the thought about all this,
I just felt fulfilled.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] Even playing
for five people,
if, you know, if they would
really go there with me,
that was all I needed.
So when people started to come,
you know, labels, you
know, come with interest.
[SMITH] Any success, they're
right on top of you, right?
[DIFRANCO] Yep.
[SMITH] They wanna have
a piece of that, right.
[DIFRANCO] Yep, they,
you know, sort of,
word started getting out,
people started getting
interested in maybe signing me
when I was really young,
and, I don't know,
for some reason,
as a young person,
well, first of all, I
was very idealistic,
and not impressed with the
sort of capitalist credo,
you know, and not sure that,
that partnering with
profit-motivated people
was right for my mission.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] You know.
And also, once again,
what I was trying to do,
I was doing.
And I didn't, I just
didn't have that longing
that maybe a lot of
other young people do,
for the fame and the fortune.
I just wanted somebody to
be my friend, right now.
[SMITH] But I
appreciate the fact
that you were able to resist,
at a relatively young age,
the temptation to give up
that independence
and that control,
to chase dollars or to
chase being a celebrity.
The music and the mission,
as you just defined it,
of your art was more
important to you
than any conventional success.
And so you just
held that at bay.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] But you didn't
just hold it at bay,
you said I'm gonna create
my own means to do this.
Now, we skipped over the
part of your personal story
where you are emancipated
at a young age.
Your family leaves Buffalo,
moves to Connecticut, right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] You move back to
Buffalo, and around this time
you declare yourself
an emancipated minor.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] You have always said
I'm gonna do this
myself, haven't you?
That's the thing.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Again, that's
the narrative thread
through this whole
story is I'm gonna
take responsibility.
I'm not gonna let anybody tell
me how I have to do things.
I'm gonna do this myself.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] It's very consistent.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, and also
just practical, you know,
my family was kind of a mess,
and then I'm living with my mom,
and then my mom takes
a job in Connecticut,
and living in rural
Connecticut, you know,
but by this time I'm 15.
I got gigs, I got friends,
I got things to do.
[SMITH] You're going
back, that's it. Yeah.
(people laughing)
[DIFRANCO] So yeah, I
just went out on my,
'cause that, you know,
that was my life that I
had already begun to build.
[SMITH] So from emancipated
minor to emancipated musician,
effectively, right?
I'm gonna do this myself.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, yeah.
[SMITH] So what was wrong,
or what is wrong still,
because here we are
all these years later.
I mean, Righteous Babe has been,
it's almost 30, going
on 30 years, right?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] What's wrong
with the music business?
At a high level,
what is wrong with
the conventional way
that people make
records, market records,
sell records, distribute
records, tour and travel,
what's wrong with it?
[DIFRANCO] Ah--
[SMITH] No one is
more of an advocate
for upturning the
old order than you,
so tell me what the case is.
[DIFRANCO] I mean,
I think what's wrong
with the music business
is kinda what's wrong
with any big business.
In that the bottom
line is on top--
[SMITH] Right, drives
every decision, right.
[DIFRANCO] Of the priority list.
And bigger is better.
And exponential growth,
which I think of as cancer,
is thought of as the goal.
[SMITH] Right, growing
for the sake of growing.
[DIFRANCO] Growing for the
sake of growing, you know.
Sustainability is, I
think, what should be
in the forefront of
the priority list,
and that can be also,
in terms of an artist,
sustainability for their soul,
and their self, and
their life, you know,
just the way that the
industry typically operates,
I think is not conducive to
art and artists, and yeah.
[SMITH] One of the
things, though,
that I think about as I go back
to the days, early days, of
Righteous Babe, is that the
means of production were
not really in your hands.
Technology was not
as easily available.
It was not as affordable.
Now, anybody, can
be their own label,
their own distributor, right,
that's one of the great things
about the world now is that
it is truly a DIY world.
It was not when you did it,
even though you did DIY, right.
[DIFRANCO] Right.
[SMITH] But it's DIY now.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, I mean, I think
one of the interesting
aspects of my
story is that, you know, and
my independent deconstruction
and reconstruction of
the music industry,
was that it was pre-internet.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] So I just like that
factoid, because it proves
that even this incredibly
powerful tool that has opened a
lot of, you know, new
possibilities for people,
is not necessary.
[SMITH] Right. So let
me ask you about that.
So, had the opportunity to
talk to a lot of people on this
show about streaming services,
the Spotifys of the world,
and whether that's a positive
or a negative in terms of
creating an audience, a market
some would say, but really
we're talking about an audience.
The fact that those
services provide a means for
discovery. I might
not be thinking about
buying your music,
but then I might
actually encounter
your music through some
weird means on one of those
services and go, oh wait a
minute, now I'm totally into
Ani DiFranco again I'm gonna go
buy all these records.
Do you believe that there
is some good in that,
in that access,
in that discovery,
and that ultimately it
creates more of an audience
and more of a market,
rather than less?
Or do you think that they're
stealing your product from you?
[DIFRANCO] Well, you know
I think it's probably
like the rest of the world,
it's both positive and negative,
you know, everything.
There are upsides,
there are downsides.
So I don't dwell too much
on is it good or bad,
it just is, you know, this--
[SMITH] But you
have to give them,
you have to say
grace over their--
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Carrying you
out to the world.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, and I
think for me, it's possible
because it's just
more of the same.
It's more of focus
on your purpose,
and your job, that
you have to do,
that only you know,
whatever that is,
and the universe, and if
you are on the right path,
the universe will hold you.
And actually, for me, my bread
and butter has always been
live performance.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] I don't
think I ever really
sold as many records
as people might think.
You know, I'm indie girl
U.S.A. and whoa what a success,
but the literal sales figures
in terms of my album is not
nearly what major label artists.
[SMITH] Well, you know, some
musicians are basically,
they exist to make
records and to tour
in support of those records,
and some are touring
musicians, performers,
who make records essentially
in the negative space.
You're more--
[DIFRANCO] As sort of
droppings along the way.
[SMITH] Well you're more
the latter, right, probably.
[DIFRANCO] Yes.
[SMITH] You've always
been a touring musician,
you've always been a
performer first and foremost.
That's where your fan
base gets to encounter you
and engage with you and that's
how you like it, actually.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, yeah.
[SMITH] One of the
things I think also,
again back to this idea of
you being out ahead
of everybody else is
you were a political artist,
or an artist who spoke
her mind, spoke out
about the injustice, or the
inequities of the world,
way before that was in fashion.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah.
[SMITH] Now everybody's woke.
But you were there first.
[DIFRANCO] I hope so.
[SMITH] Yeah, but
you were there,
you were there much earlier
than everybody else.
That seems to be a part
of your personality.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, yeah,
and a part of my history,
my parents both
very progressive.
My mother, just straight up
activist, herself. And--
[SMITH] Aren't you a
straight up activist, though,
haven't you been a straight up
activist your entire career?
[DIFRANCO] Yes, I would
like to think so, yeah.
But so, me and my idealism,
and my political lens
that I see through,
I end up in the folk
circuit at folk festivals.
And though it was
very out of fashion,
and kind of a dying scene,
you know, in the '80s.
For me it, you know,
the coolest part
about that scene was
the social consciousness,
the political awareness,
the giving-essness.
That was always what really
appealed to me about the whole
genre and community,
the underground world
of the folk singer.
I thought the politics were
the coolest part and it's funny
because, yeah, in the '80s and
'90s, people were moving away
from the idea of the folk
singer, which has a political
connotation into
singer-songwriter.
We wanna be on the
radio, too, you know.
[SMITH] Right.
[DIFRANCO] But for
me, it was like, nah,
I wanna hang out
with the old lefties.
[SMITH] But in terms of
the political activism,
and being an old leftie,
you're hanging with the old
lefties, the road has really
risen to meet you, hasn't it?
The world that
we're in right now,
not entirely for good reasons,
has activated and animated
artists of all kinds to speak
out and speak up and that's
now a fundamental component of
all art.
[DIFRANCO] I do feel much
more receptivity around me,
yeah, in these last few years.
All kinds of people
activating, like you say,
and it's very encouraging.
[SMITH] I think, we
have a few minutes left,
I think about your activism,
particularly on behalf of women,
on behalf of
reproductive health,
on behalf of specific issues
that you've been associated with
that have kind of blown
up before our eyes.
Here we sit in a week in
which the State of Alabama
has effectively, and I
think without question,
unconstitutionally,
outlawed abortion.
We are all these years
after Roe vs. Wade,
we are still having
these fights.
[DIFRANCO] We are.
[SMITH] We are still
having this conversation,
and it's extraordinary
to me to think about it,
but maybe it shouldn't
be that extraordinary,
and I thought to myself,
I'm gonna get to talk
to you this week,
and I had to ask you about
what you're seeing
play out nationally
because I know how strongly
you feel about this.
[DIFRANCO] Yeah, I
mean, it's terrifying.
It's just terrifying.
The effects on women's
lives are profound,
and very destructive.
So, you know, back to the
fight, back to the struggle.
I mean, honestly, it's so
overwhelming in a lot of ways.
I know I'm not alone
in that, you know,
this feeling of we
are losing everything
that we've ever fought for,
in terms of our rights
in this country.
You know, the only thing I
can sort of do in this moment
is sort of turn sometimes
away from the huge monster
that is gobbling, you know,
our beautiful, free country,
and turn my focus instead
to the people all around me
who are doing amazing work
in so many different arenas,
and say, "How can I help you?
How can I help you," you know?
How can we support each other,
make each other stronger
because fighting that
thing is just enough
to make us all curl in a ball.
[SMITH] You've been
doing this for so long,
clearly something,
Ani, has given way,
that this is where we are.
Something has materially
occurred or changed.
Do you have any sense of
what that is, or why it is?
Is this just a case of
people being given permission
to say the quiet part out loud?
Like, what's going on?
Because it's not just this
issue, or this set of issues.
It's issues of race, it's
issues of inequality.
It's a pretty tentative
moment right now
in all of our lives, isn't it?
[DIFRANCO] Yeah. Well,
it's been there all along,
the racism, the misogyny, the
classism, the heterosexism,
it's just-- So, coming
out into the light,
I hope, though it
is very painful,
I hope that will be useful.
It will be easier for
more of us to address it,
to see it, to not
be able to deny it.
And I have to believe, you know,
and some days it's hard
and I make myself believe,
that what we're seeing
in this sort of top down
political regression
is the shadow side
of an awakening
that is happening
from the ground up.
[SMITH] Yeah.
[DIFRANCO] And it is the
push back of the people
who have held power
for a long time,
having to share, you know.
But I do believe there is an
awakening that is happening.
I got kids, I look
through their eyes
and I see a better,
more woke world,
and I think that that will be
the more lasting
effect of this moment,
if we can survive
the destruction--
[SMITH] Silver lining.
[DIFRANCO] Of the push back.
[SMITH] Silver lining.
You working on a record?
[DIFRANCO] I am.
[SMITH] How soon?
[DIFRANCO] Well, I'm doing a
little music tour next month
and then afterwards I'm gonna
go in the studio and record.
I managed to eek out a few songs
while working on that book,
not as many as usual,
but I'm starting to
crawl back to my guitar.
Hello, remember me?
[DIFRANCO] Okay,
well, we're waiting.
[DIFRANCO] Sweet.
[SMITH] All right,
congratulations on the book
and everything
else you're doing.
Ani DiFranco, thank
you very much.
[DIFRANCO] Thank you.
(loud applause)
[SMITH] We'd love to have
you join us in the studio.
Visit our website at
KLRU.org/Overheard
to find invitations
to interviews,
Q&As with our
audience and guests,
and an archive of past episodes.
[DIFRANCO] Your kids
know who you are.
They know how you feel.
They know what matters to you.
I feel like my kids
see through me.
I couldn't hide if
I tried, you know?
So, for me, it just
feels like, you know,
just the daily
process of being real.
[ANNOUNCER] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith
is provided in part by
HillCo Partners, a Texas
government affairs consultancy,
the Alice Kleberg
Reynolds Foundation,
Claire and Carl Stuart,
and by Entergy.
(soft chimes)