Tell You What! the Podcast

About Tell You What! the Podcast

Welcome to Tell You What! the Podcast. We have conversations with musicians about songwriting and the creative process. Check out all our episodes and hear some great stories and songwriting insights. Music is the best. Drop us a line at tellyouwhatpodcast@gmail.com

Publisher

tell you what studios

Category

arts · music

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

21 Jun 2018

Latest episode

10 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 72 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   10 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Episode 70: Jordie Lane

   Musician Jordie Lane shares his creative journey and the inspiration behind his new album, Habitual, in this interview with the Tell You What! podcast host.

2. 

   8 May 2026

   Episode 69: Jason Narducy

   Jason Narducy is quite a busy fellow . He graciously made the time to talk about his musical work and his new book, Mostly the Van, a wonderfully entertaining collection of stories woven from his fascinating life. A man of many projects, Jason is currently spending time touring with Chicago actor Michael Shannon on their highly acclaimed live project playing the music of R.E.M. Jason has been a member of Bob Mould’s band for several decades, plays bass on tour with the indie band Superchunk, and recently toured playing guitar and singing backup vocals for the emo band Sunny Day Real Estate. His solo project, Split Single has released three albums featuring contributions from the likes of Spoon’s Britt Daniel, John Stirratt of Wilco, and R.E.M.’s Mike Mills. We discuss how nice it is to live in our shared hometown of Evanston, how Jason wrote the songs for a staged musical based on his ten year old self’s punk band Verboten, playing a show (and sleeping) in Bill Berry’s childhood home, and Michael Shannon’s podcast hosting skills. You can order a copy of Mostly the Van at Porchlight Books, free shipping available; it’s a fun and compelling read and a “Tell You What!” book club featured selection.

3. 

   19 Mar 2026

   Episode 68: Chicago Farmer

   Cody Diekhoff is the person behind the musical moniker Chicago Farmer; he has been performing under that name both as a solo act and as a band for over two decades. Chicago Farmer’s recently released album, “Homeaid” is an excellent collection of songs; Cody and his band the Field Notes deliver his stories of rural life, family, and midwestern history with passion and integrity. In our conversation Cody discusses his life journeys and musical arc as he travelled from his small farm town in Illinois across the highways of America on tours, his time living in Chicago, and back down to the Illinois heartland again, all the while penning his working class folk songs. We hear about what he learned from his friendship with the late Todd Snider, the use of humor and storytelling in his songcraft and performances, and losing a talent show to farmers shooting marshmallows out of their noses.

Inside a recent episode

Episode 70: Jordie Lane

Published 10 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] So standard way a songwriter might write, say, a breakup song would be to think, oh, I got dumped. I'm really sad about it. What are some metaphors or images that would help get my feelings across? Like, oh, you know, it's raining. The sun is setting. Or find these things that correlate to the feelings that they're having and use them in the song. But it seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong here, you kind of do it the other way. You have a personal anecdote. story something crazy happened to you and that story leads to a theme or a message that the song ends up being about it's kind of backwards right yeah right i think it's fascinating and it turns out to i'm gonna let the train go by here for a second i find this really fascinating you're basically starting with the metaphor and bringing us back to the message i find it a very powerful way to to come up with a song yeah i i'm not Entirely aware that that was the exact kind of order. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

25 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 35 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

39

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

77

Contact Tell You What! the Podcast

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about Tell You What! the Podcast