Laufey Is Unapologetically Herself

message comes from Sony Pictures Classics.

Lyricist Lorenz Hart confronts his shattered self-confidence as Richard Rogers celebrates the opening night of Oklahoma.

Blue Moon is now playing in New York and Los Angeles nationwide October 24th.

This is Fresh Air.

I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Leve, is a singer, cellist, pianist, guitarist, and songwriter whose 2023 album, Bewitched, was the first album ever to top Billboard's jazz and traditional jazz charts in its first week of release.

But is she a jazz artist?

Only partially.

Her 2023 album Bewitched won a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop album and was named Crossover Album of the Year by Variety.

Her music resembles her personal identity in that both are hard to categorize.

Her songs draw on her deep knowledge of classical music and jazz, as well as from pop and classic musicals.

She grew up in Reykjavik, Iceland, and Washington, D.C., with a mother who who emigrated from China and is a violinist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

Her father is from Iceland, and Levy grew up listening to recordings from his jazz collection.

She started piano lessons at age four, cello lessons at age eight, and performed on cello with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra when she was 15.

She describes her music as taking inspiration from the past with lyrics firmly rooted in the present.

Her concerts are filled with listeners in their 20s who may not know or care much about jazz or classical music.

Leve is 26.

She started attracting an audience during the COVID lockdown when she began posting videos of her singing jazz standards and originals, accompanying herself on cello, guitar, or piano.

She brought her guitar with her today to play and sing some songs, including music from her new album, A Matter of Time.

Let's start with a track called Clockwork.

It's an upbeat love song with an obvious jazz influence.

So here's Clockwork.

No,

it's a rational,

at least I'm self-aware.

I'm shivering.

Maybe I'll stay home.

Oh no, he's in my

old place.

I've considered every way.

Words will forget,

deeply regret.

He'll run away

like meeting with my destiny.

But like clockwork, think he fell in love with me.

Levy, welcome to Fresh Air.

It's a pleasure to have you on the show and thank you for bringing your guitar with you.

We'll hear some music in a couple of minutes.

You're so popular, especially among people in their 20s.

Your first music festival was when you performed at Lollapalooza and you brought an orchestra with you.

What insights does that offer about who you are and about your music?

Well, thank you so much for having me.

It's such a pleasure to be here.

I mean, Lollapalooza was such a perfect moment for me of showing exactly who I am to the world because, I mean, Lollapalooza is a music festival that I would say is for modern music and for young people.

I've never viewed myself as anything other than a modern artist, but I've always, of course, loved classical music and jazz music and had a love for

all things a bit older.

So to get to bring an orchestra and that sound onto such a modern modern stage.

I mean, we had a K-pop act playing after us and a rapper before us on that very same stage.

I think it's so beautiful that all of these different styles of music can exist in one.

And what does it say that you'd never been to a music festival?

I mean, I'd been to Newport Jazz Festival, so

that might answer your question.

I guess,

I mean, I grew up in Iceland, so I just wasn't very close to that culture.

We had

our own smaller festivals.

Let's talk a little bit about your musical origin story.

Your mother plays violin in the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

What did you learn about music from hearing her practice at home?

I learned a couple of things.

I think like hard work is really, really important, and it's something you need to keep up.

I mean, my mom

has been in the orchestra for almost 30 years, and she still practices every single day for every single concert.

It's not something you shelve after you grow up.

But it also has taught me that it's something that never really leaves you.

Growing up in a musical family, I mean, my grandma's 80-something now, and she still plays piano every single day, just like as she did when she was seven.

So it's taught me that it's kind of this thing that can follow you forever.

But my mom always talked about, especially like the beauty of music and how it has to come from your heart.

And I think that's been such an important through line with my music, no matter what genre it's leaning towards.

Did you grow up backstage?

Oh, absolutely.

I grew up on stage.

I think I have stories of my mom playing some contemporary Icelandic composers.

And it was really loud.

And every break, she would like check her tummy.

Like, I have a twin sister.

So the two of us were in there.

And she was like, are they still moving?

Did we silence them?

When you started taking music lessons, would your mother ever holler from another room?

Wrong note.

Every single day.

Really?

Not from another room.

The same room.

Oh.

Yeah.

Did that make you self-conscious?

Practicing with a pro with an airshot all the time?

It was like having a teacher every single day.

I would practice piano while my sister was practicing violin.

And then we would swap and she would practice piano and I would practice cello.

And my mom spent the entire afternoon just drifting back and forth from the piano room to the string room, to the piano room to the string room.

And it was very disciplined um but i'm so thankful for that and my mom still tells me if i'm playing out of tune and i'm so thankful for her for that and i think it's one of the reasons i'm i'm the musician i am today

so um i think your grandparents are both music professors in china is that right yeah um so how much time have you spent in china and did you take any lessons while you were there yeah i did i spent a lot of time in china every summer growing up i would go spend two to three months there and just immerse myself in properly learning the language and also properly learning classical music.

So definitely, like, my first cello lessons were in China, and I received all my cellos there.

Is it a different style of teaching than in the US?

Yes, and no.

I mean, my grandfather was known for a very specific technique that was full of idioms and metaphors, and he taught mostly like young prodigies.

And so it was a very like poetic way of learning.

Like he would talk about how vibrato needed to feel natural and flow like wind flowing through the branches of a tree.

And pronating properly on a bow, it felt like pouring water out of a kettle.

Things like that, that kind of taught me how to learn music in a very poetic way, which I think has had such an effect on me as a songwriter as well.

Because I think so much about how music and physical movement come together.

Well, here's what I'd like to do, since we're talking about classical music and orchestra.

I want to ask you to sing your song Snow White.

And then I want to play in the middle of the album, there's an interlude called Cuckoo Ballet.

And it's almost like an overture with melodies from your songs interwoven.

And it's just orchestral.

So there's a really nice orchestral passage of the song Snow White with you on cello.

So I just want to contrast the two to show two of your sides, like the singer-songwriter side, and then transforming that into something

much more classical sounding.

Absolutely.

Okay, so let's start with you doing Snow White.

Do you want to introduce the song?

Yes.

So it's a song that I wrote about my never-ending kind of battle with beauty standards and this idea of perfection.

And it was very, I was a little scared to put this song out because it's very honest, and I never want to show,

especially all the young women in my audience, that I don't believe in myself because how can they believe in themselves if I have trouble believing in myself?

But I came to this realization that

it was perhaps comforting to know that other people feel the same way.

So, this is Snow White.

Can't help but notice

all of the ways

in which I feel

myself.

I feel the world all the same.

Don't think I'm pretty.

It's not up for debate

A woman's best currency

Her body not

her brain

They try to tell me

Tell me I'm wrong

But mirrors tell lies to me

My mind just plays along.

The world is a sick place,

at least for a girl.

The people want beauty, skinny always

wins, and I don't have

a victory.

I'll never

have enough

Well, thank you for that.

So, I want to compare that to what you've done when you had it orchestrated.

And this is from a medley

called Cuckoo Ballet in the middle of your album.

And this is the excerpt in which you're playing in an orchestral setting that part of the song, and you're featured noncello.

So that was my guest, Leve on cello, and that's from an orchestral interlude in the middle of her new album.

And the album is called A Matter of Time.

So now that we've heard you on cello, you started playing cello when you were eight.

Did you choose that?

Was it chosen for you?

I chose it.

I think I wanted to be different from everyone in my family.

My sister chose violin, and I think because I'm the older twin, so I thought I should play the bigger instrument.

Uh-huh.

A little by seconds.

Yeah.

So you listened to a lot of jazz growing up because your father had a big jazz collection.

What era or what songs or singers particularly influenced you?

I think Ella Fitzgerald was the very first singer that I really felt that I vocally resonated with.

I think she just sounded like a cello, so I immediately was like, oh, I want to sound like her.

And I was having trouble finding songs in my range to sing, but Ella's range, though more than my bigger than mine, still,

her singing style, I seemed to

fall most naturally into that kind of style.

Same with Billie Holiday and I also loved Nat King Cole and

Julie London and Peggy Lee and Doris Day.

It was kind of, you know, that type of era of mid-century singing that I really was drawn to.

Would you play a standard for us that

you particularly liked?

Yeah.

Do you want to do It Could Happen to You?

Yes.

And let's mention here that this is one of the things that kind kind of put you on the map because you recorded this on your phone during COVID, and I think it's the first and one of the first videos that you put out on YouTube.

Yes,

COVID started, and I had what I thought would be a two-week break.

So I thought I'd use that time to just post videos of myself singing online, and it started with a lot of jazz standards.

And I was playing the jazz standards on cello and singing along.

And yeah, I did a cover of It Could Happen to You and also of the song I Wish You Love.

And the two of those kind of hit the algorithm or whatever you say.

They kind of

definitely were the first things that I think people were like, What?

Why is this girl, this young woman, playing cello and singing?

It was like multiple things they hadn't seen combined together.

Yeah, and Chet Baker has a great recording of this.

Yes, yeah, that's my favorite Chet Baker album, the It Could Happen to You one, so okay,

and this is Leve

hide your heart from sight,

lock your dreams at night,

it could happen to you,

don't count stars, or you might stumble.

Someone drops a sigh, and down

you tumble.

Keep an eye on spring.

Run when church bells ring.

It could happen to you.

All I did was wonder how

your arms would be.

And it happened to me.

Thank you.

That was Levé singing and playing guitar.

And she has a new album called A Matter of Time.

So

that video that you posted, like before you actually made studio recordings, you accompanied yourself on cello when you sang that song.

But you strummed and kind of picked as if it was a guitar.

So I'm wondering if the opposite has happened.

Since cello is your first instrument, your main instrument, have you taken any cello techniques and transferred them to guitar?

You know, I haven't bowed a guitar yet, but maybe I should.

I think I've tried as a joke before.

Really?

I was thinking too of the kind of cello vibrato.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think I've directly put it into guitar, but I've definitely, when I started playing cello before I started singing, so I think my singing style has always kind of been something similar to cello playing, and

whether it's the the vibrato style or

the the legato and kind of sliding into notes like that's very much my vocal style and I think it is quite similar to my cello style.

So

you grew up in two extremes.

You grew up in Iceland, but you also spent a lot of time in Washington, D.C.

What were you doing there?

What was your family doing there?

My father was working for the Icelandic government there.

But my mom would sub with the Baltimore Symphony when she was there.

So I kind of got to be a little bit of an American kid for a bit, which I think having a childhood in America is really where I fell in love with a great American songbook.

What was your father doing in the government?

Oh, he was working for the IMF.

The International Monetary Fund?

Yes.

So two extremes, like Iceland is like remote.

It's a small country.

It's very cold.

Washington, D.C.

is one of the capitals of the world, not just the capital of the U.S.

And it's so busy.

What was it like growing up in two pretty opposite worlds?

It's certainly a lot warmer and swampier than

Iceland, yeah.

I think it's one of the most important experiences that I've gone through.

I had a very deep understanding of how big the world was from a very early age because I would still spend my summers in China.

And the three are so, so, so, so different.

I think from

what I really learned from Washington, D.C., I think especially, was just how multicultural it was.

I mean, I went to a public school in D.C.

and even within just my neighborhood school, I think 90% of my class was

international kids.

And I was such a naturally multicultural kid, it made me quite happy.

I also loved all the museums, and I remember going to the ballet at the Kennedy Center and the Symphony.

and I just have very beautiful memories from growing up there and like I remember moving back to Iceland when I was eight or nine and I remember that it felt like the world fell dark for a little bit because there was so much brightness in Washington which sounds like a crazy thing to say right now but

I think it really just opened my eyes up to how very big the world is because Washington DC is also such a unique city within the United States.

Well, since you're half Chinese and half Icelandic, and you grew up in Iceland, not a lot of Chinese people in Iceland.

So being half Chinese was probably considered unusual, maybe even like, quote, exotic.

But growing up in Washington, there's like lots of people from China and other Asian countries.

So what was it like for you to be so unusual in such a homogeneous

place as Iceland?

It was really difficult.

I think

Iceland is so small and it's lovely and I miss it every single day, but it was very hard as a kid to comprehend why I didn't look like everyone else or how my interests were different.

There weren't many kids around me taking a competitive pre-professional classical music route.

There weren't many kids around me whose who had to go back home and practice every single day.

And I often felt like my voice wasn't being heard.

And

I was ready to do anything to get my voice to be heard.

And I knew that the first step to that was trying to get out of Iceland and

see if perhaps my voice would resonate more in the big world where I wasn't an odd fish.

Let's take another short break here and then we'll be back for more music and conversation with Leve.

Her new album is called A Matter of Time.

I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air.

This message comes from NPR sponsor HP.

Easily search through personal files, gain valuable insights, and make smarter, more informed business decisions.

Unlock the future of work today with the HP AIPC.

With the right tools, work doesn't have to feel like work.

To learn more, go to hp.com slash AIPC.

This message comes from Netflix.

The critically acclaimed series, The Diplomat, returns for its third season, starring Carrie Russell as Kate Weiler.

Now the president is dead.

Kate's husband Hal may have inadvertently killed him and Grace Penn is leader of the free world.

None of this slows Hal's campaign to land Kate the vice presidency.

Allison Janney and Rufus Sewell return and Bradley Whitford joins the cast of the Emmy-nominated drama.

Watch The Diplomat October 16th only on Netflix.

This message comes from LinkedIn.

Running a business means you wear a lot of hats.

Luckily, when it's time to put on your hiring hat, you can count on LinkedIn to make it easy.

Post a job for free or pay to promote it and get three times more qualified candidates.

86% of small businesses find their next great hire in 24 hours.

Also, easily share your job with your network.

Plus, manage everything all in one place.

Post, match, hire, done.

Post your free job at linkedin.com slash npr.

Terms and conditions apply.

hi this is molly seven usper digital producer at fresh air and this is terry gross host of the show one of the things i do is write the weekly newsletter and i'm a newsletter fan i read it every saturday after breakfast the newsletter includes all the week shows staff recommendations and molly picks timely highlights from the archive it's a fun read it's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week an exclusive so subscribe at whyy.org slash freshair and look for an email from molly every Saturday morning.

I want to ask you to do another song for us and this is Castle in Hollywood.

Would you give us the back story for the song?

Yeah, this song is written about a friendship breakup.

I found that there are not many songs about breaking up with a friend, but it's a pain that can sometimes be more painful than breaking up with a romantic

lover.

So I wanted to write about this experience that I had.

And I think, especially when women fall apart with women, there's such an interesting line of empathy that's between them.

It's kind of like I'll love you forever, but just not, don't be around me.

I rack my brain, spend hours and days.

I still can't figure it out.

What happened that year in your house?

Still learning to live without you?

I wonder what you tell your friends.

Which version of our fairy story?

The one where you walk out in glory.

Or the night I moved out in a hurry.

I think about you always

tied together with a string.

I thought the lilies died by winter, then they bloomed again in spring.

It's a hard brave, marked the end of my girlhood.

We'll never go back to that castle in Hollywood.

Thank you.

That was Leve performing for us.

And what was the castle in Hollywood?

Was that a fantasy of what you wanted your life to be?

No, I lived in the first apartment I moved into was this English storybook house in West Hollywood that had a turret and it was commissioned by Charlie Chaplin actually in 1928, I believe.

Wait, wait.

The first apartment that you rented was one that Charlie Chaplin commissioned?

How did that happen?

Yeah.

Pure internet luck, I think.

It was definitely a little scary.

It was very dark, but my bedroom was circular.

It was inside a turret.

And I had a tiny little window with bars on it, like a proper Rapunzel window.

And

yeah, it was a really, really weird apartment, but so charming and exactly

what my storybook heart craved when I first moved to L.A.

So

you compose on guitar, even though that's not your first instrument.

Cello is your first instrument.

You're a very good pianist.

Why do you compose on guitar as opposed to, say, piano, which would be the more obvious choice?

Yeah, I compose a lot on piano too, I think increasingly now.

I started writing a lot on guitar, I think, because it was this unknown instrument to me where I wasn't following a set of rules that I had learned over my years of classical training.

I wasn't going back to any habits.

I was just letting my heart and fingers wander.

So, I think also it's a fairly soft instrument, so singing over it,

it's easy to hear myself and hear the lyrics and really understand what I'm trying to say.

It didn't get in the way of my songwriting.

You've performed to a lot of different audiences, like jazz, classical, pop, and therefore to different ages as well.

Like the jazz audience tends to be older, ditto for classical music audience.

Your pop audience, I think, is largely made of people in their 20s.

Do you become a different self for each type of audience?

No, I think I'm pretty similar in every single setting, and I'm very unapologetically myself.

Like when I'm on stage with an orchestra, and I really do try to play as many concerts with orchestras because I just want to

get young people into those buildings, into those rooms, get young people used to that sound of, you know, 60-plus instruments playing and musicians playing at the same time.

There's nothing quite like it.

And then at the same time, I kind of push against the classical medium of just kind of blabbering on stage, like in between songs, I'll explain what the songs are about and

just to feel that connection with the audience and just to further show them that this is something classical music, orchestral music is something that can be theirs too and doesn't need to feel like this foreign thing that exists behind a wall.

I might be totally wrong in thinking this, so you can tell me after I explain.

Okay.

So you're capable of singing pretty high up, but also when you sing full out in a low voice, it's a very strong voice.

And similar to like a cello, which was your ambition.

But the dresses that you wear, a lot of the clothes that you wear are very like diaphanous and flowy, almost like angelic.

And the contrast between like

the deep voice that you can have and those, you know, kind of

diaphanous clothes reminds me of ballet.

And I know at some point you were studying ballet, right?

Yeah, I've always loved ballet so much.

And I grew up dancing ballet very badly, but just being completely enamored by it because it was the physical answer to classical music.

Right.

So here's what the comparison is between your deep voice and the contrast with your clothes and ballet, because in ballet, you have to be really strong.

And you have to have incredible endurance and be willing to live with pain

and be incredibly disciplined.

But with a tutu on and with a lot of the classic ballet choreography, you're supposed to look totally weightless and like princess-like or angelic.

And the contrast between the strength that's required and the image on stage of the ballerina, it's a huge difference, kind of like your voice and the way

you often dress.

Does that make any sense to you?

No, it absolutely does.

I think,

like ballet, I go to lengths to make my performance look effortless.

But yeah, I mean, ballet costumes, dresses, I'm very inspired by that in my dressing on stage for multiple reasons.

The first being comfort.

You can move in them, and I need to be able to breathe and move around.

But I think, you know, when I'm playing with, whether it's a string quartet or an orchestra, in those little moments in between, the movement of a tutu, the movement of a dress, the movement of clothing,

it just adds to the performance, and it's something I think about a lot.

I don't like wearing stiff clothing, because it pulls the music down, and it pulls my performance down, too.

Let's take another break here, and then we'll hear more music played by Leve, who is my guest.

She's from Iceland, and this Leve, this sounds like a very Icelandic name.

Yes, it's from Norse mythology.

Oh, meaning what?

It's also my great-grandmother's name, but

the god of mischief, Loki, or Loki,

his mother was named Loeve.

Oh, I've heard of Loki.

Yeah, if you look up his full name, it's Loki Loeve, son, son of Levi.

And what's your full name?

My full name is Loeve

Lin Bing Jonstotir.

So the Lin Bing is the Chinese part?

That's the Chinese part.

Bing means ice.

So I'm named after Iceland.

Lin is my Chinese family name.

And Yon Stoter means daughter of Yon.

And my father's name is Yon, and I am his daughter.

Right, okay.

We'll be back after a break.

And her new album, by the way, is called A Matter of Time.

This is Fresh Air.

Support for the following message comes from Sutter Health.

where doctors and nurses care for millions of Californians with breakthrough cancer treatments, advanced heart and brain care, and nationally recognized birth centers.

Sutter is bringing on new doctors and specialists to make getting care easier in more communities across California.

Learn more and find a doctor at Sutterhealth.org.

This message comes from Schwab.

At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs.

That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices.

You can invest and trade on your own.

Plus, get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs.

With award-winning service, low costs, and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab.

Visit schwab.com to learn more.

This message comes from Amazon Business.

With smart business buying, get everything you need to grow in one familiar place, from office supplies to IT essentials and maintenance tools.

Ready to bring your visions to life?

Learn how at amazonbusiness.com.

I want to to play another song from your album.

And this is a song that I think is very different from the other songs on the album.

It's more of,

it has more of a soul influence to it.

And the song is called Silver Lining.

Do you want to talk about writing this?

Silver Lining is one of those very rare songs that I wrote to kind of perfectly

complement my voice.

I wasn't thinking

about anything other than just wanting to write.

Of course, of course, I love song and I wanted to get those feelings off my chest.

And I'm a very naturally sarcastic person, so it carried through in a very sarcastic way.

But with lyrics like, When you go to hell, I'll go there with you too.

That's my way of describing how much I love you.

I'll follow you anywhere.

But I really wanted to write a song that was just built around my vocal performance.

I think something that I didn't get to explore as much in my last album was my vocal range.

And I don't use reverb often, but the voice is steeped in reverb, but with intention.

Okay, let's hear it.

This is Silver Lining from Leve's new album, A Matter of Time.

I've been falling in bad habits,

staring into the abyss

Drowning in red wine and sniffing cinnamon

We've been kissing on the playground

Acting like little kids

Making dirty jokes and getting

away with it

So I I propose

it's long overdue

when you go to hell, I'll go there with you too.

And when we're punished

for being so cruel,

the silver linings I'll be

That was Silver Lining from Leve's new album, A Matter of Time.

Are you on tour now?

I am on tour right now, and it's my first arena tour, so it's definitely different and a little bit daunting, but I feel like I've been able to show every part of my artistic vision at once, which makes me so happy.

I have ballerinas on stage with me, jazz dancers.

I have my band, and I have a string quartet, and I have a jazz club in the middle of the stage.

And it just feels really, really special to finally get to kind of show the world exactly what I'm about.

Oh, it's like 360 degrees of view with the ballet dancers and jazz sets.

Exactly.

Yeah, a jazz set in the middle.

What kind of reaction do you get to that?

I think think at first some people were confused because I've

previously, due to, of course, budget restraints and other things and room restraints, I've just been showing a more muted side of myself or acoustic side of myself, which I absolutely love and adore and will continue to do too, whether that's concerts with orchestras or concerts at jazz clubs or just solo.

But I've always been inspired by golden age films, the va-va-vum of it all.

And I've also always loved pop music and how I feel like at pop concerts that the artists can go all out and be unapologetically themselves.

I've always wanted the same.

I think I gained a bit of a reputation as this very soft artist with my last projects.

And though I am that, I am so much more than that as well.

Since you have a jazz set in the middle of your concerts now when you're on tour, I'm going to ask you to play a jazz original that you wrote.

And this is one of your early songs.

It's called Valentine.

I've been playing a much more swingy version of this on tour, so it's going to be weird to go back to this version.

But

this is how I wrote it, so it is how it shall be performed.

I've rejected

affection for years

and years.

Now I have it, and damn it, it's kind of weird.

He tells me I'm pretty, don't know how to respond.

I tell him that he's pretty too.

Can I say that?

Don't have a clue.

Every passing moment, I surprise myself.

I'm scared of flies, I'm scared of guys.

Someone please help.

cause I think I've fallen in love this time.

I blinked and suddenly I had a

valentine.

That's a nice song.

It's sweet.

It's very naive.

It reminds me of being 21.

Falling in love for the first time?

Yes.

Do you get back to Iceland much?

I do.

I go home a lot.

It really grounds me, and I write the best there.

I wrote half the album there.

And your music's popular there, right?

I don't know.

I think so.

I don't know if my music is very popular, but I think there's definitely a lot of hometown pride.

So when I go home and play concerts, I think it's always very special because they're very proud of different artists or athletes who've kind of gone past, gone outside of the country and made their mark there.

Well, Levy, I want to thank you so much for talking with us and for doing some songs for us.

Thank you so much.

I wish you well on your tour and,

you know, thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's been such an honor.

Oh, my pleasure.

Leve's new album is called A Matter of Time.

After we take a short break, our rock critic Ken Tucker will review Taylor Swift's new album, The Life of a Showgirl.

This is Fresh Air.

This message comes from NPR sponsor SAP Concur.

Atria Cure is a healthcare company that develops technologies to treat atrial fibrillation.

Senior manager Latora Jackson shares how SAP Concur solutions help her team manage travel and meet their patients' needs.

Surgery is not always a nine to five scheduling appointment.

So when something does change, very last minute, we have sales reps and employees traveling cross-country to meet those doctors' immediate needs because a patient may need emergency surgery the very same day and they will be there.

The efficiency and intuitiveness of the system and being able to utilize the Concur platform while on the go allows them to take care of their administrative responsibilities en route to literally a ER room.

So that allows for them to continue to stay focused on our patients, but still maintain their responsibility for administrative needs.

Visit concur.com to learn more.

Taylor Swift's new album, The Life of a Showgirl, is her 12th studio album and arrives at a time when Swift dominates not just the music industry, but American pop culture itself.

The details of her recent engagement to football player Travis Kelsey can seem to her fans as important as her music.

So what does this mean for the dozen new songs on this album?

Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

You wanna see me all alone.

As legend has it, you are quite the pyro.

You light the match to wash it blow.

And if you'd never called for me,

I might have drowned in the mountain calling.

I swore my loyalty to me, myself and I,

right before you lit my sky.

Taylor Swift's crisp, clever new album, The Life of a Showgirl, is offered to its audience in an intentionally crass, playfully cynical manner.

There she is on the cover, dressed in the skimpy attire of a Las Vegas showgirl.

A few weeks before its release, on the podcast of her football fiancée Travis Kelsey, she said, This album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during the ERAs tour.

It's about what I was going through offstage.

Half-control freak, half-cool English teacher, Swift is trying to guide the narrative interpretations for the life of a showgirl.

All the time you've spent on me.

It's honestly wild.

All the effort you put in.

It's actually romantic.

I really gotta hand it to you.

No man has ever loved me like you do.

That's a song called Actually Romantic.

On this album, Swift is reunited with the Swedish producer Max Martin, with whom she's made her catchiest hits, including Shake It Off and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

I much prefer the grand, intense pop productions of Max Martin to the brooding ballads that prevail on non-Martin productions, such as Swift's last album, The Tortured Poets Department.

On the new song Wood, Martin turns Swift loose to tear through a rhythm and blues chorus that's unlike any singing she's done before.

Over me, it's understood.

I ain't got ten knock on board.

Forgive me, it sounds copy.

Hypnotized me and opened my eyes.

Rodwood tree, it ain't hard to see.

His love was the key that opened my skies.

The lyrics for that song, by the way, are full of double entendres and single ones that may require a certain amount of parental explanation for a considerable portion of Swift's audience.

It's PG-13 autobiography for the fans who love to parse the lyrics seeking private life details.

It's why publications are reduced to coming up with clickbait headlines about the song Opalite.

People magazine, to take just one of many, offer this headline.

Taylor Swift's Opalite Lyrics Explained, Breaking Down the Travis Kelsey-inspired track.

This would be merely silly, were the music not so strong with its creamy disco beat and surging chorus.

strikes.

Escape this candle all it's night.

But now the sky is open.

On the title song, Swift joins up with pop star of the moment Sabrina Carpenter to offer one of those show biz's hard extravaganzas that could serve as a Broadway musical showstopper.

As the album proceeds, you begin to realize that Swift focuses less and less on her perennial subjects, Heartache and Heartbreak.

Her dozen songs combine to form a picture of true love, found, tested, and proven as strong as her early work always yearned to find.

She uses a couple of songs to dispatch a few bad men, such as a condescending controller on this one called Father Figure.

We were lost in the cold.

Pulled up to you in the jack, Turned your rags into gold.

The winding road leads to the chateau.

You remind me of a young gummy.

I saw potential.

I'll be a fallen figure.

I drink that brown liquor.

I can make deals with Victor because my check's bigger.

This love is pure profit.

Just step into my office.

I dry your tears without sleep.

Leave it with me.

One key to Taylor Swift's success is that she's turned fame into a game her fans are invited to play along with her.

Everyone is welcome backstage now, where Taylor will greet you with open arms, a big smile, and a knowing wink.

You can call me honey if you want, because I'm the one you want.

When anyone called me, sweetheart, it was passive

at the bar, and the chick was telling me to back off.

Cause a man had looked at me wrong.

If anyone called me, honey, it was standing in the bathroom.

White teeth, they were saying that skirt don't fit me.

And I cried the whole way home.

But you

touch my face.

Ken Tucker reviewed Taylor Swift's new album, The Life of a Showgirl.

Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we'll talk about how the Pentagon and military are being transformed.

Last week, Defense Secretary Hexeth told hundreds of top military commanders to end, quote, woke policies.

And President Trump suggested using the military against the enemy from within.

Trump has deployed the National Guard to several U.S.

cities.

Our guest will be Nancy Youssef who covers the Defense Department for the Atlantic.

I hope you'll join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPRFresh Air.

Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.

Our senior producer today is Teresa Madden.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our managing producer is Sam Brigher.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Bodonato, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman.

Our digital media producer is Molly C.

V.

Nesper.

Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson.

Roberta Shorrock directs the show.

Our co-host is Tanya Mosley.

I'm Terry Gross.

This message comes from NPR sponsor Pete and Jerry's Eggs, inviting you to tag along with one of their organic pasture-raised hens as she heads out for her day in the pasture.

She and her friends start to roam and forage hunting for tasty organic snacks.

And with 108 square feet per hen, there's plenty of space for everyone.

Under the open sky, they can hear songbirds nesting in the trees.

They bask in the sounds of nature as they prepare to lay their rich, delicious eggs.

And when the sun starts to set, the crickets begin to sing.

Time to catch one last squiggly snack before bedtime.

To learn more about Pete and Jerry's organic pasture-raised eggs and the certified humane farms where their hens roam, visit peteandjerry's.com.