Episode 3: The Source And The Sound

Life’s Work: A Podcast About Laura Stevenson’s ‘Sit Resist'

Episode 3 takes a deeper dive into the writing and arranging process of the songs that would make up “Sit Resist”, as the primary contributors assemble in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn in late 2009 and early 2010. Also discussed are the earliest musical influences on Stevenson’s writing, which predate her experiences in the punk and ska scene: those being the Great American Songbook standards popular in the era of her musically-virtuosic grandparents. The arrangements of this pre-rock n’ roll period of popular music would inform Stevenson’s own rejection of modern, contemporary pop and rock song-structures. Interviews with Jeff Rosenstock, Mike Campbell, and Stevenson herself offer insight into their collective arrangement process. Also interviewed in this episode is solo artist and boygenius band member Lucy Dacus, who expounds on the profound early influence Stevenson’s music had on her as a burgeoning songwriter.