EP. 2 — Singalong

SETH: Hello, a message from Seth. Before this episode of Storytime begins, I implore you to turn the volume up on your speakers or headphones as loud as you can take it and to smoke as big a joint as you can at this moment. Thank you. Enjoy.

SETH: Hi, welcome to Storytime with Seth Rogen. Today’s episode, Sing along.

SETH: I’m always fascinated like where work comes from, you know what I mean? Like, you know, that this song came from this experience and the person who inspired the experience doesn’t even know about it necessarily. And, and, and, and it’s so meaningful to you and so many people and like, is that something that you’ve kind of been fascinated by over the years with your own creative work is like where you were pulling things from how they’re, how they’re materializing?

DAVID: Every songwriter I know has pondered this endlessly and we don’t know where they come from. We do feel like they’re given to us. I smoked a joint and I pick up the guitar and I’m high as a kite, and I’m very happy. And then I start fooling around and I see what comes. And it’s if I’m standing on a hilltop going “you hoo! anybody out there?” and sometimes stuff comes.

SETH: Why do you consider it one of the best songs you’ve ever written?

DAVID: Because it makes me cry, you know? Uh, good songs take you on an emotional journey. Yeah. A really good song takes you on a little emotional journey. Uh, and, uh it does.

DAVID: You hoo! anybody out there? (dreamy guitar plays in the background)

SETH: I find myself looking at a computer screen face to face with David Crosby and he’s lying in his bed.

SETH: So, uh, David, thank you so much for having me. Here we are. You’re laying in bed. This is how, this is always how I envisioned interviewing you. (Seth laughs)

DAVID: Well it seems like an acceptable place to be.

SETH: It’s the perfect place to be.

SETH: David Crosby is a icon of the music industry. He was in The Birds. He was in Crosby, Stills and Nash. And young, and he wrote dozens of incredible songs that are listened to and loved to this day. But if you ask him what his best song is, he has one answer. And today he will explain not only how he wrote that song, but why it is so special to him and why he hopes it impacted not just him, but other people as well, one person in particular, this will get more specific. Let’s let Dave start the story now.

THEME SONG: Storytime yeah.

SETH: So, um, let’s go back to when this story starts, David.Ttake me to the beginning of your story, please. (Seth laughs)

DAVID: The beginning of my story is right after the Civil War (Seth laughs). I’m actually not as old as a, as I look. Beginning of the story is when I was in my first real group, which is The Birds.

ANNOUNCER (old fashioned): These are The Birds. They are song makers. Much of their music is improvised.

DAVID: We were a bunch of young musicians, uh, and we did not know what we were doing.

ANNOUNCER (old fashioned): Like most of their generation, they write as they feel. Songs that reflect the viewpoints…

(Audio fades out)

SETH: And when you say you don’t know what you’re doing, what do you mean by that? (Seth laughs)

DAVID: I mean, we didn’t know what we were doing (David laughs). The only one who actually knew how to play was Roger McQuinn. Michael Clark had never played a real drum set. Chris Hellman was a mandolin player, not a bass player (David laughs). If you had seen me Seth trying to learn how to play an electric guitar, It was absolutely hysterical. I had never played a guitar standing up with a scrap before, you know, posing with it in front of a mirror, trying to figure out how to hold the damn thing and play at the same time.

We had never been any place. I mean, not anywhere we hadn’t been to the corner for a Coca-Cola. We, we didn’t know nothin’.

SETH: And what year, what year was this that you were starting?

DAVID: 1964.

SETH: 1964. And, uh, explain as a musician, what it was like to be making music at the same time as the Beatles? (Seth laughs)

DAVID: Well, Seth, it was kind of pathetic. I mean, we had Beatle, haircuts, Beatle shoes, Beatle jackets, and we wanted desperately to be the Beatles. They set us up as being the American Beatles. And of course we weren’t anything like that. There was no answer to the Beatles. We weren’t even in the same ballpark, they were the first group to go internationally huge.

SETH: Wow.

DAVID: There were other people who were internationally huge before, you know, Frank Sinatra, people like that from a different era, but this was the first group to crack it in pop music in the world, (echoing) in the world.

SETH: You know, as a filmmaker, there’s like popular movies, but I think a lot of filmmakers then when they’re alone together, like, yeah, it’s popular, but it fucking sucks.

You know? Like did, did musicians also think they were really good and was that like…

DAVID: Oh yeah. We wanted to be them. They were our  total heroes.

SETH: And why do you think, even though you didn’t know what you were doing, you guys became successful, right away?

DAVID: It’s called Tambourine, Man. It was a Bob Dylan song. It went from being a folk song to being a really good pop record.

Mr. Tambourine Man plays: Hey Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me.

DAVID: We were different. We started singing stuff that had significant words. We started singing stuff that was intellectually interesting. We started singing stuff that was way, way, way out of the normal range of pop music. And that I think is the largest reason that we won. Um, but we did win young and early, of course, for us, that meant we, all five of us bought Porches. (Seth laughs)

SETH: Some things never change. (Seth laughs)

DAVID: So there we are. We just started getting gigs and right away early on, they gave us a trip to England.

(English anthem plays)

DAVID: Now okay. This is terrifying for us, man, because we were afraid that we would also meet the Beatles. And we had also terrible gigs. Just really awful.

(sound of loud bar)

DAVID: And, uh, we, no, sooner did we get to like the worst of them and the guy, the guy greeted us at this one, you know, blood smeared, you know, apron and, uh, the place was full of smoke and it had roaches in, it had, it was dirty and filthy and loud and awful. And through the smoke, I look out through the smoke and there’s John Lennon.

(Seth laughs)

DAVID: And there’s Paul McCartney and there’s Mick Jagger and they’re all there right in front of me. And this is really a horrible gig. The stage manager says, well, I didn’t have an amplifier. I had to plug into the base and I’m supposed to play and you can’t hear my guitar because we broke a base string. The only time on any gig ever that we broke a base string, it was just horrifyingly, bad, absolutely horrifying (David laughs).

DAVID: Terrible gig right? Imagine if, if you had to do like a scene in front of your favorite actor?

SETH: Well, I, I have a similar thing that haunts me in that uh, I love Bill Murray. He’s like probably my favorite comedian. And, and one time he came to a charity show I did, and I actually met him backstage and we hung out and I made him laugh backstage, which was great and then he sat in the audience during the show and I had like an opening bit and it completely fucking died (Seth laughs).

(David laughs)

SETH: Like it could like, it could not have eaten shit harder to the point that like, it for weeks, (David laughs)  it was all I would talk about with my wife and like, to this day, like whenever Bill Murray comes up, I like, but I think like my wife knows there’s a part of me that is always thinking like that one fucking night when I ate shit in front of Bill Murray, what a terrible, terrible night that was.

DAVID: So humiliating. I really totally get it (Seth laughs).

SETH: Despite a truly terrible performance, David Crosby managed to find a way to get into the good graces of the Beatles. A way that I personally could not relate to more.

DAVID: One of  the main reasons that the Beatles liked me, man,was that I had good weed (Seth laughs).

DAVID: The only thing you could smuggle into England conveniently was hash. They’d build it into the truck frames and drive it there from the Middle East and they didn’t have good weed. I ran into an African actor friend of mine who had just come from Africa and he had real pot. And so they loved me.

SETH: It’s funny because I have filled the exact same role, uh, in my life on many, many occasions. (Seth and David laugh)

And I have also been around European people who have never smoked just a pure joint of weed and when, and then I’m like, just try this and then they do and they’re like, what have I been doing my whole fucking life?

DAVID: Yeah, where do I get this?

DAVID: You hoo! anybody out there? (dreamy guitar plays in the background)

SETH: Just a note about Europeans and weed and this is just a breakdown, as far as I can piece it together. Here in North America, we got a lot of weed. We smoke weed. If you’re from the West Coast like I am, a joint to you is just ground up weed wrapped in a rolling paper. Sometimes you smoke a blunt with ground of weed wrapped in a cigar leaf, but that’s pretty much what you’re smoking.

Then there’s something called spliffs. And let me take a second to explain this. Spliffs are weed and tobacco mixed together and wrapped in a rolling paper. They’re more popular in Montreal. And in my opinion, it’s because of the European influence. Allow me to go even deeper into that one. In Europe, they don’t have a lot of weed like David says. They mostly have hash. Hash is hard to smoke. It’s a little weird and unwieldy to ignite and inhale. So what most people do is they roll it up into little balls or a little stick and they mix it with tobacco where they do what’s called brewing bogs, which is another way of smoking hash.

But again, it’s generally mixed with tobacco. So I think when European people get their hands on some weed, their instinct is to mix it with tobacco, which is a terrible idea and it essentially ruins the weed smoking experience. It’s like taking a beautiful, fine wine and pouring beer into it. It’s fucking pointless.

So, like I said to Dave, every chance I have, I give European people a joint of just pure weed with no tobacco in it, they take one hit and they’re like, fuck yeah.

DAVID: And so they loved me. They absolutely loved me. They said all right, come on over and bring some of that. And we got to be friends. I went over to their houses for dinner. We had visited them in the studio and it was like really good. They were doing, uh, Sergeant pepper.

(You Won’t See Me plays): Oh no, no, no, no, no. I refused to go…

DAVID: And I’m so stoned. And they sit me down on this stool in this huge fucking room with these gigantic speakers on either side of me and they played Day in the life.

(Day in the Life plays)

DAVID: I get to the end of that last piano cord and I just about died.

My brain ran out my nose in a puddle on the floor. It was not, I could, you can’t do that. I was mush, I was a noodle.

They were much more real than we thought. And they were much nicer to us. And particularly George who’s like was just the nicest guy you could ask for. He was tough and he was smart and didn’t kiss your butt, but he was a kind human being, right? I became friends with George to the point where he started talking to me about stuff that mattered.

I just been turned on to Ravi Shankar. Somebody gave me his record and I had it in my suitcase and I gave it to George. And that had repercussions.

SETH: That created a lot of music (Seth and David laugh)

DAVID: A lot of music (Seth laughs)

Old footage of RAVI SHANKAR: The benefit of transcendental meditation, which is a simple natural method.

DAVID: He goes to India because he loves Indian music and he meets this teacher right?

SETH: The Maharishi, I think?

DAVID: The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Old footage of RAVI SHANKAR: And that before…

SETH: This time seemed to be riddled with like gurus.

DAVID:  There was a lot of questions going on. There was a lot of people trying to find spiritual paths, trying to find other ways of thinking and doing, uh, many people. You know, they’re looking for an answer they’re looking for just, we get here without even an instruction booklet.

We have no idea. You know, what’s going on?

(Sound of thunder)

DAVID: What’s that noise? Oh, that’s thunder. That’s God, the gods are angry when you hear that. Okay.

(Sound of thunder)

DAVID: Ok so what’s the God’s name? Uh, I’ll tell you, I’ll give you a list. I talked to him this morning.

(Sound of thunder)

DAVID: I don’t really buy religion at all. It just never rang true to me. I think we invented it because we didn’t know what was going on, man. We were just lost here and we needed answers and we were lonely and there was no instruction booklet. So we invented gods, lots of them. You can pick your flavor, you know, explain your religion.

Well, it works like this. And you, you wind up laughing, you start laughing right in their face. And I wanted to tell him, take it with a grain of salt. I want to chill and take it with a whole shaker full of salt. I wanted to say that to George. I wanted to say, be skeptical, right? And I couldn’t cause it was George.

SETH: What did you think would happen? He would just be like, fuck you. How dare you tell me something like that? (Seth laughs)

DAVID: Yes. I was afraid I’d blow the friendship. Yeah, absolutely. Because he was so valuable to me, man. The guy, he, he knew everything that I needed to know. He was doing what I wanted to do. He was nice about it. He was like my hero. So I couldn’t tell him the truth.

SETH: Yeah.

DAVID: You hoo! anybody out there? (dreamy guitar plays in the background)

DAVID: Well, so I wrote him a song. I wrote him a song called “Laughing.” And basically what it says is I thought that I met somebody who told me that they knew what was going on, you know, and were telling me that story. And, and I listened, but I don’t really think that’s the way it is. I think the wisest person I ever saw was probably a child, laughing, playing in the sun. And, uh, I don’t even know if George heard it.

(Dreamy guitar music)

DAVID: Let alone, uh, was moved by it, but it, it, it generated one of my best songs. I don’t know if there’s any question. It’s one of the best things I wrote.

(Sounds of waves crashing on the beach, seagulls)

SETH: Why do you consider it one of the best songs you’ve ever written?

DAVID: Because it makes me cry (David laughs).

SETH:  Did George ever talk to you about the song at all? Even just to say he liked it or in general?

SETH: I heard that he did. I don’t know that for sure, but I heard that he did and I hope he did.

DAVID: What happened to your relationship with him? Did you stay friends with him?

DAVID: Uh, he died. We had, uh, one of those relationships that you have in our business, when you run into somebody, you have an intense period of time with them, and then you don’t see them for three years.

SETH: Yes (Seth laughing).

DAVID: Because, uh, you’re on the road and they’re on the road and the two roads don’t go to the same place.

(Sounds of waves crashing on the beach)

SETH: Yeah. I’m always fascinated with musicians, honestly, because like I was saying to someone recently, it’s like, if there’s a room full of famous people, the musician is always the most famous person in that room.

DAVID: Bullshit!

SETH: No, it’s true!

DAVID: No it’s not.

SETH: It is true.

DAVID: You actors always say that about musicians and we always wanna be actors, man.

SETH: (laughing) But musicians. Like, I couldn’t make a hundred thousand people show up to look at me. (laughing) Like maybe once, but like not, not, not in multiple cities across the country, you know what I mean? (laughing)  And I have a theory as to why. And I think it’s because sound is the first thing that most people experience. Like, I think it’s the first sensation most people have and what musicians do is like organize sound. It’s in general, like a theory I have about like creativity and art and what artists do as someone who just smokes a lot of weed and is creative a lot is like, (laughing) I think part of what artists are doing is like taking things that seem chaotic and organizing them through their own perspective. And like sound is something that we all experience and, and chaotically and organized from a very, you know, from the womb, we hear our heartbeats, but we hear. Uh, just like, you know, a barrage of noises coming at us. And so when someone is able to like take –

DAVID:  Organize it in a really beautiful way, we like it alot.

SETH: It’s very impactful. We love it.

DAVID: I think you’re probably right. I think you’re probably right. I think that’s a really great way to look at it. The music contextualizes the words and delivers them, makes you listen to them in a way that gets past most of your filters.

SETH: Yeah.

DAVID: That’s a powerhouse thing, man. It’s very very strong.

SETH: Yeah. And I think like sound is probably the first thing that scares a person and so like what is more comforting than someone who’s able to, not only like tame that beast, but like presented in a way that is, that is beautiful and-

DAVID: And organized

SETH: Yeah.

DAVID: And predictable and nice and, and understandable.

SETH: Yeah.

DAVID: And it has some kind of emotional impact, man. Everybody feels a minor chord is a sad thing. We don’t know why we don’t know why, (David laughs) but they do. It’s an almost universal thing. Right? So we’ve got an advantage. We’ve got a pipeline to your head and it’s, uh, and it delivers stuff that’s pretty crisp. And we can, we can take you on those emotional voyages. I think it’s the second greatest art form. Uh, I think film actually is the greatest one because you get to, uh, combine music with visuals and make something even bigger.

SETH: Yeah.

(Sound of birds and a stream)

SETH: Allow me if you would, to extrapolate more on this theory that I have. There’s flavors. Some things tastes like shit, literally because they are shit. Other things tastes like salt. Other things are sweet. It’s chaotic. What do chefs do? They organize that they present it to us in a way that not only makes sense, but it is desirable and lets us know about who the chef is as a person, by how they chose to organize these things, what their sensibilities are. There’s colors, painters organize those. There is the raw imagery of the world itself. Photographers organize that. And then there’s stories. There’s the things that happen to us in our lives.

There are events that seen in a way hard to add context or organization to, and I think that’s what people like me do is they try to organize that.

SETH: Have you ever written another song to tell someone something that you didn’t want to tell them face to face? (Seth laughing)

DAVID: Many times.

SETH: I wonder if anyone’s ever made a movie trying to tell me something. I don’t think they have, for some reason.

DAVID: Not yet.

SETH: Not yet. (Seth laughs)

DAVID: You know, you affect people’s lives, so they will come back and affect yours.

THEME SONG: Storytime.

AD BREAK

THEME SONG: Storytime, yeah.

(Sound of waves crashing, seagulls cawing)

David Crosby’s “Laughing” plays.

LYRICS: I thought I met a man who said, who knew man? Who knew what was going on?

I was mistaken. Only another stranger that I knew. And I thought that I’d found a light to guide me through my night and all this darkness. I was mistaken. Only reflections of a shadow that I saw. And I thought I’ve seen someone who seemed at last to know the truth. I was mistaken. Only a child laughing in the sun. In the sun.

SETH: Uh, this was so lovely. Thank you so much, David. I couldn’t appreciate it more. Uh, this was, this was so sweet

DAVID: Thanks Seth.

SETH: Thanks, man. I got you in bed on our first date, so, uh, thank God. (Seth laughing)

DAVID: Right (laughing).

SETH: Okay. Have a good one. (Seth laughing)

DAVID: (echoing) You hoo! anybody out there?

(Sound of waves crashing on the beach)

SETH: Storytime with Seth Rogen is an Earwolf production. Produced, edited, and sound designed by Richard Parks III. Our executive producer is Frida Perez. Additional production by Josh Richmond, Renee Colvert, Jared O’Connell and Marina Paiz with special thanks to Amelia Chappelow. Our artwork is by Robin Richardson. Our theme music is by Andi Kristinsdóttir. Additional music in this episode by Richard Parks III.

I’m Seth Rogan.