This Song
Elizabeth McQueen
April 30, 2020
In this rerun from 2018, Beth Ditto, former lead singer of the band Gossip, talks about how Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” helped her grapple with complex feelings about her home state, Arkansas. She also talks about returning home after heartbreak and explores making her first record “Fake Sugar.”
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April 16, 2020
In this rerun from 2018, Liz Phair talks about hearing The Soft Boys “I Wanna Destroy You,” revisiting her 1991 Girly-Sound Tapes and 1993 debut album, and parenting realities.
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April 2, 2020
John Prine explains how Bob Dylan’s “The Lonsesome Death of Hattie Carroll” changed his life and goes in depth about his own songwriting process for his album “The Tree of Forgiveness.”
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March 26, 2020
This Song: Thao and The Get Down Stay Down
Thao Nguyen from Thao and the Get Down Stay Down talks to host Elizabeth McQueen about the inspiration behind her new song “Temple,” and about what it was like to release music during a pandemic. She also shares how making the new album helped prepare her to address her sexuality publicly and to create a safe space in her life where she could exist as her full self.
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March 19, 2020
Kathy Valentine, bass player in the seminal 80s all-girl rock group the Go-Go’s, recently wrote a memoir titled All I Ever Wanted. In this episode of, Kathy explains what “Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream taught her about herself when she was 9 years old, describes how she found her creative process as an author and details how music and storytelling intersected in her new book.
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March 2, 2020
This Song: St. Vincent (Rerun)
In this episode, St. Vincent explores how music from early Disney films helped her lay the foundation for beauty and wonder in her life and work. She also explains why she approached the songs on Masseduction with a Disney-esque lack of irony.
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March 2, 2020
Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw from Metric talk about hearing “Teardrop” by Massive Attack early in their musical partnership and how it inspired them, terrified them and helped them find a collaborative way of making music that still works for them today.
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March 2, 2020
This Song: Jackie Venson (Rerun)
In this episode of This Song, originally published last February, Jackie Venson talks about how “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from Evita changed the way she listened to music and thought about herself.
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About
This Song started in 2015, a year and a half after producer and host Elizabeth McQueen stopped touring with the Western Swing band Asleep at the Wheel. The idea came from a conversation she had with Wheel road manager PJ Herrington. They dreamed up a show that would try to capture the post-gig bus conversations that musicians about music with each other on the road. They both knew that musicians are most beautiful when they’re talking about the music that changed them. You can actually hear PJ as a co-host in the first two episodes. He had to bow out, due to his travel schedule, but Elizabeth continued to make the podcast for five years.
Elizabeth currenting co-hosts and co-produces Pause/Play, a podcast about live music, a global pandemic and what comes next. She also helps produce The Breaks podcast.
Elizabeth McQueen
Elizabeth McQueen is an audio producer and podcast host at KUTX 98.9, Austin’s NPR music station. McQueen is also the featured host of the podcast, “This Song,” and the producer of “The Breaks,” a hip-hop podcast. Prior to her career in radio and podcasting, Elizabeth was a professional musician who started and played for the band, “Elizabeth McQueen and the Firebrands,” and later joined the legendary Western Swing band, “Asleep at the Wheel.”
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