Director Cord Jefferson on winning an Oscar and writing for love

Cord Jefferson [00:00:02] After about like five minutes of just sort of like trying to speak through like heaving sobs, he goes, "I think you might have depression." 

Sophie Bearman [00:00:25] You're listening to Life and seven songs from The San Francisco Standard. I'm your host, Sophie Bearman. Our guest today is Cord Jefferson, the writer and director behind the Oscar winning film "American Fiction," which, if you haven't seen yet, you should go watch the film, a screen adaptation of, first of all, Everett's novel, "Erasure." It's called Directorial Debut, and it tells the story of a black professor and writer named Munk Ellison, whose literary career is failing in part because his books aren't considered black enough to sell well. Cord Jefferson began his career as a journalist writing about race and culture before transitioning into TV writing. And has said that in just 50 pages into "Erasure," he knew he was meant to turn the book into a film. Cord Jefferson, welcome. 

Cord Jefferson [00:01:15] Thank you so much for having me. 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:17] So just take me back to that moment of being 50 pages into "Erasure." How were you feeling? 

Cord Jefferson [00:01:23] It was really thrilling because I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but but the feeling that I was getting was that it was as if somebody had written a novel, especially for me and the character Monk Ellison, the protagonist of the novel, his life and my life were so similar in so many ways that it just felt like, my God, it felt like kind of like fated that I that I sort of found this book. 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:49] What are some of those similarities you were seeing? 

Cord Jefferson [00:01:52] My God. So it's about a black writer living in Los Angeles. 

Sophie Bearman [00:01:56] Where you live? 

Cord Jefferson [00:01:56] Yeah, where I live. His brother lives in Arizona, where I'm from. His family lived is from D.C., where I've also lived. There's a reference to William and Mary, which is the small college that I went to that nobody ever talks about. He's got two siblings. I've got two siblings. We have a push and pull dynamic like the siblings in the book. We have a very overbearing father figure. I love him very much, but he is very overbearing. I think he would admit that. And the overbearing father figure in the book really resembled my father. Monk moves home to take care of his ill mother. I had moved home to take care of my ill mother toward the end of her life. It just sort of just the Venn diagrams between our two lives was becoming a circle. The more and more I read, it really did feel a little freakish and eerie. 

Sophie Bearman [00:02:43] It's kind of creepy, almost.

Speaker 3 [00:02:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was strange. It really was.

Sophie Bearman [00:02:46] And that's just sort of the personal side because I'm guessing where there are also some similarities that you were tying between his work life and your work experience. 

Cord Jefferson [00:02:56] Absolutely. I mean, just the expectations that people have for what black life looks like and what black writers should write about and sort of what is interesting to black readers and what is interesting to other people about black life. There was sort of just all these sort of like rigid rules around what black writers can and can't do. I mean, obviously frustrating if you're a black writer because people are telling you what your life and work should look like. And so, you know, three months before I found the novel "Erasure," I had received a script back from an executive that that told me that one of the characters in the script who was black, needed to be blacker. And I told them, You know, I will indulge that note if you are willing to tell me what it means to be blacker. Like if if somebody is going to sit across from me at a table and say, Here's what you need to do to make the character blacker. And of course, they never did that. And so and so. But but, you know, just those frustrations that he was feeling in the book about about sort of like the limitations that people put on black life and black creativity that just really resembled my struggles in both journalism and in fiction writing, actually. 

Sophie Bearman [00:04:04] So I love the first song that you chose because it takes us back to the very beginning of your story, which is always helpful, but also it has a connection to Jeffrey Wright, who you cast as monk in "American Fiction." So tell me about this first song. 

Cord Jefferson [00:04:16] So this first song is "Flamenco Sketches" off of the Miles Davis album, "Kind of Blue." My parents used to play this for me in the womb. My father would put this vinyl record on and then put headphones on my mother's belly when she was pregnant with me. And they said that when I was born that all they needed to do was put on "Kind of Blue" and I would stop crying. And this is my favorite song off the record. I love it so much. And the first time that I'd ever seen it used in film was in "Basquiat." My favorite scene in the movie is, is just this very quiet, contemplative moment where it's Jeffrey as Jean-Michel in a studio, which is just kind of like this basement apartment, and it's just this big open area and he's just painting. It's just him alone, painting and flamenco sketches, plays over the scene. And that was the first time that I'd seen Jeffrey Wright act before. And I think I was in high school and I just fell in love with him. And I've followed his work ever since. And so, yeah, it was a it was an interesting full circle moment for me to sort of finally work with him. And I when I was sort of like thinking of. About the songs that I was going to send to you. It really did give me pause and make me wonder if there was something about seeing Jeffrey with that song playing over him that sort of like it just made me latch onto him somehow. He imprinted in my head in some deep way that is like Pavlovian because of my parents playing music before I was out of the womb.

Sophie Bearman [00:05:45] Did you ever tell him this? 

Cord Jefferson [00:05:46] No. No, I haven't. I've never told him this, actually. 

Cord Jefferson [00:06:12] Even now, there's no song in the world that makes me feel more at ease. It's just like pure beauty to me. I don't know that there's just something about that that really hits me every time I can hear it over and over and over again. 

Sophie Bearman [00:06:25] Were your mom and dad big jazz fans? 

Cord Jefferson [00:06:28] My dad 100%. My mom less so. My mom. My mom liked jazz, but she certainly wasn't sort of like a connoisseur, like my father. My dad was a trumpet player when he was younger. He put himself through undergrad playing trumpet in the school marching band. And then when he graduated college, he sold his trumpet to help put himself through law school. But he sort of like maintained his love of jazz all throughout my life and gave that to my brothers and I. So my brothers and I had both sort of all three of us have a real, real deep. We're in the midst of arguing about who's going to get my dad's jazz collection when he dies, right?

Sophie Bearman [00:07:07] Before it even happens. 

Cord Jefferson [00:07:08] Yeah, Yeah. No, it's a we do we try to make sure to do have that conversation when my dad's not around, but it's happened definitely before in front of him. 

Sophie Bearman [00:07:18] It's not like a matter of splitting it. It's like someone wants the full...

Cord Jefferson [00:07:21]  Exactly. 

Sophie Bearman [00:07:23] I love it. So, okay, you mentioned growing up in Arizona. What was it like growing up then in Tucson? 

Cord Jefferson [00:07:30] Pros and cons. I really looking back before we settled in Tucson, we lived overseas in Saudi Arabia and Greece for about six years, and then they moved back to Tucson when I was about six years old. So I was born in Tucson and we moved almost immediately. And then I moved back here right when I was sort of about starting school. And I think that I always knew that I wanted to travel the world. And I always felt kind of confined in Tucson. Unfortunately, it felt like this is this is a small town and I got to get out of here. And in actuality, I remember talking to a friend years later when I was, gosh, probably 29, 30. And, you know, she said, Where are you from? We had just met and I said, I'm from this small town called Tucson. She and she said, "Tucson's not a small town. I'm from a town in Iowa with 5000 people. And at that's a small town. Tucson is not a small town." And I looked it up. And at that point, Tucson was like the 32nd biggest city in America. So it's like. Okay, I guess you're right. It's not that tiny of a town. But to me it felt really small and confined at the time. And I think that that was, it was just due to the fact that I didn't see a lot of people like me. I remember asking my parents, like if I could change my name to Frank, like because I just wanted I just wanted a normal name. I'm already this like, black kid in sort of like a town of no black kids. And now I have this weird name too, which sort of like, everybody leaps on, and I was like, electrical cord and umbilical cord and bungee cord. My parents sort of like, did their best to introduce me to black culture, too. That sort of like was because they knew that there wasn't a lot of black culture in Tucson. So I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty positive. Like I was the only seven year old in the theater to see "Do the Right Thing," because my parents sort of were like, you got to you know, this is apparently sort of like a great new film by this great black director. So we're going to see it. But my brothers got me into rap music very early on in my life, particularly my middle brother, Derek. And so Derek started giving me rap records when I was 11 or 12. And I remember him saying, like, You've got to hide these from mom and dad, and you can't let mom and dad know that I gave you these these albums because they're very dated like they had, you know, the parental warning labels. And so, like, to me, it was like, my parents don't understand this and I understand this, and it's speaking to me and not that. And that was important to me. 

Sophie Bearman [00:09:52] So what song did you choose? 

Cord Jefferson [00:09:53] I chose "The What" by Notorious B.I.G. From his first album, "Ready to Die." And it's it's a song that features Method Man from the Wu-Tang Clan. 

Sophie Bearman [00:10:03] Anything in the song like lyrics or sentence? 

Cord Jefferson [00:10:06] Yeah, yeah. 

Cord Jefferson [00:10:08] It's a it's a very angry song, you know, the chorus starts, "Fuck the world. Don't ask me for shit."

Cord Jefferson [00:10:30] This record, I'm pretty sure it came out when I was 12. So this was a pretty extreme sentiments for a 12 year old to have. But they felt dangerous and it felt like scary. And it also, you know, when you're a kid, at least me, I had this kind of like impotent rage. I was an angry kid for any number of reasons. You know, I was like I said, I was a black kid and sort of like a town with no black people. I felt like an outsider. My parents got divorced. I had never met my grandparents on my mother's side, my maternal grandparents, because they disowned my mother for marrying my father for being black. And so sort of she was disowned by her family. And so I used to send them letters and they would they would return the letters unopened.

Sophie Bearman [00:11:13] What did the letters say, if you don't mind sharing. 

Cord Jefferson [00:11:16] They were along the lines of like, like just introducing myself almost, because I had never met these people before. And so it was like, you know, I'm Cord. It'd be really nice to meet you, like you're my family. I was just always kind of like letters of introduction. And I wrote them until I was about nine. And then I stopped writing them. And that just because it felt like sort of like futile because they always return them. But my mother sent letters also and they would not return those. And there's a very haunting story for my family at my mother's funeral. My uncle, her brother told us that one day he had gone into his father's bedroom. This is sort of like years after he and my mother sort of had stopped speaking. And he said my grandfather was sitting on his bed with a box of my mother's letters, reading them kind of in silence by himself. And he was sort of like just sitting there, sort of sadly going over sort of like this correspondence that he never responded to from my mom. And it's it was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking. And I think that it was a it was a thing that I don't think I really understood how deeply it affected me until, you know, because as a kid. Feel that sense of rejection from your own family, you know, to sort of like feel that sense of like, this like even my own family doesn't like me and thinks that like, I'm weird. And that must have sort of like, given me some sense of alienation immediately, you know, just sort of like your own family won't even talk to you. And so I think that looking back, that was probably one of the sort of origins of of the anger that I felt, certainly. 

Sophie Bearman [00:12:57] So thinking about you as a young man, kind of an angry teen, did you ever get into trouble like or was it very interior or did you you know, what's the worst thing you did? 

Cord Jefferson [00:13:07] That is the and that's sort of like a good segue to the next song. It was mostly interior. I was a very, I was a rule follower. I sort of like I got good grades. I did what my parents told me to do. And I played on the football team because my dad wanted a quarterback for his son. And so I forced myself to play football for a couple seasons. I was terrible at it. And then I got to high school and I started hanging out with these guys who were in bands, they were specifically in punk bands, were playing a lot of punk music. And I started sort of like I saw this bridge between our two worlds where it was like, These guys are angry too, you know? It's like that. These guys and the way that they're exercising their anger is also through music, but it's also a different kind of music that I haven't really been exposed to before because like, the heaviest rock and roll my dad ever played really was like Jethro Tull, like with a flute. Like that was like the heaviest rock and roll my dad had. And so it was the first taste of kind of like being irreverent. It was the first taste of like maybe these people with the power not right. And I think that that was such an important lesson for me that I sort of hadn't had yet, was that like, it's okay to disobey? And in fact, not only is it okay to disobey, sometimes it's the right thing to do. 

Sophie Bearman [00:14:29] This leads us to Jawbreaker. It's a Bay Area punk band. And you chose the song "Boxcar." How come?

Cord Jefferson [00:14:37] I listen to a lot of punk in high school, but Jawbreaker was the first band that has stayed with me that I sort of really fell in love with. And this song in particular, it's actually sort of like about the status quo within punk music. The song starts, "You're not punk, and I'm telling everyone, Save your breath. I never was one." It's about this guy who even in this punk scene, right, which is supposed to be sort of, you know, irreverent and outside the norm and sort of like allowing of difference and allowing of weirdos and allowing of differences of opinion. Even in that scene, there has become this kind of status quo in this rigid sense of rules. Here's how you be a good punk and here's how you'd be a bad punk. And it's this sort of rejection of like, No, that's not what this is about. Like, what this is about is letting people be themselves. Like that's actually what punk rock is about. And sort of I'm says I'm coloring outside your guidelines. I was passing out when you were passing out your rules. And so, again, there's this there's this theme of the music in my in my life, especially sort of like in my early days of this kind of like rebellious spirit and this kind of like, no, like you don't tell me what to do. I do what I want to do. And so this one in particular really resonated with me when I was younger. 

Sophie Bearman [00:16:11] When we come back, Cord reaches the pinnacle of his career and yet hits rock bottom. Stay with us. 

Sophie Bearman [00:16:32] I think I heard you say at some point that your mom, you know, years and years later told you that she knew as early as elementary school that you'd end up as a writer. Yeah. Had you written something? Ah, I don't know. Is there anything that might have tipped her off? 

Cord Jefferson [00:16:46] I had a facility with language relatively early. My mother read to me all the time when I was a child. She actually said, like, you're going to be able to read before you get to school. Like, that was her goal. And so there was all my house was always full of books. Her and my father were always reading. What tipped her off to that, she said, was that in third grade, I got an assignment to write a memoir. We all had to sort of write and illustrate our own life stories. And she said that she'd never seen me more excited about a project than than that one. She said she sort of like I lit up in a way that I had never lit up before. And then I you know, I continued I was a good writer in middle school. And then in high school was the first time I joined the school paper. And that was the first time it felt like something clicked. It was like, this is maybe what I like, this is maybe what I'm good at. And then I when I was in college, I founded this literary magazine, which was some friends of mine at the time. And so I always kept it as a hobby. But it wasn't until a couple of years out of graduation of college that I that I really started to consider it like, okay, maybe this can be a career. 

Sophie Bearman [00:18:00] So moving to your college years, you're listening to Steely Dan, "My Old school." Tell me the story of that song. 

Cord Jefferson [00:18:08] Steely Dan had been sort of played in my house when I was growing up, but I had never really given it its sound. It always sounded like easy listening to me. Then I went to college. I went to William and Mary in Virginia. It's this small school, you know, It was also even more homogenous than my high school because now, like going to the Latinos, it was very, very white. And so I went there and it was like, there's all these kids with lacrosse sticks. I was like, What's lacrosse? And they had like swoopy hair. And they were listening to this guy that I had never heard of called Dave Matthews. It's where I first heard of Phish. You know, I started listening to some of this music, and I will admit that I do have a slight soft spot in my heart for Dave Matthews to this day, like I will every now and again when I'm alone, put on, put on Dave Matthews and sort of like listen to it a little bit. 

Sophie Bearman [00:19:00] There's a moment for it.

Cord Jefferson [00:19:01] Yeah, there is. There is a moment for and it's it's it makes me feel nostalgic. But most of that music didn't really stick with me. But there was a couple people that I became friends with in college, really close friends who were really into Steely Dan, and I sort of gave it a second chance. So Steely Dan is now my favorite band. I'm obsessed with them, and I've seen them probably more than I've seen any other live band before. And this is not my favorite Steely Dan song, actually. But there's not really a lot of William and Mary references in popular culture because it's such a small school and sort of like obscure in many ways. But for whatever reason, Steely Dan in the song "My Old School," the first verse of the song is all about this incident in which they got kicked out of school first for drugs, and then they say, oh no, William and Mary, don't do that. Yeah. 

Cord Jefferson [00:20:14] Imagine just sort of like being an angry, drunk young person at 19 and like a song screaming, I'm never coming back to this place. That a place that you've sort of like grown to low. It was just so pure. At that time in my life, it was. It was what I needed to hear. 

Sophie Bearman [00:20:30] So after college, speaking of kind of forging your own past, you mentioned, you know, school paper. In high school, you pursued journalism as a career. Yeah. How did you end up in that? 

Cord Jefferson [00:20:42] I fell into it, if I'm being honest. I moved to L.A. with just no plan whatsoever and no sort of real no real job. I just was like, well, I'm going to go to L.A. and try to figure it out. And so at a 4th of July party, actually, I met this guy. We were just chatting and he asked me what I did and I said, I work at this nonprofit. But, you know, I think that I'm interested in writing. I probably should give writing a shot. And he said, Well, it turns out that I'm I'm the editor of a magazine of this music magazine. He asked me to write a 500 word profile of this indie country artist named Jolie Holland. And he paid me $50 for it. And that was the first time I was paid for any published writing. And that's I sort of went from there and started getting more and more freelance gigs. And at a certain point it reached a time when it was like, I'm making as much money freelancing as I am at my day job, which I hate. So I was like, Well, if you're going to make no money, at least make no money doing something that doesn't want to make you come home and claw your eyes out every night. So I moved to New York in 2015 to just become a full time freelance journalist. 

Sophie Bearman [00:21:46] And you chose a song kind of representing those really early days when you were broke all the time and you were kind of like that. So what did what did you bring?

Cord Jefferson [00:21:54] I chose "Naive Melody" by the Talking Heads. The lyrics that really stood out to me were "never for money, always for love." And I was, as you said, very broke. When I first moved to New York, I was making a $400 a month stipend, and I had all these friends who were thriving. And here I was barely getting by. And, you know, I would see these people. I'd be embarrassed. I would feel embarrassed. I just a creative life is also one that is full of times when you're like, maybe I should just quit this. There was a lot of sort of dark nights of the soul when I'm like, Am I going to wake up and I'm going to be 47 and still asking friends to rent money and sort of like not able to feed myself, like, is this is this what I'm destined for? But that lyric, never for money, always for love. It's sort of like I looked at it not in a sort of like way of like a love song, but in a way of like that was sort of like became this ethos for me of like, don't sell out, don't sell out, don't sell out. Keep doing it. Like, keep doing it. This is what you love to do. 

Cord Jefferson [00:23:17] I actually got "never for money, always for love" tattooed on my arm because it did sort of become at some point, like just a constant refrain in my head. It's so gorgeous. When I saw the David Byrne Broadway show, when they started playing that, I started crying just because also it was like the same weekend that The Watchmen episode that I wrote was premiering, and I was in New York and I was it was like my career was finally working and that I'm actually getting a little emotional right now thinking about it. But that felt like, you know, God, like 20 years later, finally the money met the love, you know? And that was it felt like a huge sigh of relief in a certain way. 

Sophie Bearman [00:23:59] Yeah. I mean, to to tell yourself that refrain for so many years and then to have a week where it pays off, I can imagine what you feel emotional. Yeah, well, that kind of transitions into where I wanted to go next, which is when you won the Emmy for the Watchmen, you sort of famously now thanked your therapist. Yeah, yeah. When did you realize, though, that you needed help and therapy? And I guess was there kind of like a rock bottom moment for you? 

Cord Jefferson [00:24:28] Yeah, it was in the year 2018. It was the best year of my entire career. I was sort of like working on these, like, shows that that I really loved and working with people that I had really admired. I was making more money than I'd ever made in my entire life. I was living back in L.A. where I wanted to be. And so sort of like externally, it was like, life is good. Like this is life is beautiful. Like things are going great. And for whatever reason, I just couldn't get myself to feel that way. I would cry at random moments. I would cry in the shower alone. I would cry in my car alone. I was drinking way, way, way too much. It was also two years after my mother had died, so I really hadn't sort of like fully grieved her. That year I went out and found this therapist, Ian, who I've been with now for about it'll be seven years next year. And I sat down in our very first session and he said, So what can I help you with? And I tried to say something and I just immediately started weeping. And I've been there. Yeah. And after about like five minutes of just sort of like trying to speak through, like, heaving sobs, he goes, I think you might have depression. Another thing that my mother actually told me when I was 19, my mother told me that she thought I was clinically depressed and I thought. 

Sophie Bearman [00:25:53] You just dismissed it at the time. 

Cord Jefferson [00:25:54] Yeah, because I was like, I get out of bed, I exercise, I sort of like can keep down, I can hold a job. I go to class like except for when I don't. Like, but. Like I can I do all this stuff that I like. To me, depression was like, You can't get out of bed. And you sit around and sort of like you're sweatpants all day eating chips and like, or like not eating at all and just like, suffering, suffering in bed. And so to me, it was like that. And but it was the first guy who's like, it doesn't have to be that you can't get out of bed. It's like it's like, in fact, think about what your life could be like if you didn't have that hurdle to get over. 

Sophie Bearman [00:26:28] Yeah. 

Sophie Bearman [00:26:29] So I really started working real seriously with him about that. And then I started taking meds two years ago and I'm such a different person now. It is. It is kind of. It shocks even me. 

Sophie Bearman [00:26:43] And you have a song for this? 

Sophie Bearman [00:26:46] Yeah. So. Right. So. So. Sheryl Crow, "If it Makes You Happy." I used to think that I hated Sheryl Crow, but this song, for whatever reason, came back to me in like 2018. When I was really going through it. I saw a friend perform this at karaoke, and it was like the first time that I sort of like had to see the lyrics. And when she says, "If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad. If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?" 

Sophie Bearman [00:27:31] Even now, like I'm tearing up a little like because that really was such a revelation for me is just like if you keep pretending as if you're happy and trying to sort of like pretend that this life that you're living is making you happy, then like, you know, you're going to you're going to crash either literally or figuratively. And so, like, if it makes you happy, you really you need to figure out, like, why actually you're so damn sad all the time. 

Sophie Bearman [00:27:58] I just want to say it really does feel like your whole life put you in a place to, you know, find that book. And, I don't know, just it's a full circle, but, like, you could totally, I don't think, have directed "American Fiction" if not for everything we've talked about. 

Sophie Bearman [00:28:14] I totally agree. It is in many ways like the culmination of like my life's work. And I was confident before that I made it that I was never going to get to make anything of my own. I had sort of like been rejected so many times in television that I felt like, okay, it's not for me. And so far be it for me to criticize anybody for needing to keep a roof over their head or food on their table, but it's never too late. I made my first movie and I'm 42, and so I would just say that as long as you love it, keep doing it. 

Sophie Bearman [00:28:43] So it sounds like you've gone through quite a lot over the last few years, winning an Oscar. Lots of self-discovery and all of that makes me think about your mom's death, too, though, because, you know, she wasn't able to see that. And I guess I'm curious what that's been like for you. 

Sophie Bearman [00:28:59] Well, that's I think that that's that's something that the. So there's a line in my film. Well, there's a scene in which Monk talks to his brother Cliff. It's towards the end of the film and they're at a wedding and they sort of like find this time alone together. And Cliff is his younger brother, played by Sterling K. Brown. And Cliff has recently come out of the closet. He's sort of like in his late 40s and he's got a wife. And while he had a wife, he's got two kids and he's recently divorced and sort of like finding himself in sort of like in his new open sexuality and figuring out what he wants to be and and their father's dead. And he says to his brother, he says to Monk, "I've been thinking about a lot, about how dad died not knowing I'm gay and sort of like that makes me real sad that he never really knew me." And that's me speaking to myself. It's about my mother. And, you know, it was no surprise that in 2018, you know, decades later, I was still trying to hide my feelings and was still trying to hide my emotions from everybody is still lying and sneaking around and obfuscating because that is sort of like what I did when I was a kid, too. It was it was like I was hiding my anger, hiding my resentment, hiding all these things, hiding my disappointment at my grandparents not meeting me, hiding my disappointment at my parents, getting divorced, hiding my disappointment at feeling like I didn't really understand my dad and I didn't really feel close to him at all because he was so emotionally distant. So there was all these things that I was just holding on to so tightly. And I do feel like my mother knew me well and that we were close and had a good relationship. But there's stuff about me that my mother didn't know and now she'll never know. And that really makes me sad. 

Sophie Bearman [00:30:43] Your last song kind of touches on a lot of these themes of regret, fear, learning to live with that love. Yeah. What did you choose?

Cord Jefferson [00:30:52] I chose "Ben's My Friend" by Sun Kill Moon. I just feel like it's such a good summation of where I was in my life. So I was like 40. I had figured some of my shit out, but I was still sort of like haunted by a lot of the stuff and regret. There's always going to be sort of like a sense of loss, like I'm never going to fully get over my mom dying and my dad's getting older. My dad's in his 80s now, and he just had knee surgery and he's walking with a cane now. And my brothers are aging. And then like, if I'm lucky and I live long, then there's going to be a lot more grief coming my way, you know? And so there's just this kind of like throb of understanding that adults have of just these things that sort of like exist in the back of your mind that are never going to go away. And you just learn to live with that. I've just never heard a song that I think better encapsulates what it's like to grow up and sort of like what it's like to finally become an adult. 

Cord Jefferson [00:32:05] It just feels like a real like this is a song for adults, like adults understand this. And then those things are sandwiched by him saying, like, my mom is good, but she sounded out of breath. I worry so much about her. I worry to death and it's like it's. 

Sophie Bearman [00:32:20] It's just adulthood, man. 

Cord Jefferson [00:32:20] Exactly. 

Sophie Bearman [00:32:21] Like every fucking day of my life.

Cord Jefferson [00:32:22] Exactly. And that is like, that to me is just. Everything at once. You know, that's what that's what it's like to be an adult is just it's everything at once. You just you realize that it just all comes at you and you've got to sort of like, take it. But one of the things that this is this podcast is really helped me understand is like I always knew that music was a big part of my life, obviously since I was in the womb. But I think that this has really helped me see how much it's shaped my perspective and my outlook and shaped some of my attitudes and behaviors. It's wow, it's this was very this was very emotionally satisfying. I don't normally cry in interviews. This was this was nice. It was cathartic. 

Sophie Bearman [00:33:07] Cord Jefferson, thank you so, so much for your time. 

Cord Jefferson [00:33:10] This is my honor. Thank you so much. What a privilege. 

Sophie Bearman [00:33:36] Life in Seven songs is a production from the San Francisco Standard. This episode was produced by me, Sophie Bearman and our senior producer, Jasmyn Morris. Our executive producers are Griffin Gaffney and Jon Steinberg. And this episode was mixed by Michelle Lanz. Our theme music is by Kate Davis and Zubin Hensler. Clark Miller created our show, Art. Our music consultant is Sarah Tembeckjian. You can find this guest's full playlist at sf.news/spotify. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.