SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Art is always personal. Good art, at least, is always personal. But sometimes art can be deeply, maybe even painfully personal - revealing, vulnerable, emotionally raw. That is certainly the case for singer and fiddle player Amanda Shires and her new album "Nobody's Girl." In a series of blunt and honest songs, Shires processes her divorce from fellow national star Jason Isbell.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOT FEELING ANYTHING")
AMANDA SHIRES: (Singing) I stopped feeling anything. No guilt, no remorse, no shame. I didn't breathe any easier with feelings out of blame (ph). I stopped feeling anything.
DETROW: The two had long collaborated on their music and become an intertwined force for many music fans, and now Shires is figuring out how to reset things. Amanda Shires, welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
SHIRES: I am so happy that you'd have me.
DETROW: We are really happy to have you. And let me just start with a pretty straightforward question. What made you want to make this album? Was it more to help you process things and think about things, or was it more to tell other people your point of view on things, or a little bit of both?
SHIRES: It was definitely - selfishly - to help me process things. I just wanted to - I don't know. I just had to get it out there, have a place for the experience to live. And then through the process, I kind of continued to write and to find beauty in the kind of aftermath and everything.
DETROW: Yeah.
SHIRES: And discovering that even though I'm not somebody's wife anymore, I'm still - now what I am is I'm a mother. I'm a painter. I'm a songwriter. And after the aftermath, you know, you can find freedom. And then, now I realize I don't belong to anybody but myself. And then I'm not less because of what I lost, I guess.
DETROW: Yeah. I mean, a lot of things were different, obviously big changes in your life. I know you made a lot of this album in LA, and that was different. How was the songwriting process different than previous ones? Like, what to you is different about this? How did it feel?
SHIRES: Oh, it - I selfishly used music on this one. It's really what got me through that whole thing.
DETROW: Yeah.
SHIRES: I just had to explain it all to myself somehow. And there's a lot of songs that didn't make it on there, and the ones that did, I'm pretty proud of.
DETROW: Yeah.
SHIRES: And even the end, the last song I wrote for it was "A Way It Goes."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A WAY IT GOES")
SHIRES: (Singing) Oh, you know, there's a way love goes. It goes away. Away it goes.
Like, that discovery of how to sum up the collection as a whole, I guess, and also in that last verse, where it goes into the hopeful - hopeful things again.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A WAY IT GOES")
SHIRES: (Singing) Spent a year looking inward and healing. Made some new friends. Don't ask about the deep end. Even I couldn't believe it when I felt my heart sprouting feathers, and I caught myself dreaming again.
I have a song that I didn't put on there called "Good Luck On Your Way Out." And I was - after I did that, I was just like, that's not actually how I feel. I really, truly feel that everybody gets to be happy and that while it's true that love changes course and marriages end, I guess being a grown-up now, or having been one - I don't know if I've ever been, actually.
DETROW: (Laughter).
SHIRES: Now that I'm 43, I have enough experience to - and, you know, enough insight into my own self to know that I don't truly feel those...
DETROW: Yeah.
SHIRES: ...Ways. I know that it's a thing that'll pass.
DETROW: Sometimes it's hard to act like a grown-up, though. It feels better, at least in the moment, to kind of embrace that bitter rage, you know...
SHIRES: Yeah.
DETROW: ...In one way or the other.
SHIRES: I mean, you have to do that. And, you know, I didn't treat myself super well in the process of getting through this. And I tried some weird things out, you know? Like, I tried out jujitsu, and then I tried out other things, like, probably, you know, overconsumption of some alcohols. And then I discovered backgammon and weightlifting, and that was the place where I started putting my frustration. And then backgammon really showed me it's not about the roles, it's about what you do with them.
DETROW: Weightlifting and backgammon are two really different outlets. That's interesting.
SHIRES: Yeah. One of them is like a war and the other one's just, like, for sheer expulsion of anger (laughter).
DETROW: Yeah. Can I ask you just a couple more questions about kind of the real, honest turn of this album? - 'cause I'm sure, as you imagine, that's what's getting the most attention. I just want to talk about one specific song, if that's OK with you.
SHIRES: Sure.
DETROW: The song "Details." You sing, going to have to put the house up for sale. He scared me then; he still scares me now. Never will hear me out. The thing - he justifies it, using me and cashing in on our marriage.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE DETAILS")
SHIRES: (Singing) He scared me then, and he still scares me now. Never will hear me out. The thing is, he justifies it, using me and cashing in on our marriage. He erases the details.
DETROW: Can you talk to me about the songwriting process of just being so direct? How did you know the level of detail and the level of bluntness was right in the end? How did you kind of get to that point of, like, this is the right compromise in terms of what I'm trying to do as a musician, what I'm trying to do to kind of process things myself?
SHIRES: There's two things I want to say about that. You have to have, like - you can't just omit the uncomfortable things. To me, it doesn't feel like it would be as real of a record or - yeah, because I kind of have to have all the feelings to...
DETROW: Yeah.
SHIRES: ...Paint the picture.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE DETAILS")
SHIRES: (Singing) No matter how clear I keep the memories, you rewrite them so you can sleep.
That song's not one I'm going to play live ever. It's just that song I had to write, and I know that it'll probably be useful for other people. I had to have a place where I could put my experience and keep it somewhere. So...
DETROW: Yeah.
SHIRES: It's really easy for revisionist history to happen. And it's easy to - you know, for myself to - hell, I do it sometimes - try to rewrite my daily humiliations and pretend like I didn't...
DETROW: Oh, yeah.
SHIRES: ...Fall flat on my a**. But it's kind of hard to explain but doing my best.
(SOUNDBITE OF AMANDA SHIRES SONG, "THE DETAILS")
DETROW: You were talking before about, I'm not going to play that song live. Like, what was your favorite song from this album that you are excited to play and why?
SHIRES: I'd like to play "Piece Of Mind" a whole lot.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIECE OF MIND")
SHIRES: (Singing) Oh, I hope you finally find your missing piece of mind.
It's rock and roll, and it's a little bit different for me for what I've done. And I also see ways that I could, you know, have some more rock and roll songs in my future. But I feel like my - to me, my finest writing on the record - which isn't a song that I would play every night; it'd have to be in, you know, specific rooms, probably - it's called "Living."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIVING")
SHIRES: (Singing) Just existing can be hard. Maybe living is an art.
There's a line in there about maybe living is an art because I think it is true. There's an art to it, and you want to do it right.
DETROW: That's true.
SHIRES: You've got one life. Live it.
(SOUNDBITE OF AMANDA SHIRES SONG, "LIVING")
DETROW: That was singer-songwriter and fiddle player Amanda Shires. Her new album, "Nobody's Girl," is out September 26. Amanda, after so many years of listening to you, it was really nice to talk to you. Thanks for coming by.
SHIRES: Oh, well, thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF AMANDA SHIRES SONG, "LIVING")
SHIRES: (Singing) Perfect conditions don't exist. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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