Amanda Shires shares her perspective on a public breakup in new album “Nobody’s Girl”

about the process of writing a song for yourself versus writing a song for an audience and other people to listen to?SHIRES: Oh, my goodness. I think songwriting, for me, is like a selfish endeavor because I just feel like they’re all these little gifts to myself. And then if other people happen to enjoy them or if they can find something that they connect with in it, you know, while that’s a bonus, I had no idea. I was just trying to find, like, something to hold onto, like this buoy of a song, you know? And while on some level I feel like I was thinking about an audience the whole time, we can’t control what we make, you know? And I really didn’t try to be tenderized. It just came out that way.DETROW: Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned “Good Luck On Your Way Out.” How did you decide to leave that off the album? How do you make the decision about what to put on versus what to leave on the cutting room floor?SHIRES: Well, it felt bitter to me. It didn’t feel good. And then I thought, you know, after a song kind of smacks me in the face with its own purpose, I let it tell me what to do. And that one made me feel icky, and so I just couldn’t. And then purpose was the same old. Like, you know, the purpose of this is to get the experience out.DETROW: Yeah.SHIRES: Like on “The Way It Goes,” I kind of realized that, you know, everything just kind of is the way it’s supposed to be, I guess. And as long as I let it be what it’s going to be and I don’t try to control it, things are going to keep progressing. I think Sheryl Crow wrote something like that recently, and I agree with her, you know?DETROW: Yeah. And “The Way It Goes” was a great note to end the album on, I think. That feeling of, like, more hope and looking forward. I think it was a good decision.SHIRES: Thank you.DETROW: Yeah. So what does the act of writing a song about a specific moment or a specific emotion do for you as opposed to just going through the experience and not expressing it musically?SHIRES: Well, didn’t you know that things are not always – in the right context, words can hurt and harm, but the thing about music is when you listen to it, at least the music that I love, can somehow simultaneously hold sorrow and joy, you know? And I felt that while – even while I was – didn’t feel guilty or remorse or shame, I still felt raw, I still felt confused and ultimately kind of just destroyed about what I’d lost. So writing it out or singing about it has helped me to find beauty in, like, the state of confusion or the feeling of destruction or missing someone so much that the loss actually hurts, you know?DETROW: Yeah. Most of the cuts yours that stick with me are the ones where you’re – you can hear that – like you said, that mix of emotions – you know, the heart sprouting feathers, like the sadness and the hope and the melancholy kind of all mixed together.SHAW: Good. See, a song like that, “Striking Out,” you know, round and round, it ends face down. But then love is ready and holds out his hand. And I think, gosh, probably for the first time, I thought that this was just a frame. And then, you know, got to have a balance in life.DETROW: Yeah.SHIRES: There’s a balance between the anger and the sadness and the hope. So if I can make something which kind of connects with all those parts of me and they all work in unison, that’s good, you know?DETROW: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think we’ve all had long nights where we’re wrestling with all those conflicting feelings. I think you did a good job of putting that into songs.SHIRES: Wow. Thank you. You just summed up the whole record right there.DETROW: Yeah. All right. Amanda Shires, thank you so much for your time, and we really appreciate you coming on.SHIRES: Oh, thanks so much for having me.DETROW: That was Amanda Shires talking about her new album, “Nobody’s Girl.”