The King of Tears | Revisionist History | Malcolm Gladwell

Why country music makes you cry, and rock and roll doesn’t: A musical interpretation of divided America.

Revisionist History goes to Nashville to talk with Bobby Braddock, who has written more sad songs than almost anyone else. What is it about music that makes us cry? And what sets country music apart?

Season 2 (2017)
#podcast #revisionisthistory #malcolmgladwell

ABOUT REVISIONIST HISTORY
Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every podcast episode re-examines something from the past — an event, a person, an idea, even a song — and asks whether we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.

ABOUT MALCOLM GLADWELL
Malcolm Gladwell is president and co-founder of Pushkin Industries. He is a journalist, a speaker, and the author of six New York Times bestsellers including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and Talking to Strangers. He has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1996. He is a trustee of the Surgo Foundation and currently serves on the board of the RAND Corporation.

ABOUT PUSHKIN INDUSTRIES
Pushkin Industries is an audio production company dedicated to creating premium content in a collaborative environment. Co-founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg in 2018, Pushkin has launched seven new shows into the top 10 on Apple Podcasts (Against the Rules, The Happiness Lab, Solvable, Cautionary Tales, Deep Cover, The Last Archive, and Lost Hills), in addition to producing the hugely successful Revisionist History. Pushkin’s growing audiobook catalogue includes includes the bestselling biography “Fauci,” by Michael Specter, “Hasta La Vista, America,” Kurt Andersen’s parody Trump farewell speech performed by Alec Baldwin, "Takeover" by Noah Feldman, and “Talking to Strangers,” from Pushkin co-founder Malcolm Gladwell. Pushkin is dedicated to producing audio in any format that challenges listeners and inspires curiosity and joy.

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[jenniferb]

Whoo doggie the ending was just beautiful. Thank you.

[jimmyolsenblues]

my mom died in 1976, i am 54, i was 7 when she passed, i hate mother's day. but today on mother's day, i really appreciate this podcast. God Bless you.

[leekyoverhere]

Man these podcasts are impeccable man. The way you dig. The way you prod. How you get to the bottom of these otherwise overlooked phenomena of everyday life is truly incredible to experience and Im grateful of you and the entire team RH team. God bless Brother Gladwell

[fastpublish]

Rock and roll is what we want. Country music is what we are.

[PhoebeFayRuthLouise]

Specificity increases sadness in every genre of music.

[sugarlessroark]

I've gotta say that I have wept at "Like a Rolling Stone." It was 1973, or so, a bootleg, live performance, and I was high. Make what you will.

[samegan]

I want to put forward a contradictory opinion about specificity in lyrics. Specificity in song lyrics also creates an OBJECTIVITY. The song is firmly about something and you the listener are outside of that thing, you are watching. There's a fourth wall. Abstraction in song lyrics creates subjectivity, and I think that if it's done really well, the subject is YOU. Your own life. I think it's what makes some of the best pop and rock songs so effective. Coldplay's Fix You is a song that illustrates that to me. "when you try your best but dont succeed. when you get what you want, but not what you need" what is that line about? To me it's becomes about my own very specific failures and disappointments. In being a little more impressionist, I think the listener is invited to insert themselves into the song and draw on all of the meaning of their own life. It's like they wrote a song that's about me.

Additionally I think that the hope presented in the song is abstracted to the point of unity. I think of Ursula Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. At the beginning of that short story she presents a 'perfect society' as the backdrop to a thought experiment. She writes "perhaps it would be best to imagine it as your own fancy bids... I can not suit you all." I think the lyrics of great pop and rock songs can invite you to do the same. Imagine it as your own fancy bids. "lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you"

Great Podcast!

[joejohnson]

Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" made me cry the other day even though I've heard it a thousand times, so I'm definitely not dead inside, but I've always found country music unbearably mawkish. 🤷‍♂

You got a fast car
I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinkin' late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me'd find it
I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving...

[noturdaddyblameyomomma]

That was a real tear-jerker Malcolm! I dont even listen to Country 😅

[honestly]

Though not a fan of country music, I have always appreciated the story telling, the way the songwriters truly grasped the issues/subjects that touch people deeply, and create capsulated moments of emotion. My parents were big CW fans so I grew up with some familiarity, and I never made the connection between he stopped loving her today meaning his death. I also really enjoyed the comments about the choral performance at the library and the bits of rock and roll history. I think my top50 would probably not match Rolling Stone's. Great podcast, thanks to my son for guiding me this way. Have subscribed and expect to spend many satisfying hours listening to Mr. Gladwell.

[celtic]

Country music grew from Celtic music, which is primarily about crying or fighting. We are a rather emotionally unstable people...

[jjgallaher]

I spent 40 minutes thinking this was hokey as heck and then started bawling. Just saying.

[MrNiceyoungman]

Great episode and I love sad country music but I don't think you can write off sad rock music that easily. Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here? Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way? Heartbreak city with all the specific, personal pain pouring salt directly into the wound.

[intotheswim]

There's a fun book by Tom Reynolds - "I hate myself and want to die - the 52 most depressing songs you've ever heard"

[kevinpoole]

Contrast Nine Inch Nails “Hurt” to Johnny Cash’s later cover. Trent Rezner, the writer said, “It’s no longer mine. It belongs completely to him.”

[neilrutter]

Great episode. But Malcolm is a little unfair to rock n' roll in his methods. Unlike country, the best rock is not to be found on a list of hits. The lesser-known great rock songs completely defy his description of the genre. Also, "Hotel California" is about a lot more than drugs. Show me a country song that uses metaphor so masterfully. Country music is great at specificity, but it rarely achieves the literary conceits of epic rock.

[James-czhf]

Being dead inside is how many coped with fascism in the past and how I cope with it's return today.

[KingFan]

Great first few minutes when dedicated specifically to the authenticity of Country music and its lyrics. The integration of the library performance was a stretch, in my opinion, and not only unnecessary but contrived. Slipping in Russia in a negative sense did not help. The analysis of Wild Horses and Emmy Lou Harris’ song was pedantic and narrowly confined to Malcolm’s own critical elements, which limits any kind of generalizability—which is what he was going for. All my opinion, of course.

[pavanatanaya]

Like A Rolling Stone is about Edie Sedgwick. She left Bob and gave her silver spoon to that freak Warhol.

[shovemedia]

Someone’s going to write a masterclass on “Cherry Picking” and link directly here