PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao 0:00
This is Embodied, a show about sex, relationships and health. I'm Anita Rao, today we have a special bonus episode for you, giving you a sneak peek into what it's like to come to an embodied live event. We do these a couple times a year, and it is always a real treat. Back in April, alongside 250 embodied fans, we spent a Saturday evening exploring the theme of family secrets through dance, storytelling, comedy, conversation and performance. The event was a family secrets variety show called confessed. Today we're going to drop you into the second half of that event, which featured the North Carolina musical duo blue cactus performing an original song they wrote just for that evening. But before we do that, we got to do some setup, because what blue cactus performed that night wasn't just any original song. There was a whole involved process behind it. And to help me talk that through, I'm joined by Walker Lukens. He's an Austin based singer songwriter and producer and the co host of the podcast song confessional. Hey, Walker, welcome to Embodied.
Walker Lukens 1:07
Hey, thanks for having me.
Anita Rao 1:08
So the whole second act of our show revolved around a collaboration with you and your podcast song confessional, which is a project that you co created where you all travel around the world recording confessions from anonymous strangers and giving them to bands so that bands and artists can write original songs based on those confessions. So take me back to the beginning, the origin story. How did this idea come about?
Walker Lukens 1:35
So me and Zach, who co created the project, we were in a touring band together, and we were playing the same songs every night. It's, you know, just really having Groundhog's Day for a couple years. And so we started talking about, how can we do something different together? Because we loved spending time together. We loved getting to work together, and kind of around that same time, after one of our shows, a woman came up to me and said, This record you just put out really helped me get through the loss of my mother. And Zach and I were really moved by that, because we had both. Part of our bond is that we both lost a parent when we were in our late teens. So we were really moved by that. But one thing that we noticed, at least, was that none of the songs on the album were about grief or loss directly. And so sort of over the next few months, we thought, Man, how cool would it be to write songs for people that are about exactly what they want it to be about. So it's sort of this, this idea we had, and didn't know where to take it. And then South by Southwest was coming up in Austin, and basically we conceived this sort of activation event where anonymous people could come tell a story and a band would make it a song in a day. And for a couple years, we sort of did things like that. And then slowly, over time, realized that, you know, not everyone knows how to tell a great story or has something that's maybe as interesting to a songwriter as it might be to them. So fast forward six or seven years in the fall, we went to South by Sydney, which is a satellite festival from the original in Australia, and that's where I took this confession that you guys used in the event.
Anita Rao 3:23
Awesome. Okay, we're gonna play the confession in a little bit, but I wanna hear about the process of recording. So I worked for the beginning of my career. I worked at StoryCorps, which is huge inspiration for us. Okay, yeah, similar concept. You gather people collecting their individual stories. And I had this experience, often of being in the booth where, like, you close the door and it's just you and two other people, and there is an automatic intimacy that's created when you're just all kind of looking at each other. There's nothing else to distract you, and we would often like set up the conversation with a few questions and then let people kind of take it from there and interject as we wanted more detail, or we wanted to hold an emotional moment. How do y'all approach the process of recording the confession?
Walker Lukens 4:08
Very haphazardly? I think that a part of what informs it for us, the whole kind of moment that we're creating with these people, is that I'm a performer, right? I've been getting on stage since I was like a kid, so it doesn't really I can put that hat on and do that thing. And I think the thing that we we sort of realized as we started doing this project, was a lot of people have amazing things to tell they are mortified at the idea of anyone knowing it's them or having to sort of do it in a performative way. So for us, we try to just let someone come in and talk about whatever they want, because if they feel super comfortable, they might tell you something that is very tender that they don't share regularly. And so I think the thing that's sort of driven us in a big way is like not trying to get the best story. Are not trying to get something juicy, although, like the confession that we use that's pretty juicy, but more just making someone feel really at ease and just to tell you whatever they want, you know.
Anita Rao 5:11
And so your prompt is just like, so we share whatever you want, yeah?
Walker Lukens 5:15
I mean, we So normally, when we do an event, or if you go into one of our booths that have, like, an app, you know, it just prompts you to say that you can literally tell us anything you want. We're going to give it to a songwriter. So, like, make sure it's interesting. That's basically it.
Anita Rao 5:28
Okay, yeah. So we reached out to y'all. We knew we wanted to do a show about family secrets, and you all gave us this initial batch of options, and I was just revisiting them yesterday, and they really there was a range. There was everything from like someone who cheated on her husband who now has been with this man and they're deeply in love, to someone who walked in with her daughter and just straight up, was like, my dad was a serial killer. Yeah, such a crazy which is one of the wildest stories I've heard in a really long time. So, like, when you look back in your archive, how many of these confessions are about these, like, rich family secret kind of themes? Is it something that comes up a lot?
Walker Lukens 6:10
I think something that comes up a lot is trauma related to, like, family of origin, that comes up a lot, right? Because I think most of us walk around with those experiences to varying degrees of seriousness. It's pretty rare that we get something as just gobsmacking as, I think my parents were serial killers, yeah, and that one, you know, we followed up, because that was actually my partner, Zach, who was taking that confession, and you could hear how shocking it was to hear the information for him. And so, you know, after we listened back, we're like, well, we gotta ask her this, we gotta ask her that. And we never heard anything else.
Anita Rao 6:52
okay? I was gonna say, like, is she okay? Because I'm concerned.
Walker Lukens 6:58
I mean, I think that's another thing too that we encounter is that it might be a brave moment for somebody, yeah, sort of walk in there and and the anonymity of it, and the fact that it's not Catholic confession, it creates a space for them to sort of come tell you something, and then that that goes away. That goes away really, really in short order. If I can tell a little story here, we just put one out two weeks ago, and basically it was a story about a guy who he had just moved to a town he was in his like, early 20s, early teens, and he was driving a scooter, and basically his night ended with him evading arrest from the cops. So from my perspective, a pretty lighthearted story. And so we, we reconfirmed with him that he was okay with us sharing his confession. And even this guy, like he all of a sudden got very self conscious, you know, he was like, Oh, can I listen to it? I don't know if I'm like, all this stuff. And it's like he ended up saying, Yes, but I think that that space, if I want to share this, can be really, really small, really precious moment for some folks.
Anita Rao 8:07
Yeah. How often do you all play the song back for people? Is that a part of the process, or did they just hear it if and when the episode comes out,
Walker Lukens 8:16
if we're firing on all cylinders, they get an email the day it comes out. Okay, occasionally. I mean, at this point, we've between sort of the podcast, where I think we've released like 60 songs, and then private events, like I think we've done over between 102 100. And I did, I did get an email the other day from someone who was ecstatic, but they discovered a little bit after the fact that they their song had come out, okay, we're not. We're not. Was that a perfect system that's fair?
Anita Rao 8:46
Yeah, still learning. Okay, so we're gonna play the confession that we shared in our event. Is there anything else you want to do to set it up? You mentioned it was in Sydney where it was recorded.
Walker Lukens 8:55
Just, just something that really struck me was so we were set up in this kind of square in the middle of downtown Sydney, and we opened our booth at 11am and this confessor came in at like, 1102, oh, wow. So they it seemed clear to me that they had seen either They'd either read some of the info that South by Sydney put out, or they had seen the signs prior to because, like, I mean, they got right in and told this just bombshell.
Anita Rao 9:26
All right, okay, let's listen.
Anonymous Confessor 9:28
my ex partner, mate, it's his secret, I guess, but the fact that I've been keeping it as mine, his mum was dying of cancer, and she was definitely fading away, not really a person anymore. And he went to see her, and while he was there, she died, and that the parting gift he gave me as we. Broke up and has, you know, forced me to carry around since, is that there was a reason she died while he was there, and that no one else in his family knows that, including, I guess, the one who died. Wow, yeah,
Walker Lukens in Confession 10:23
so did they not have a good relationship?
Anonymous Confessor 10:27
They they didn't have a great relationship. But he's in the medical field, so knew certain ways to help people along that, and he just took it upon himself to do that. You know, I know I know the criminality of it's a bit dubious, but she was probably only a few weeks away anyway. There was no going back, but the timing was his choice of hers.
Walker Lukens in Confession 10:55
Damn, yeah, wow, and you didn't know that until after you broke up, or as you were breaking up, yeah,
Anonymous Confessor 11:04
as as we were sort of sorting out the breakup. He told me that, and I think, I think it was an act of cruelty, like, I think that was an intentional cruelty for him to tell me that.
Walker Lukens in Confession 11:17
Do you think that he told you because he knew that you wouldn't say anything. So it was just a burden for you.
Anonymous Confessor 11:25
Yes, I do think he did that. The relationship was very emotionally violent, and that was kind of a punishment, you know, like, like this, this final act of destruction.
Walker Lukens in Confession 11:45
Wow. Do you think that ultimately, it was kind, what he did for his mother, or do you think that there's a sinister aspect of it?
Anonymous Confessor 11:53
I think it was kind, and I think it was meant with kindness. But I do think the fact that he didn't get consent from her or her carer, you know, yeah, it's a, it's a pretty imposing kind of kindness, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, I think the reason I've carried it for so long, and not, you know, gone around telling anyone is because, because of that, that conflict, but I think it really told me a lot about him and his decisions to decide things, or what his his choice to decide things for other people, I think the thing I have always held onto since that is that that relationship didn't rock my capacity to be kind. That's something I'm very, very proud of.
Anita Rao 12:52
All right.
Walker Lukens 12:53
Wow. I have to say just some behind the scenes talk that the edit that y'all did of that confession is really wonderful because it keeps the weight of it, but trimmed out a lot of ums and me being shocked and me reeling from this information I just learned, she called it an imposing kind of kindness. Yes, that is such a accurate understatement of that whole story. Wow.
Anita Rao 13:21
I will say that the first time I listened to this confession, I had to pause and rewind like three times because I kept wondering if I was hearing what I thought I was hearing. Yeah. And like in the moment as you were listening, were you able to grasp what she was saying, or did it take a while for it to sink in for you?
Walker Lukens 13:39
No, I instantly got it the way she set up the story. I didn't see it coming, yeah, because I thought that. I thought I was about to talk to someone who was going through a breakup, that's what it sounded like, or who had kind of come to some realization, and then they dropped that information. And I mean, part of what is so compelling about it, if you just remove yourself from the fact these are real people, like, part of what's so compelling about it is it's every shade of gray, right? I mean, it is so kind to help a loved one in their life. That is a true kindness. But to decide that to do that on your timeline is the opposite.
Anita Rao 14:29
And then to tell someone about it in a really belated way, kind of as an afterthought, leaving them with so many questions. Yeah.
Walker Lukens 14:39
I mean, that is a kind of cruelty I did know existed that lingered with me more than anything. I think because you know, truthfully, like when it comes to euthanasia, like you just don't know when that moment is right. So maybe, as a doctor, that was his opinion. Yeah. Yeah, but man, as a manipulative, or sort of, as she called it, emotion, a kind of emotional violence that is sinister.
Anita Rao 15:09
I will say. So you all gave us an animated version of this that we played during the event, and I got to sit in the audience, like alongside everyone watching it for the first time, and there was this, like, kind of eerie, uh, it wasn't like a gasp, because it's more subtle than that, but just this feeling the room where everyone kind of realizes what's happening at once. And I think it's a little more obvious when you have the visual of, like someone in a doctor's coat, like hovering over the bed of their mom, watching this happen. So back to the premise of song confessional. You do the recording of this anonymous confession, and then you give it to a band. And we chose blue cactus, which is this amazing North Carolina duo, Steph Stewart, Mario Arnez, and I was pretty sure that they were going to do this song about the relationship, that it was going to be like a like a breakup song, and at the end there was going to be this twist, like it was going to kind of mirror the arc of the confession. I had no idea they would approach it the way that they ended up approaching it, which y'all are going to hear their song and hear my conversation with them a little bit later. But what is the process like of working with a band, and does it usually end up with this kind of surprised, like they just take it in the creative direction that they feel moved by.
Walker Lukens 16:24
I think the first part of working with every band usually comes with assuring them and they can write about whatever they want, okay? Because I think especially when you hear something as intense as this, you know, songwriters tend to feel a sense of responsibility, yeah, to do, kind of do right by this person, in a way. I mean, we, we usually tell people that they're, they're gonna write somebody's favorite song, you know, so treat it with that kind of level of care. So that was, that was part of this. It's like, you guys can, you're just inspired by this, you don't have to, like, be loyal to it. It can go wherever you need to go. You know, beyond that. I mean, a lot of times it's just forcing people to finish, yeah. I mean, that's the that's the tough thing about creative work, I think, is you decide when it's done, it's never done. When is it done? Oh, we're out of time. Is that enough of a reason to say it's done? I will say that blue cactus, they really did finish this, like, pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah. I think they spent less than two weeks before they got back a demo, and I think it's really beautiful. It captures there's a somberness to this whole story that I think is in their song, like, but they really, really nailed.
Anita Rao 17:39
As a songwriter and a musician. Is there anything that strikes you about the approach that they took to this confession,
Walker Lukens 17:46
at the risk of sounding cheesy, just being in awe of whatever that creative spark is? I mean, it's not the song I would have written, that's for sure. Yeah. So it's just like it moved them in a way that is so unique to what the two of them do. And I think that's awesome.
Anita Rao 18:03
Looking forward to the future of y'all's project, and this idea of confessions, like, what are the biggest questions that you have that you want to continue to thread out in this work?
Walker Lukens 18:16
You know, I think the thing that keeps me coming back to it is like two. There's two things that keep me doing sound confessional. Are committed to it. One is that I love, I love getting to talk to people about very real, important, weighty stuff. And this is a way to do it that is less taxing on your life, then let's say, if I'm not even talking about being a therapist, that's a whole other thing I know nothing about but, but, like, you just can't go here with your friends, yeah, your family every day. So it's wonderful to have an and I know Zach feels the same, where it's just wonderful to have an outlet for that, that kind of want or need, you know, and on the other side of that, like, I think some people need to get shit off their chest. And this is a pretty non judgmental avenue for that, yep. So that, that part is, is really, you know, keep keeps me coming back. And the other thing is, songwriting for me is like a total compulsion at this point in my life like I literally I have in the last six months, sort of come to at 11pm and I'm like, playing the piano, and I'm like, how did this happen? I was like, brushing my teeth, and then here I am, you know? But I think it's the project gives songwriters an opportunity to be forced to do something to get out of their comfort zone. And it's really inspiring to watch, you know, because everyone surprises me. I'm I never know what someone's going to do, like the confession I mentioned just a second ago. So we just did a confession call. We put this out and let anyone submit a song, and we got 28 songs. So we're blown away by the number of songs we got. And it was such a just such a myriad of responses. So people who told the story very literally, almost like an old folk song or something, to people who kind of found these different emotional currents that they turned into these beautiful songs that you would have no idea what the source material was, you know, so just being around that energy, for me is, like, you know, oxygen, yeah,
Anita Rao 20:24
I think, too, one of the things we were thinking about a lot in advance of this event was like, what's the, what's the value of diving into this, this territory that isn't, we're not trying to be voyeuristic about understanding people's, deepest, darkest secrets, like, what's the added value there? And I think it's like the catharsis of getting something off your chest. There's the building community around something that felt really shameful, that can happen when you kind of share this and acknowledge it in a public space. And I think that's what's so cool about y'all's project, is it's generative, like there's the actual confession that may feel private and cathartic, but then it generates something new that can cause people to think about their own story in a really different way.
Walker Lukens 21:10
Yeah, I hope so. Thank you for saying that. I hope that is what it's doing. I wasn't sure which confession you would chose, and I was this is just such a big one, yeah, if I may ask, like, were there other ones that you considered, or was it pretty much this one from the from the start?
Anita Rao 21:26
It's a good question. So I it was our producer, Audrey and Kaya, who did the final selection. So I'll have to ask them more about like, their part. I think we were trying to find a balance of something that wasn't too heavy. We knew it was gonna be playing front of a live audience, and we wanted there to the event, to not be too much of a downer, so we were like, what's a version of a confession that's like, compelling has a good narrative arc, but isn't gonna leave people in this space of utter devastation. And I think the the other options you gave us. One of them felt very devastating, then the other ones just didn't feel as, like, layered. Yeah. So I think with this one, it gave you all of the like, all of the things you would want in a story about a family secret, where it's like, about the two people, and it's about how that lives on over time, and how it affects people beyond just the the two people involved in the story.
Walker Lukens 22:21
I remembered when, when we were putting together the confessions to give to you guys to select from Tate, who's one of the producers for the podcast, he said, are any family secrets? Good? And it was just, it just made me laugh so much, because, you know, probably not.
Anita Rao 22:43
There's a reason why it was kept a secret.
Walker Lukens 22:46
There's a reason why no one knew. But, yeah, I don't know it was such an interesting theme, and I'm curious, like, for what you guys do, how does the idea of family secrets sort of fit into what you're trying to do with embodied?
Anita Rao 22:59
Yeah, I think it's it's about talking about things that we don't often talk about, and finding ways for those conversations to promote more connection. So I have my parents on the show pretty often, and a big part of the beginning of the embodied journey for me was like finding ways to talk to them about things I had never talked to them about before. My mom made a joke at the event that like she has no more family secrets, because they've all been told on this podcast, which is true, which is true to a degree, but just that, there is something, yeah, there's something powerful about saying the quiet stuff out loud, and especially when it comes to family. We've done shows about estrangement and about all the ways that, like, those secrets can, like, build on themselves over years to cause, like, generational trauma or just within the individual. So I think it was kind of all of those themes and thinking about how that stuff, like lives with you and lives in your body, yeah, that all made it embodied.
Walker Lukens 23:59
Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think that's such a great mission. I mean, I found myself so I listened to two episodes. I listened to the episode about vibrators on Wednesday of this week. And it's kind of a funny thing for me to be walking around talking about with everyone I talked to in a day. But then the next day, I listened to the one about the two trans couples, yeah, who, in the course of their relationship, one of the members transition. And it really does create a space to talk about these things when you when you have it so beautifully laid out for you and that that's very cool. It's very cool mission.
Anita Rao 24:35
Thank you so much. Well, Walker, Lukens of song, confessional, thank you for working on this event with us and so cool. It has been really fun to collaborate. More excited to have everyone listen to the conversation that I had with blue cactus, which is going to be coming up after a short break. So stay tuned.
Welcome back to embodied now after all that hype, it is. Time to take y'all to our live event to hear blue cactus performing the song they wrote based on that confession. It's called the gift.
Steph Stewart 25:13
You guys hear the guitar, okay, out there, all right.
Blue Cactus (singing) 25:18
Winter almost faded, then I pushed you in the world, the darkness disappearing, the hot white lights and screaming born with the hunger I never learned to shake awaken in the night channel. The night just to see your face, speak.
Teach me all your songs. Show me how you let go holy.
Oh, it's only the beginning.
I kept real close, but you pushed me from your wing the tree tops, all the dancing and their finest shades of green, I kept real busy. Stayed far away. The Days turning tears turn into lines across your face.
Go Long as summer, waiting for the rain, your veins burning with poison, but you never once complained. You just grew still into some far away still clean wet sheets and heartbeats, but you weren't really there Spain. Space.
Teach me all these songs. Show me how
to let go, spinning it's only the beginning.
Pushed you from the world, the Darkness disappearing the white light...
Anita Rao (at event) 29:07
Okay, a song gives me chills. So beautiful. So when we gave you all this confession a couple of months ago, we sent it to you, and I am just want to hear what your experience was of listening to it for the first time. Were you all together, separate, like, take us into what that was like?
Steph Stewart 29:29
Yeah. So I was so excited when the email came. I was well, we were on tour. We were in the van with three other people driving down to Austin, Texas, and I had to listen to it right away. So I put my headphones on and listened to it, and it got to the part where she says, what happened. And I was, did you just say what I think she said, what happened there? And I had to read. Listened to that multiple times, and then I Mario was behind me in the van, and I said, Hey, you got to check our email. And then he listened to it.
Mario Arnez 30:10
Yeah, yeah. So when you're piled into a van with a couple people and, you know, people have their earbuds in or something, you kind of have your own little world sometimes. So yeah, we just had our our own little different worlds, where we had our earbuds in and we just, like, I listened to it after, you know, and just looked over like, oh my like, just, You're speechless, you know.
Anita Rao (at event) 30:30
Yeah, it takes you I listened to it also a few times, and it took me a while to be like, Oh, I think I think he is saying what, or she is saying what I think she is saying what I think she's saying about what he did. It's very layered. And I never thought that you all would approach this from his perspective. I just kind of assumed you'd write it about her and the process of kind of having and holding on to the secret. Why did you just decide to write it from his perspective?
Mario Arnez 31:01
One reason was all those layers, because it is just a whirlwind. Like, how do you process? I mean, even just listening to it is almost a work of art. Just you're going through these different layers of, you know, perception from these different sides. And, well, you had a
Steph Stewart 31:27
I don't know, I think I just sort of wanted to know more about him, and we didn't really hear from him, and so I just imagined how hard that still must have been. And I wanted to kind of tell that story, even though we don't really know what that story is entirely, but maybe imagine what it could have been.
Anita Rao (at event) 31:46
You bookend the song in the hospital, the two the scenes of a birth and a death. And I think one of the most disturbing parts of the confession is the lack of consent. That he didn't get consent from his mom to end her life. How did you all think about representing that tension in the song?
Steph Stewart 32:08
Yeah, I think that was one of the biggest challenges in writing this song. I had the concept that you mentioned like I knew I wanted this song to begin and end kind of in the same place, but on totally different circumstances and totally different situations. But I didn't really know how to communicate that. And, you know, like, four minutes or less without writing like a really long, like English ballad that went into all that, and I'm not really good at those. So, yeah, I just wanted to, I think ultimately the consent part was something that I wanted to leave a little mysterious, because it's not totally stated in the song, but it's implied potentially. And I like to write songs that other people can see themselves in. And so for me, I wanted this song to feel like other people's story too.
Anita Rao (at event) 33:05
My last question is just about the use of the bird and the sparrow as the symbol. We've been talking about this like passing on of things through generation. I thought that was so beautiful to talk about kind of the mother bird and the nest. Can you talk about the use of the bird and the choice to kind of represent passing on a secret through that animal?
Steph Stewart 33:26
I really love this question because I'm a real nature specifically bird geek. I think sparrows are really fascinating birds for this song. I think the name Sparrow just sings nicely, but they're really common birds. They live like all over the world, except for, like, Antarctica, and people generally in the Birding world don't like them because they are so common. And they're kind of like colonialist they take over places, and they kick out other birds, and they're kind of ruthless. And there's all kinds of stories about sparrows and people not getting along, but they're also like birds of hope, and they're really strong. And there's stories about that too. And I think a lot of people maybe don't like sparrows because they show the bad parts of ourselves, you know, and I don't know, I think that's just a really powerful way to communicate that whole story too, like through this bird that is both beautiful and brutal.
Anita Rao 34:29
I love that. Well, we are going to have blue cactus play the song one more time so that you all can hear it again with this new context. But first, I just want to say a couple of thank yous. Thank you to all the members of the embodied team who are behind the scenes. Audrey Smith, who was the event producer for the show, worked with all of our talent, did such an incredible job. The rest of the embodied team, Amanda Magnus, Kaia Findlay, Paige Miranda, our technical director, Jenni Lawson, our illustrator, Charnel Hunter, who, I think and hope, is in the audience tonight. Our intern, Skylar Chadwick, big thanks to the folks from song confessional who aren't here for this great collaboration. Sean Roux our engineer in the back, who is recording the sound for tonight. All of the amazing folks at Motorco you been so lovely work with thank you for your support. And our development team, who is also here, greeting you all. Thank you all so much. And let's hear from Blue cactus one more time.
Blue Cactus (singing) 35:36
Winter almost faded, then I pushed you in the world, the darkness disappearing, the hot white lights and screaming born with the hunger I never learned to shake awaken in the night channel. The night just to see your face, speak.
Teach me all your songs. Show me how you let go holy.
Oh, it's only the beginning.
I kept real close, but you pushed me from your wing the tree tops, all the dancing and their finest shades of green, I kept real busy. Stayed far away. The Days turning tears turn into lines across your face.
Go Long as summer, waiting for the rain, your veins burning with poison, but you never once complained. You just grew still into some far away still clean wet sheets and heartbeats, but you weren't really there Spain. Space.
Teach me all these songs. Show me how
to let go, spinning it's only the beginning.
Pushed you from the world, the Darkness disappearing the white light...
Thank you.
Anita Rao 39:20
Embodied is a production of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC. We'll be back on Thursday with a brand new episode. I'm Anita Rao, taking on the taboo with you.