“Hello.” “Hey.” “My hair — I crimped it, and it feels like a [expletive] poodle. It’s, like, really fluffy.” Singing: “I’m all right with a slow burn. Taking my time, let the world turn.” “The song is definitely one of my most personal, for sure.” Singing: “I’m gonna do it my way. It’ll be all right. If we burn it down and it takes all night.” “Country songs, historically, have always been about real life, they’ve been story songs. That’s what I love the most about the roots of the genre. I came up with the chorus on a spiritual journey, so to speak.” “O.K.” “Yeah. And I think anything that, like, puts me or any human outside of their, like, egotistical state of living is a really healthy thing every now and then — in moderation, obviously.” “Do you mind if I ask if it was mushrooms or LSD?” “It was LSD. Yeah. And I was just sitting on my front porch thinking: And I was just like, man, I love a slow burn. And I was like, that can apply to so many areas in my life. That can apply to, like, relationships, you know, a good drink. You sip on a glass of wine for a long time. You savor it. You really enjoy, like, the journey. You don’t rush to the finish line. It did open my mind a little bit and make me kind of take a step back and, like, really think about where I am, and what I want, and just kind of the world around us and the crazy time that we live in.” “That’s a very acid thought.” “Yeah. Yeah, it kind of is.” “She had said that she wanted to do something called ‘Slow Burn.’ I like writing title first because it can be that kind of keystone.” “What mood were you thinking when you heard the title ‘Slow Burn?’” “I guess I kind of imagined immediately kind of being out West, or somewhere out near some mountains, where you could get a vast sense of landscape.” “Ian and I started to mess with a little bit of a backdrop that you might be able to paint that kind of idea across.” “Testing.” “What was her initial reaction?” “It wasn’t, ‘Oh, my God, you guys, this is so amazing.’ It was like: ‘Yeah, that’ll work. Let’s see what we can do with that.’” “I felt like, I don’t know. It made sense. It gave me this feeling of, like, all the old Neil Young songs that I grew up listening to. They were kind of roaming around the room, strumming, while I was trying — in my head — the little verses that I had come up with.” “She likes to doodle a lot. So, she will hand-write the lyrics with a lot of people who are just on their phones.” Singing: “Born in a hurry, always late. Haven’t been early since ’88.” “That’s me poking fun at myself, because I was born a month early. I came on the day of my mom’s baby shower. I mean, I always have loved to party.” Singing: “Good in a glass, good on green. Good when you’re puttin’ your hands all over me.” “That’s talking about a good drink, or like a good joint, whatever — that’s in reference to green.” Singing: “I’m all right with a slow burn. Taking my time, let the world turn.” “I had a pretty complex idea of an arrangement, just kind of some interweaving, slightly Eastern-sounding feelings.” “I was playing the bass, and I was just playing some sort of spaceship kind of licks. And then, later, we added some strings, where there’s a bit of, like, almost an Indian motif. I like anything that sounds Asian. I like that.” “I just wanted to feel like it opened up into canyon-scape images.” “I do remember thinking, ‘Well, I think that’s pretty good.’ But you don’t know how other people are going to react.” “I was like, it just feels like it’s trying too hard. Let’s, like, delete, like, literally half of them. I like going, O.K., erase, erase, erase. I didn’t want people to listen to this record and be like, O.K., where is she? Like, she just got weird for the hell of it, you know.” “She would let us put a lot on the table, and then she would remove as it felt necessary.” “That has earned the nickname the Ax Man in studio. They’d be, like, playing a part, and they’d be like, ‘Doesn’t matter anyway, she’s just going to come in and delete it.’’” “You know, I’ll be honest, there were some things I was hoping would make it but didn’t.” “Like, sorry. I have to: It’s a [expletive] slow burn!” Singing: “It’s a slow burn. You know the bar down the street don’t close for an hour. We should take a walk and look at all the flowers.” “My husband just pointed out the other day, ‘You say the sun’s going down. And then in the next line, you say the bar down the street don’t close for an hour.’ He’s like, ‘Wouldn’t it be like way later if they were closing in an hour?’ I was like, ‘It ain’t supposed to be literal.’”