Remi Wolf - Soup

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Here on Song Exploder, all the episodes are kind of origin stories about songs.

Well, there's a podcast coming out this fall called Origin Stories that's about the beginnings of all kinds of creative projects.

Books, podcasts, TV shows, and more.

Noah Hawley tells a story behind his show Alien Earth, and Stephanie Fu, who wrote the best-selling memoir, What My Bones Know, talks about how she started writing.

And the creator of Only Murders in the Building, John Robert Hoffman, talks about the beginnings of that show.

So find Origin Stories wherever you get your podcasts.

Remy Wolfe is a singer and songwriter originally from Palo Alto, California.

She's been releasing music since 2019.

She performed at Coachella in 2023 and toured with Olivia Rodrigo, Lord, and Paramore.

Her second album, Big Ideas, came out in July 2024.

I talked to Remy about how she and her collaborators wrote and produced the song Soup, how they used 80s gear to make 80s sounds, and how the idea of making a fun anthem quickly turned into something pretty vulnerable.

My name is Remy Wolf.

So I was on tour at the end of 2022 in Australia.

I was holding koalas, I was chilling with kangaroos, and I was also in a lot of airports and in a lot of cafes.

And in said airports and cafes, they play the song Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun.

I was hearing it everywhere because they're on Australian band.

And it was a song I already knew, but I regained an appreciation for it when I was hearing it in its natural habitat.

The song is this huge four on the floor banger.

And when I would hear it, I was like, this is such a smash.

And like, I would only want to hear this in a stadium or an arena or somewhere where like you're completely enveloped in like reverb that i think was the first thought of soup because i wanted to make something that felt huge like it was created for a big space

two weeks later i went to new york i went to electric ladies studios with my friend Jared, Solomon, Solomon Vonic, Nox Fortune, and Carter Lang.

And it was our first session together ever.

Jared created a drum loop on the drum tracks, which was this drum machine that we were using from the 80s.

Knox is playing chords on the prophet,

and Jared was playing bass.

And the first thing that came out was

doing business on the top of the roof.

Those words literally came from us being in Studio D, an electric lady, which is on the roof, and we were doing business.

But it kind of ended up like very quickly morphing into like this scene of me on a rooftop partying a little too hard, like way too high, way too drunk.

And in that, abandoning the needs of my partner.

I was in a relationship at the time and it was relatively new.

And I think we had just kind of pushed beyond the honeymoon phase of it all.

So it was starting to get really real.

I was scared that I was going to be like too much for this person.

That feeling of, am I enough?

Am I able to control myself?

And like, am I going to be able to like do this?

It is so at the top of my vocal register, like I am belting.

I think I recognized immediately that it was the chorus because

this can't be, this can't be the verse because I don't know where the hell else else we're gonna go.

I knew that from the chorus, we had to go down

at least an octave in terms of just like where I was singing.

So, essentially, what I did was I was like, okay, guys, we're gonna go into the studio room and we're gonna sit in a circle on the floor and we're just gonna pass the mic around

and I'll get my voice notes out and I'll make sure I record everything.

Stay,

stick around,

please don't don't get in your car.

If a plane's on the ground,

it can never really get that far.

The verse is your partner is kind of like, I'm gonna go.

And it's kind of me begging them to stay and telling them that I really want to change and I'm like ready to do things differently for them.

Now I'm cleaning off the dirt on my feet and I'm hoping that I'm getting better,

better,

better,

better.

I mean, I've had, unfortunately, plenty of situations where I've been in relationships with people and

just sometimes go into this like pure self-destruction mode, throwing my hands up to the sky and

letting my demons fly.

And it's unpleasant.

I can't help but make it about me.

Oh, when you and I are together,

now I'm cleaning off the dirt on my feet,

and I'm hoping that I'm getting better

until I'm

we laid down some guitar

and we laid down a couple more synths, like some Corrigan one.

It sounds almost like a weird piano that's been like welded with keys inside of it, and it just sounds strange.

We were layering synths, and there was a lot of 80s stuff,

which is, I think, why people have this feeling from my music that it's very nostalgic and like throwback-y.

and it's because we are using gear from those times

too if you gave me the keys i'm gonna go and pick up the soup

You're so patient with the animals too.

If you gave me your keys, I'll go and pick up the soup.

Making food for other people is one of my love languages.

My mom is a chef and taught me how to cook really, really early in my life.

I mean, the idea of it is like, I'm going to go get you soup when you're sick, reiterating that idea of like, I want to be able to be there for you.

And like, Knox is honestly the reason why I gave myself the permission to open up lyrically in this song because I would say a lyric or he would like kind of shout out like a lyrical idea and I'd be like, whoa, that's really direct.

And he'd be like, yeah, I think we should be direct.

And I was like, okay, I think you're correct.

So my big line in this song is, I don't want to live without you.

I don't want to live without you.

which seems so direct and so simple, which is normally kind of a scary place for me to go.

I think typically in my writing, I'm able to express myself in like metaphors or in drastic imagery or even just like shock value lyricism.

And I think it allows me to like hide behind something.

Like I'm the only one that knows the truth behind this song.

And I think in some ways that excites me, but I think in some ways I use it as a crutch.

But there are times when we need to kind of let that go and just lay it out on the table.

So yeah, I think soup was like a big step, letting myself be seen a little bit more.

Even people that are like really close to me, unless you're like really tightly in my heart, will I share like

these like nightmarish feelings, I guess, that I have at times.

But I've literally said that phrase, like, I don't want to live without you.

Or I've felt that feeling before of being so deeply attached, feeling like your entire self-worth is being derived from another person.

And I think that I've been in

long periods of like deep codependency

where I definitely feel that feeling and don't like expressing it because it's like embarrassing.

But then you've gone and put it in a song that millions of people are going to hear.

Yeah.

Everybody can say nana nana nana.

And in my original intention in the song to make it like this big arena song that everybody can kind of relate to in a way, a trope of those songs is that there always is a lala or a nana or a dada or something in there that is like a baby sound.

And essentially, my plan for this song live is that this bridge is going to be a huge moment.

And I'm going to get everybody clapping and everybody's going to be screaming their nana all together.

No matter like what language you speak, no matter like if you are two years old or 95,

you can do it.

The arrangement of this nana nana section really took a journey.

It used to be full of sense.

And then we've uncovered that picking line.

i think it adds like a little element of funk which is kind of always something i'm attracted to and i just am obsessed with harmonies

i love creating an instrument out of my voice to feel almost like another synth.

And I was belting and they're the highest I've ever belted.

And it's honestly a challenge that I really like: pushing my voice to its limits and seeing where I can go.

I didn't have to go that hard, but I did.

If you gave me keys, I'll go and pick up the soup

at the end of the night.

It was like two in the morning, we kind of had wrapped up and we were drunk, everybody.

And I was like, Can I play the OB-8?

And that's where we got the line.

It's a very simple line, but it goes.

And you kind of hear it all throughout the song: this one recurring OB-8 line.

And drunkenly, I wanted to play drums.

And I can play drums like relatively well, but not drunken at 2 a.m.

Horrible drums, but nicely mic'd.

But the final chorus doesn't have any drums.

It's really letting that vocal speak for itself for the first time.

I really wanted this euphoric release at the end of this tune that's so like tense.

We're really building so much tension.

And then finally, you're kind of able to like sit back and enjoy the vocals and the message and like the tones of these scents.

I'm so patient with the almost two.

If you gave me a keys, I'll go and pick up the shoe.

Oh,

oh, oh, oh,

I

Unfortunately, the relationship that I was in at that time did not work out.

But getting to learn more about myself through that relationship and through not being in that relationship has been really important for me.

I was a girl wanting to be on a journey of self-improvement, but not yet on it.

And I think the song was almost like a cry for help to myself in that way.

But I'm trying to be a better person and trust the process.

If I have the intention

of improving,

then it'll happen.

Coming up, you'll hear how all of these ideas and elements came together in the final song.

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And now here's soup by Remy Wolf in its entirety.

Help, help.

Stay,

stick around.

Please don't get into your car.

It's a plane

on the ground.

It can never really get that far.

I can't help but make it about me.

Oh, when you and I are together.

Now I'm cleaning up the dirt on my feet.

And I'm hoping that I'm getting better

until I'm

doing this on the top of the roof.

Like you told me to leave, but I don't wanna live without you.

I'm so patient with the animals too.

If you gave me keys, I would go and make a show.

Oh,

oh, oh.

I don't wanna live without you.

Oh,

oh, oh, oh,

I don't wanna live without you.

Play

like a dog

as I wait for your arrival.

Play fish

in the yard

as a means of my survival.

I can't help but make it about me.

Oh, when you and I are out together.

Now I'm brushing off the blood of my teeth.

And I'm hoping that I'm getting better

until I

know if there's a summoning up my roof.

Please told me to leave, but I don't wanna leave without you.

I'm so patient with the

two.

If you gave me keys, I'ma go and think I got so.

Oh,

I don't wanna live without you.

Oh,

oh, oh.

I don't wanna live without you.

I can never do what you wanted, baby.

Now all of this once to divide us, lately.

I can never do what you wanted, baby.

Now I'm just once a divider, lately.

Now La-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na, no,

nana.

Na na na na na na na na na na na.

Na na na n na na na na na na na na.

La na na na na na na na na na na na na.

You feel the summons up on the roof.

They told me to leave, but I don't wanna leave without you.

I saw pitching with the animals too.

If you gave me a keys, I'll go

To learn more, visit songexploder.net.

You'll find links to buy or stream soup, and you can watch the music video.

This episode was produced by Craig Ely, Theo Balcombe, Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan, and myself.

Our production assistant is Tiger Biscuit.

The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts.

You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm.

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I'm Rishike Shirwei.

Thanks for listening.

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