Materialists Movie - Behind the Song with Japanese Breakfast - video Dailymotion

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Materialists | Behind the Song with Japanese Breakfast | A24 -  “My Baby (Got Nothing At All)” by Japanese Breakfast  Written by Michelle Zauner Produced by Craig Hendrix & Michelle Zauner Mixed by Jorge Elbrecht Mastered by Joe LaPorta  Written and directed by Academy Award nominee Celine Song and starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal. MATERIALISTS – Now Playing

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00:00I knew that Celine really wanted a love song and that the main takeaway had to

00:11be that this was a love song, that this was a love story. And the references that

00:16she gave me were John Prine's In Spite of Ourselves and Natasha

00:23Bedingfield's Unwritten. It was basically like we wanted to do something that was

00:28really uplifting and romantic and had this like sweeping thing and then I

00:32watched the movie and thought it would be great to write a song that kind of has

00:37some turn of phrase like the In Spite of Ourselves. Yeah, I don't know, like Inside Joke.

00:42Yeah, they're very playful. That sounds like a playful lyrically.

00:45Yeah.

00:45So I think in addition to like lovey-dovey stuff we wanted it to feel fun to listen to.

00:51All the markings of a rom-com are there but it's kind of a thinker too.

00:55The characters have more depth than you might expect from a romantic comedy and it stuck with

01:01me in a weird way like a couple days after watching. I just kept going back to it.

01:05Our generation is at a real, we really want our great rom-com. They're my comfort films,

01:12they're what I reach for on the plane and it was really great to see a film that feels very clever

01:20and timely and kind of filled that void.

01:26One of the real hooks of the song is the slide guitar riff that's sort of the first

01:30melodic thing that you hear in the song. That did start as just a vocal riff. Michelle was like

01:36singing. And then we had Peter just play that same riff on the slide guitar.

01:48So that's actually the vocal and the guitar combined. It gives a great space.

01:55And it's one of those instantly recognizable things.

02:00I think I came up with some of the harmonies but my favorite harmony is of course the one that

02:05Craig came up with. Oh my gosh she is.

02:07My baby. My baby. Wait, what is it?

02:11My baby. My baby.

02:13Which is something I would never. Do you want to talk about the technical?

02:17Yeah, it's sort of like- Like what is happening there?

02:19If you think of like a choir separated into four voices, I think we only got to three different parts

02:23on this one. But like it's usually the altos or the tenors that have like lines that on their own

02:28don't make a lot of musical sense. But when they're in the harmony context, it gives all the character

02:34to the harmonies. So I think we did background vocals. I think it's mostly two or even one.

02:43So it's just the lead line and then a lower harmony. And then when we got towards the end of this bridge section.

02:50And there's no way around it. We added the third here.

02:55My baby.

02:59It sounds like a barber show. Yeah. And the way you slide to the last chord,

03:04like all three voices slide to the resting note. It's really nice.

03:08It helps that I'm married to our guitar player. And sometimes before I'm about to give up,

03:14I'm about to give up on something and he chimes in and is like, that part is great.

03:20I think he also like suggested that sort of like stonesy guitar hook in the bridge.

03:27Oh, that delay thing was his idea.

03:31That riff. That little like let's spend the night together kind of stonesy riff.

03:35I often start with the lyric that starts the song. You know what they say a lot

03:47in timeless love songs, they say my baby. And so I wanted a song that was like very

03:53to the point, which is just my baby, you don't have nothing. And I started getting like a little

03:59clever with it and finding these sorts of turns of phrase like, you know, sweet,

04:04sweet, nothing's just nothing after all. And all these romantic things that you share with someone

04:08that offer no financial benefit. Then put in like some real Michelle-isms like corporate callings are

04:15for the basics. Like using the words corporate and basics in the songs, like sort of similar to the

04:20film and that it is like this timeless sweeping love theme, but it's very contemporary at the same time.

04:27I didn't think about writing it from a particular perspective of any of the characters,

04:35but of a woman in love with someone who doesn't have any money. As someone who's only loved people

04:41that have no money, I could really relate to that theme. Especially that scene where John

04:48is in his apartment and he can't get the medicine cabinet to close and his roommate

04:52has like made a mess or like borrowed something of his. I was probably just thinking of when I met

04:58my husband in my early twenties and the kind of life that we were living in the warehouse that you

05:04guys both lived in and what it felt like to just have no prospects, but just love someone.

05:11I feel like this really wide verbed out tambourine percussive element, like this could be

05:30the core of any Motown song. Like this would be the sound if you were in City Hall, like big open

05:36space with the reverb and stuff. You were standing there shaking a tambourine. It probably sounds something

05:40like this. I think the pulse that we ended up we ended up with like there's a nice

05:47like rails for the train of the song to run on. This to me feels like so cinematic, but you had this

05:55idea to like have this crescendoing just string pull to lead us into the song.

06:14We've worked together for a really long time. The two of us made Soft Sounds from Another Planet

06:18together and Jubilee and have played in this band together for almost 10 years. Yeah coming up on 10.

06:24So I just knew like I wanted this kind of feel and sent him I think just the acoustic guitar track

06:31and you made a really cool loop with the tambourine and. Actually when I came to your apartment I think

06:36is really when it all came together. Oh yeah. This came together really quickly. The time span from like

06:42finished demo to finish song was like 24 hours maybe. But sometimes that's just what like a song

06:48wants. There are some like questionable chimes that no one will probably hear. They're very quietly mixed.

06:55They were the last thing we recorded I think too. And our engineer was like not into it and trying

06:59to hide it and we were like no we like it. Bring it back. They're really really quiet.

07:04Just kind of like a background texture. Just a little magical high frequency stuff.

07:15Gonna help us again over here. This is one of the things that I think only we will overhear.

07:26Someone's at the door. It's a lot of like really high frequency information so a lot of times you

07:33feel it rather than hear it outright.

07:39Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell is one of my favorites. Similar to this tune in the sense

07:46that it has sort of classic timeless sound to it. I can't remember the name of the lyricist.

07:50Glen Campbell didn't write this song but there's just some some beautiful lines in it. The chorus has

07:57I need you more than want you but I want you for all time. And it's just like like doubling down on how

08:03much he's in love with his partner. I like Billy Joel's She's a Woman.

08:09And probably Beach Boys God Only Knows. You can't not mention that. It's maybe the best I think for

08:15a lot of people the best love song of all time. Objectively the best love song of all time.

08:18Actually one of my favorite parts about working in the studio with you is like just

08:23listing references and and listening to songs that maybe we haven't ever heard or haven't

08:28heard in a long time. And like once we started getting the sounds together was the um glad and

08:33sorry by the faces. And it's just a sweet simple song with similar instrumentation to what we ended

08:39up using and just the tone of it. Just like another simple expression that like carries a lot of emotion.

08:53This bridge part like does feel like a Barbra Streisand moment for me.

09:04And it's funny because you know the record that we just made is a little

09:09purposefully difficult I think. And there aren't a lot of repeating sections or big choruses.

09:14And so after making focusing on making a record like that it was really fun to go.

09:18I want it to be like verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus. And I want the core

09:21I want the bridge to be like the hugest part of the song. So it was fun finding ways to make each of

09:27those sections exciting in their own but also follow this very timeless classic format. It does exactly

09:35what a bridge should do too which is to kind of like sweep you up into the star road of the song.

09:40Yeah. Yeah. We Mario Karting.

09:44When I think of a great love song I think of a Motown hit and what makes like a simple

09:51sentiment like God only knows what I'd be without you or I can't help falling in love with you or like

09:57these like really broad sentiments that feel so universal and still so moving.

10:04It's a tricky thing to do sometimes to find a phrase or something that might seem

10:11almost mundane and it's cliches of love and whatnot to take that and turn it into something

10:17imbue it with more power because of the music that's with it. I can't help falling in love with you.

10:21It's a sweet thing to say but when you put it in its setting musically it like has a huge impact

10:27and it might not have otherwise.

10:28My baby my baby my baby's got nothing at all.

10:51I think it's a hit.

Materialists Movie - Behind the Song with Japanese Breakfast

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