Podcasts about Evermore

Step out of the labyrinth and into the witchy woods of Evermore in our latest season of "The Taylor Seminars." Exquisite and Hannah visit this beautiful album and discuss the themes and context around this beautiful album. Plus they share their favorite (and least favorite) tracks on the album. Enjoy the episode? ⁠Support The Taylor Seminars on Ko-fi! ❤️And don't forget to join the conversation with#EvermoreSeminars on X/Twitter Follow us on Twitter:- ⁠@⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠taylorseminars⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠- ⁠@⁠⁠⁠sippingaugust ⁠⁠⁠⁠(Hannah)- ⁠@⁠⁠⁠exquisitewill⁠ ⁠⁠⁠(Exquisite)Cover Art by Alef Vernon: - ⁠@⁠⁠⁠alefvernonart⁠ ⁠⁠⁠on Instagram- ⁠@alefvernon⁠ on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠Follow Alef on ⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠

Taylor Swift surprised fans with the release of “evermore” on December 11, 2020. Before “13: A Taylor Swift Fan Podcast” existed, Nick, Ana, Amy, and Lacey came together to record an album breakdown on December 17, 2020, which was at the time shared on different podcasts. In this episode, you will hear the very first idea of a Taylor Swift podcast, theories about the re-recording process and how that could play out. Hear the true first reactions to the “evermore” album, before these beloved Swifties had an entire podcast dedicated to Taylor's music. How do their thoughts compare now, years later? Did any emotions hold up? Did any songs change in favor? Enjoy other firsts, like first speculation of how a Taylor Swift concert could look, a warning about trying to get tickets in the future, and other theories that are still being discussed today, the Woodvale trilogy, in real time.  We hope you enjoy this time capsule episode as we get started with our “evermore” era in 2025. THIS PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY BETTERHELP visit https://www.betterhelp.com/TAYLORSWIFTFAN There are lots of ways to reach us, including our exclusive Lobster Lounge! Join in on the discussion there at https://station.page/13 , or let us know on the socials! CONTACT THE PODCAST! Email – ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the13podcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/the13podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@the13podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW US! Ana - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/anaszabo13⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Lacey – ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/laceygee13⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Amy –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/amysnichols⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Nick –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/nickadamsonair⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is every age gap romance problematic? We're here to dive deeper into Ali Hazelwood's most recent book. Maya is not your typical romcom heroine; she's got anger issues, teenage trauma, and isn't afraid to call people out. She's not for everyone, but her romance with Connor feels organic, and the well-paced flashbacks make this book fly by.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228691356-problematic-summer-romance?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=mt0owJHxff&rank=1Similar (age gap) BooksTwilight by Stephanie Meyerhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41865.Twilight?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=2ZoQ2Xp70c&rank=1Wild Magic Series by Tamora Piercehttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13836.Wild_Magic?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Ixp0BQdSRt&rank=2The Emperor's Edge Series by Lindsey Burokerhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10031259-the-emperor-s-edge?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=xP3o26XwsB&rank=1Evermore by Lynn Viehlhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1264696.Evermore?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=5IDCm6Jovp&rank=1Prince of Dreams by Lisa Kleypashttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/693033.Prince_of_Dreams?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ZjASOlKRak&rank=1Storm Over The Lake by Diana Palmerhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/566136.Storm_Over_the_Lake?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=0p2zSI1a1C&rank=1https://patreon.com/notanotherheroine

In your soul, you just know when it's time to... start our "evemore" era! We told you this pain wouldn't be for evermore and we wouldn't leave you at the restaurant because the time has finally come! In this episode, Nick, Ana, Amy, and Lacey rank their top 5 songs from Taylor Swift's 9th studio album, "evermore". Amy has famously gone on the record for years on how this is a top album for her, so which song makes the top spot? And can everyone guess each other's favorites? How does your list of favorites compare to ours? Do any of them match? We are so excited to *finally* kick off our "evermore" era.... it's been a long time coming.  THIS PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY RUFF GREENS! Go to http://RuffGreens.com and use promo code “taylorswiftfan”. THIS PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY QUINCE Go to http://Quince.com/taylorswiftfan for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. There are lots of ways to reach us, including our exclusive Lobster Lounge! Join in on the discussion there at https://station.page/13 , or let us know on the socials! CONTACT THE PODCAST! Email – ⁠⁠⁠⁠the13podcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/the13podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@the13podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW US! Ana - ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/anaszabo13⁠⁠⁠⁠ Lacey – ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/laceygee13⁠⁠⁠⁠ Amy –⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/amysnichols⁠⁠⁠⁠ Nick –⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/nickadamsonair⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For those who haven't heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-one-minute bonus episode available, on Judy Collins’ version of this song. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Erratum For about an hour this was uploaded with the wrong Elton John clip in place of “Saturday Sun”. This has now been fixed. Resources Because of the increasing problems with Mixcloud’s restrictions, I have decided to start sharing streaming playlists of the songs used in episodes instead of Mixcloud ones. This Tunemymusic link will let you listen to the playlist I created on your streaming platform of choice — however please note that not all the songs excerpted are currently available on streaming. The songs missing from the Tidal version are “Shanten Bells” by the Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” by A.L. Lloyd, two by Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, three by Elton John & Linda Peters, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow” by Sandy Denny and “You Never Know” by Charlie Drake, but the other fifty-nine are there. Other songs may be missing from other services. The main books I used on Fairport Convention as a whole were Patrick Humphries' Meet On The Ledge, Clinton Heylin's What We Did Instead of Holidays, and Kevan Furbank's Fairport Convention on Track. Rob Young's Electric Eden is the most important book on the British folk-rock movement. Information on Richard Thompson comes from Patrick Humphries' Richard Thompson: Strange Affair and Thompson's own autobiography Beeswing.  Information on Sandy Denny comes from Clinton Heylin's No More Sad Refrains and Mick Houghton's I've Always Kept a Unicorn. I also used Joe Boyd's autobiography White Bicycles and Chris Blackwell's The Islander.  And this three-CD set is the best introduction to Fairport's music currently in print. Transcript Before we begin, this episode contains reference to alcohol and cocaine abuse and medical neglect leading to death. It also starts with some discussion of the fatal car accident that ended last episode. There’s also some mention of child neglect and spousal violence. If that’s likely to upset you, you might want to skip this episode or read the transcript. One of the inspirations for this podcast when I started it back in 2018 was a project by Richard Thompson, which appears (like many things in Thompson’s life) to have started out of sheer bloody-mindedness. In 1999 Playboy magazine asked various people to list their “songs of the Millennium”, and most of them, understanding the brief, chose a handful of songs from the latter half of the twentieth century. But Thompson determined that he was going to list his favourite songs *of the millennium*. He didn’t quite manage that, but he did cover seven hundred and forty years, and when Playboy chose not to publish it, he decided to turn it into a touring show, in which he covered all his favourite songs from “Sumer Is Icumen In” from 1260: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Sumer is Icumen In”] Through numerous traditional folk songs, union songs like “Blackleg Miner”, pieces by early-modern composers, Victorian and Edwardian music hall songs, and songs by the Beatles, the Ink Spots, the Kinks, and the Who, all the way to “Oops! I Did It Again”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Oops! I Did it Again”] And to finish the show, and to show how all this music actually ties together, he would play what he described as a “medieval tune from Brittany”, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”] We have said many times in this podcast that there is no first anything, but there’s a reason that Liege and Lief, Fairport Convention’s third album of 1969, and the album other than Unhalfbricking on which their reputation largely rests, was advertised with the slogan “The first (literally) British folk rock album ever”. Folk-rock, as the term had come to be known, and as it is still usually used today, had very little to do with traditional folk music. Rather, the records of bands like The Byrds or Simon and Garfunkel were essentially taking the sounds of British beat groups of the early sixties, particularly the Searchers, and applying those sounds to material by contemporary singer-songwriters. People like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan had come up through folk clubs, and their songs were called folk music because of that, but they weren’t what folk music had meant up to that point — songs that had been collected after being handed down through the folk process, changed by each individual singer, with no single identifiable author. They were authored songs by very idiosyncratic writers. But over their last few albums, Fairport Convention had done one or two tracks per album that weren’t like that, that were instead recordings of traditional folk songs, but arranged with rock instrumentation. They were not necessarily the first band to try traditional folk music with electric instruments — around the same time that Fairport started experimenting with the idea, so did an Irish band named Sweeney’s Men, who brought in a young electric guitarist named Henry McCullough briefly. But they do seem to have been the first to have fully embraced the idea. They had done so to an extent with “A Sailor’s Life” on Unhalfbricking, but now they were going to go much further: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves” (from about 4:30)] There had been some doubt as to whether Fairport Convention would even continue to exist — by the time Unhalfbricking, their second album of the year, was released, they had been through the terrible car accident that had killed Martin Lamble, the band’s drummer, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson’s girlfriend. Most of the rest of the band had been seriously injured, and they had made a conscious decision not to discuss the future of the band until they were all out of hospital. Ashley Hutchings was hospitalised the longest, and Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, and Sandy Denny, the other three surviving members of the band, flew over to LA with their producer and manager, Joe Boyd, to recuperate there and get to know the American music scene. When they came back, the group all met up in the flat belonging to Denny’s boyfriend Trevor Lucas, and decided that they were going to continue the band. They made a few decisions then — they needed a new drummer, and as well as a drummer they wanted to get in Dave Swarbrick. Swarbrick had played violin on several tracks on Unhalfbricking as a session player, and they had all been thrilled to work with him. Swarbrick was one of the most experienced musicians on the British folk circuit. He had started out in the fifties playing guitar with Beryl Marriott’s Ceilidh Band before switching to fiddle, and in 1963, long before Fairport had formed, he had already appeared on TV with the Ian Campbell Folk Group, led by Ian Campbell, the father of Ali and Robin Campbell, later of UB40: [Excerpt: The Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Shanten Bells (medley on Hullaballoo!)”] He’d sung with Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd: [Excerpt: A.L. Lloyd, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” ] And he’d formed his hugely successful duo with Martin Carthy, releasing records like “Byker Hill” which are often considered among the best British folk music of all time: [Excerpt: Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, “Byker Hill”] By the time Fairport had invited him to play on Unhalfbricking, Swarbrick had already performed on twenty albums as a core band member, plus dozens more EPs, singles, and odd tracks on compilations. They had no reason to think they could actually get him to join their band. But they had three advantages. The first was that Swarbrick was sick of the traditional folk scene at the time, saying later “I didn’t like seven-eighths of the people involved in it, and it was extremely opportune to leave. I was suddenly presented with the possibilities of exploring the dramatic content of the songs to the full.” The second was that he was hugely excited to be playing with Richard Thompson, who was one of the most innovative guitarists of his generation, and Martin Carthy remembers him raving about Thompson after their initial sessions. (Carthy himself was and is no slouch on the guitar of course, and there was even talk of getting him to join the band at this point, though they decided against it — much to the relief of rhythm guitarist Simon Nicol, who is a perfectly fine player himself but didn’t want to be outclassed by *two* of the best guitarists in Britain at the same time). And the third was that Joe Boyd told him that Fairport were doing so well — they had a single just about to hit the charts with “Si Tu Dois Partir” — that he would only have to play a dozen gigs with Fairport in order to retire. As it turned out, Swarbrick would play with the group for a decade, and would never retire — I saw him on his last tour in 2015, only eight months before he died. The drummer the group picked was also a far more experienced musician than any of the rest, though in a very different genre. Dave Mattacks had no knowledge at all of the kind of music they played, having previously been a player in dance bands. When asked by Hutchings if he wanted to join the band, Mattacks’ response was “I don’t know anything about the music. I don’t understand it… I can’t tell one tune from another, they all sound the same… but if you want me to join the group, fine, because I really like it. I’m enjoying myself musically.” Mattacks brought a new level of professionalism to the band, thanks to his different background. Nicol said of him later “He was dilligent, clean, used to taking three white shirts to a gig… The application he could bring to his playing was amazing. With us, you only played well when you were feeling well.” This distinction applied to his playing as well. Nicol would later describe the difference between Mattacks’ drumming and Lamble’s by saying “Martin’s strength was as an imaginative drummer. DM came in with a strongly developed sense of rhythm, through keeping a big band of drunken saxophone players in order. A great time-keeper.” With this new line-up and a new sense of purpose, the group did as many of their contemporaries were doing and “got their heads together in the country”. Joe Boyd rented the group a mansion, Farley House, in Farley Chamberlayne, Hampshire, and they stayed there together for three months. At the start, the group seem to have thought that they were going to make another record like Unhalfbricking, with some originals, some songs by American songwriters, and a few traditional songs. Even after their stay in Farley Chamberlayne, in fact, they recorded a few of the American songs they’d rehearsed at the start of the process, Richard Farina’s “Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” and Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Ballad of Easy Rider”] Indeed, the whole idea of “getting our heads together in the country” (as the cliche quickly became in the late sixties as half of the bands in Britain went through much the same kind of process as Fairport were doing — but usually for reasons more to do with drug burnout or trend following than recovering from serious life-changing trauma) seems to have been inspired by Bob Dylan and the Band getting together in Big Pink. But very quickly they decided to follow the lead of Ashley Hutchings, who had had something of a Damascene conversion to the cause of traditional English folk music. They were listening mostly to Music From Big Pink by the Band, and to the first album by Sweeney’s Men: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “The Handsome Cabin Boy”] And they decided that they were going to make something that was as English as those records were North American and Irish (though in the event there were also a few Scottish songs included on the record). Hutchings in particular was becoming something of a scholar of traditional music, regularly visiting Cecil Sharp House and having long conversations with A.L. Lloyd, discovering versions of different traditional songs he’d never encountered before. This was both amusing and bemusing Sandy Denny, who had joined a rock group in part to get away from traditional music; but she was comfortable singing the material, and knew a lot of it and could make a lot of suggestions herself. Swarbrick obviously knew the repertoire intimately, and Nicol was amenable, while Mattacks was utterly clueless about the folk tradition at this point but knew this was the music he wanted to make. Thompson knew very little about traditional music, and of all the band members except Denny he was the one who has shown the least interest in the genre in his subsequent career — but as we heard at the beginning, showing the least interest in the genre is a relative thing, and while Thompson was not hugely familiar with the genre, he *was* able to work with it, and was also more than capable of writing songs that fit in with the genre. Of the eleven songs on the album, which was titled Liege and Lief (which means, roughly, Lord and Loyalty), there were no cover versions of singer-songwriters. Eight were traditional songs, and three were originals, all written in the style of traditional songs. The album opened with “Come All Ye”, an introduction written by Denny and Hutchings (the only time the two would ever write together): [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Come All Ye”] The other two originals were songs where Thompson had written new lyrics to traditional melodies. On “Crazy Man Michael”, Swarbrick had said to Thompson that the tune to which he had set his new words was weaker than the lyrics, to which Thompson had replied that if Swarbrick felt that way he should feel free to write a new melody. He did, and it became the first of the small number of Thompson/Swarbrick collaborations: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Crazy Man Michael”] Thompson and Swarbrick would become a brief songwriting team, but as much as anything else it was down to proximity — the two respected each other as musicians, but never got on very well. In 1981 Swarbrick would say “Richard and I never got on in the early days of FC… we thought we did, but we never did. We composed some bloody good songs together, but it was purely on a basis of “you write that and I’ll write this, and we’ll put it together.” But we never sat down and had real good chats.” The third original on the album, and by far the most affecting, is another song where Thompson put lyrics to a traditional tune. In this case he thought he was putting the lyrics to the tune of “Willie O'Winsbury”, but he was basing it on a recording by Sweeney’s Men. The problem was that Sweeney’s Men had accidentally sung the lyrics of “Willie O'Winsbury'” to the tune of a totally different song, “Fause Foodrage”: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “Willie O’Winsbury”] Thompson took that melody, and set to it lyrics about loss and separation. Thompson has never been one to discuss the meanings of his lyrics in any great detail, and in the case of this one has said “I really don't know what it means. This song came out of a dream, and I pretty much wrote it as I dreamt it (it was the sixties), and didn't spend very long analyzing it. So interpret as you wish – or replace with your own lines.” But in the context of the traffic accident that had killed his tailor girlfriend and a bandmate, and injured most of his other bandmates, the lyrics about lonely travellers, the winding road, bruised and beaten sons, saying goodbye, and never cutting cloth, seem fairly self-explanatory: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Farewell, Farewell”] The rest of the album, though, was taken up by traditional tunes. There was a long medley of four different fiddle reels; a version of “Reynardine” (a song about a seductive man — or is he a fox? Or perhaps both — which had been recorded by Swarbrick and Carthy on their most recent album); a 19th century song about a deserter saved from the firing squad by Prince Albert; and a long take on “Tam Lin”, one of the most famous pieces in the Scottish folk music canon, a song that has been adapted in different ways by everyone from the experimental noise band Current 93 to the dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah to the comics writer Grant Morrison: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Tam Lin”] And “Matty Groves”, a song about a man killing his cheating wife and her lover, which actually has a surprisingly similar story to that of “1921” from another great concept album from that year, the Who’s Tommy. “Matty Groves” became an excuse for long solos and shows of instrumental virtuosity: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves”] The album was recorded in September 1969, after their return from their break in the country and a triumphal performance at the Royal Festival Hall, headlining over fellow Witchseason artists John and Beverly Martyn and Nick Drake. It became a classic of the traditional folk genre — arguably *the* classic of the traditional folk genre. In 2007 BBC Radio 2’s Folk Music Awards gave it an award for most influential folk album of all time, and while such things are hard to measure, I doubt there’s anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of British folk and folk-rock music who would not at least consider that a reasonable claim. But once again, by the time the album came out in November, the band had changed lineups yet again. There was a fundamental split in the band – on one side were Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, whose stance was, roughly, that Liege and Lief was a great experiment and a fun thing to do once, but really the band had two first-rate songwriters in themselves, and that they should be concentrating on their own new material, not doing these old songs, good as they were. They wanted to take the form of the traditional songs and use that form for new material — they wanted to make British folk-rock, but with the emphasis on the rock side of things. Hutchings, on the other hand, was equally sure that he wanted to make traditional music and go further down the rabbit hole of antiquity. With the zeal of the convert he had gone in a couple of years from being the leader of a band who were labelled “the British Jefferson Airplane” to becoming a serious scholar of traditional folk music. Denny was tired of touring, as well — she wanted to spend more time at home with Trevor Lucas, who was sleeping with other women when she was away and making her insecure. When the time came for the group to go on a tour of Denmark, Denny decided she couldn’t make it, and Hutchings was jubilant — he decided he was going to get A.L. Lloyd into the band in her place and become a *real* folk group. Then Denny reconsidered, and Hutchings was crushed. He realised that while he had always been the leader, he wasn’t going to be able to lead the band any further in the traditionalist direction, and quit the group — but not before he was delegated by the other band members to fire Denny. Until the publication of Richard Thompson’s autobiography in 2022, every book on the group or its members said that Denny quit the band again, which was presumably a polite fiction that the band agreed, but according to Thompson “Before we flew home, we decided to fire Sandy. I don't remember who asked her to leave – it was probably Ashley, who usually did the dirty work. She was reportedly shocked that we would take that step. She may have been fragile beneath the confident facade, but she still knew her worth.” Thompson goes on to explain that the reasons for kicking her out were that “I suppose we felt that in her mind she had already left” and that “We were probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, though there wasn't a name for it back then.” They had considered inviting Trevor Lucas to join the band to make Denny more comfortable, but came to the (probably correct) conclusion that while he was someone they got on well with personally, he would be another big ego in a band that already had several, and that being around Denny and Lucas’ volatile relationship would, in Thompson’s phrasing, “have not always given one a feeling of peace and stability.” Hutchings originally decided he was going to join Sweeney’s Men, but that group were falling apart, and their first rehearsal with Hutchings would also be their last as a group, with only Hutchings and guitarist and mandolin player Terry Woods left in the band. They added Woods’ wife Gay, and another couple, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, and formed a group called Steeleye Span, a name given them by Martin Carthy. That group, like Fairport, went to “get their heads together in the country” for three months and recorded an album of electric versions of traditional songs, Hark the Village Wait, on which Mattacks and another drummer, Gerry Conway, guested as Steeleye Span didn’t at the time have their own drummer: [Excerpt: Steeleye Span, “Blackleg Miner”] Steeleye Span would go on to have a moderately successful chart career in the seventies, but by that time most of the original lineup, including Hutchings, had left — Hutchings stayed with them for a few albums, then went on to form the first of a series of bands, all called the Albion Band or variations on that name, which continue to this day. And this is something that needs to be pointed out at this point — it is impossible to follow every single individual in this narrative as they move between bands. There is enough material in the history of the British folk-rock scene that someone could do a 500 Songs-style podcast just on that, and every time someone left Fairport, or Steeleye Span, or the Albion Band, or Matthews’ Southern Comfort, or any of the other bands we have mentioned or will mention, they would go off and form another band which would then fission, and some of its members would often join one of those other bands. There was a point in the mid-1970s where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport Convention while Fairport Convention had none. So just in order to keep the narrative anything like wieldy, I’m going to keep the narrative concentrated on the two figures from Fairport — Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson — whose work outside the group has had the most influence on the wider world of rock music more broadly, and only deal with the other members when, as they often did, their careers intersected with those two. That doesn’t mean the other members are not themselves hugely important musicians, just that their importance has been primarily to the folk side of the folk-rock genre, and so somewhat outside the scope of this podcast. While Hutchings decided to form a band that would allow him to go deeper and deeper into traditional folk music, Sandy Denny’s next venture was rather different. For a long time she had been writing far more songs than she had ever played for her bandmates, like “Nothing More”, a song that many have suggested is about Thompson: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Nothing More”] When Joe Boyd heard that Denny was leaving Fairport Convention, he was at first elated. Fairport’s records were being distributed by A&M in the US at that point, but Island Records was in the process of opening up a new US subsidiary which would then release all future Fairport product — *but*, as far as A&M were concerned, Sandy Denny *was* Fairport Convention. They were only interested in her. Boyd, on the other hand, loved Denny’s work intensely, but from his point of view *Richard Thompson* was Fairport Convention. If he could get Denny signed directly to A&M as a solo artist before Island started its US operations, Witchseason could get a huge advance on her first solo record, while Fairport could continue making records for Island — he’d have two lucrative acts, on different labels. Boyd went over and spoke to A&M and got an agreement in principle that they would give Denny a forty-thousand-dollar advance on her first solo album — twice what they were paying for Fairport albums. The problem was that Denny didn’t want to be a solo act. She wanted to be the lead singer of a band. She gave many reasons for this — the one she gave to many journalists was that she had seen a Judy Collins show and been impressed, but noticed that Collins’ band were definitely a “backing group”, and as she put it “But that's all they were – a backing group. I suddenly thought, If you're playing together on a stage you might as well be TOGETHER.” Most other people in her life, though, say that the main reason for her wanting to be in a band was her desire to be with her boyfriend, Trevor Lucas. Partly this was due to a genuine desire to spend more time with someone with whom she was very much in love, partly it was a fear that he would cheat on her if she was away from him for long periods of time, and part of it seems to have been Lucas’ dislike of being *too* overshadowed by his talented girlfriend — he didn’t mind acknowledging that she was a major talent, but he wanted to be thought of as at least a minor one. So instead of going solo, Denny formed Fotheringay, named after the song she had written for Fairport. This new band consisted at first of Denny on vocals and occasional piano, Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Lucas’ old Eclection bandmate Gerry Conway on drums. For a lead guitarist, they asked Richard Thompson who the best guitarist in Britain was, and he told them Albert Lee. Lee in turn brought in bass player Pat Donaldson, but this lineup of the band barely survived a fortnight. Lee *was* arguably the best guitarist in Britain, certainly a reasonable candidate if you could ever have a singular best (as indeed was Thompson himself), but he was the best *country* guitarist in Britain, and his style simply didn’t fit with Fotheringay’s folk-influenced songs. He was replaced by American guitarist Jerry Donahue, who was not anything like as proficient as Lee, but who was still very good, and fit the band’s style much better. The new group rehearsed together for a few weeks, did a quick tour, and then went into the recording studio to record their debut, self-titled, album. Joe Boyd produced the album, but admitted himself that he only paid attention to those songs he considered worthwhile — the album contained one song by Lucas, “The Ballad of Ned Kelly”, and two cover versions of American singer-songwriter material with Lucas singing lead. But everyone knew that the songs that actually *mattered* were Sandy Denny’s, and Boyd was far more interested in them, particularly the songs “The Sea” and “The Pond and the Stream”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “The Pond and the Stream”] Fotheringay almost immediately hit financial problems, though. While other Witchseason acts were used to touring on the cheap, all packed together in the back of a Transit van with inexpensive equipment, Trevor Lucas had ambitions of being a rock star and wanted to put together a touring production to match, with expensive transport and equipment, including a speaker system that got nicknamed “Stonehenge” — but at the same time, Denny was unhappy being on the road, and didn’t play many gigs. As well as the band itself, the Fotheringay album also featured backing vocals from a couple of other people, including Denny’s friend Linda Peters. Peters was another singer from the folk clubs, and a good one, though less well-known than Denny — at this point she had only released a couple of singles, and those singles seemed to have been as much as anything else released as a novelty. The first of those, a version of Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” had been released as by “Paul McNeill and Linda Peters”: [Excerpt: Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”] But their second single, a version of John D. Loudermilk’s “You’re Taking My Bag”, was released on the tiny Page One label, owned by Larry Page, and was released under the name “Paul and Linda”, clearly with the intent of confusing particularly gullible members of the record-buying public into thinking this was the McCartneys: [Excerpt: Paul and Linda, “You’re Taking My Bag”] Peters was though more financially successful than almost anyone else in this story, as she was making a great deal of money as a session singer. She actually did another session involving most of Fotheringay around this time. Witchseason had a number of excellent songwriters on its roster, and had had some success getting covers by people like Judy Collins, but Joe Boyd thought that they might possibly do better at getting cover versions if they were performed in less idiosyncratic arrangements. Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway went into the studio to record backing tracks, and vocals were added by Peters and another session singer, who according to some sources also provided piano. They cut songs by Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “You Get Brighter”] Ed Carter, formerly of The New Nadir but by this time firmly ensconced in the Beach Boys’ touring band where he would remain for the next quarter-century: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “I Don’t Mind”] John and Beverly Martyn, and Nick Drake: [Excerpt: Elton John, “Saturday Sun”] There are different lineups of musicians credited for those sessions in different sources, but I tend to believe that it’s mostly Fotheringay for the simple reason that Donahue says it was him, Donaldson and Conway who talked Lucas and Denny into the mistake that destroyed Fotheringay because of these sessions. Fotheringay were in financial trouble already, spending far more money than they were bringing in, but their album made the top twenty and they were getting respect both from critics and from the public — in September, Sandy Denny was voted best British female singer by the readers of Melody Maker in their annual poll, which led to shocked headlines in the tabloids about how this “unknown” could have beaten such big names as Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black. Only a couple of weeks after that, they were due to headline at the Albert Hall. It should have been a triumph. But Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway had asked that singing pianist to be their support act. As Donahue said later “That was a terrible miscast. It was our fault. He asked if [he] could do it. Actually Pat, Gerry and I had to talk Sandy and Trevor into [it]… We'd done these demos and the way he was playing – he was a wonderful piano player – he was sensitive enough. We knew very little about his stage-show. We thought he'd be a really good opener for us.” Unfortunately, Elton John was rather *too* good. As Donahue continued “we had no idea what he had in mind, that he was going to do the most incredible rock & roll show ever. He pretty much blew us off the stage before we even got on the stage.” To make matters worse, Fotheringay’s set, which was mostly comprised of new material, was underrehearsed and sloppy, and from that point on no matter what they did people were counting the hours until the band split up. They struggled along for a while though, and started working on a second record, with Boyd again producing, though as Boyd later said “I probably shouldn't have been producing the record. My lack of respect for the group was clear, and couldn't have helped the atmosphere. We'd put out a record that had sold disappointingly, A&M was unhappy. Sandy's tracks on the first record are among the best things she ever did – the rest of it, who cares? And the artwork, Trevor's sister, was terrible. It would have been one thing if I'd been unhappy with it and it sold, and the group was working all the time, making money, but that wasn't the case … I knew what Sandy was capable of, and it was very upsetting to me.” The record would not be released for thirty-eight years: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Wild Mountain Thyme”] Witchseason was going badly into debt. Given all the fissioning of bands that we’ve already been talking about, Boyd had been stretched thin — he produced sixteen albums in 1970, and almost all of them lost money for the company. And he was getting more and more disillusioned with the people he was producing. He loved Beverly Martyn’s work, but had little time for her abusive husband John, who was dominating her recording and life more and more and would soon become a solo artist while making her stay at home (and stealing her ideas without giving her songwriting credit). The Incredible String Band were great, but they had recently converted to Scientology, which Boyd found annoying, and while he was working with all sorts of exciting artists like Vashti Bunyan and Nico, he was finding himself less and less important to the artists he mentored. Fairport Convention were a good example of this. After Denny and Hutchings had left the group, they’d decided to carry on as an electric folk group, performing an equal mix of originals by the Swarbrick and Thompson songwriting team and arrangements of traditional songs. The group were now far enough away from the “British Jefferson Airplane” label that they decided they didn’t need a female vocalist — and more realistically, while they’d been able to replace Judy Dyble, nobody was going to replace Sandy Denny. Though it’s rather surprising when one considers Thompson’s subsequent career that nobody seems to have thought of bringing in Denny’s friend Linda Peters, who was dating Joe Boyd at the time (as Denny had been before she met Lucas) as Denny’s replacement. Instead, they decided that Swarbrick and Thompson were going to share the vocals between them. They did, though, need a bass player to replace Hutchings. Swarbrick wanted to bring in Dave Pegg, with whom he had played in the Ian Campbell Folk Group, but the other band members initially thought the idea was a bad one. At the time, while they respected Swarbrick as a musician, they didn’t think he fully understood rock and roll yet, and they thought the idea of getting in a folkie who had played double bass rather than an electric rock bassist ridiculous. But they auditioned him to mollify Swarbrick, and found that he was exactly what they needed. As Joe Boyd later said “All those bass lines were great, Ashley invented them all, but he never could play them that well. He thought of them, but he was technically not a terrific bass player. He was a very inventive, melodic, bass player, but not a very powerful one technically. But having had the part explained to him once, Pegg was playing it better than Ashley had ever played it… In some rock bands, I think, ultimately, the bands that sound great, you can generally trace it to the bass player… it was at that point they became a great band, when they had Pegg.” The new lineup of Fairport decided to move in together, and found a former pub called the Angel, into which all the band members moved, along with their partners and children (Thompson was the only one who was single at this point) and their roadies. The group lived together quite happily, and one gets the impression that this was the period when they were most comfortable with each other, even though by this point they were a disparate group with disparate tastes, in music as in everything else. Several people have said that the only music all the band members could agree they liked at this point was the first two albums by The Band. With the departure of Hutchings from the band, Swarbrick and Thompson, as the strongest personalities and soloists, became in effect the joint leaders of the group, and they became collaborators as songwriters, trying to write new songs that were inspired by traditional music. Thompson described the process as “let’s take one line of this reel and slow it down and move it up a minor third and see what that does to it; let’s take one line of this ballad and make a whole song out of it. Chopping up the tradition to find new things to do… like a collage.” Generally speaking, Swarbrick and Thompson would sit by the fire and Swarbrick would play a melody he’d been working on, the two would work on it for a while, and Thompson would then go away and write the lyrics. This is how the two came up with songs like the nine-minute “Sloth”, a highlight of the next album, Full House, and one that would remain in Fairport’s live set for much of their career: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth”] “Sloth” was titled that way because Thompson and Swarbrick were working on two tunes, a slow one and a fast one, and they jokingly named them “Sloth” and “Fasth”, but the latter got renamed to “Walk Awhile”, while “Sloth” kept its working title. But by this point, Boyd and Thompson were having a lot of conflict in the studio. Boyd was never the most technical of producers — he was one of those producers whose job is to gently guide the artists in the studio and create a space for the music to flourish, rather than the Joe Meek type with an intimate technical knowledge of the studio — and as the artists he was working with gained confidence in their own work they felt they had less and less need of him. During the making of the Full House album, Thompson and Boyd, according to Boyd, clashed on everything — every time Boyd thought Thompson had done a good solo, Thompson would say to erase it and let him have another go, while every time Boyd thought Thompson could do better, Thompson would say that was the take to keep. One of their biggest clashes was over Thompson’s song “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”, which was originally intended for release on the album, and is included in current reissues of it: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”] Thompson had written that song inspired by what he thought was the unjust treatment of Alex Bramham, the driver in Fairport’s fatal car crash, by the courts — Bramham had been given a prison sentence of a few months for dangerous driving, while the group members thought he had not been at fault. Boyd thought it was one of the best things recorded for the album, but Thompson wasn’t happy with his vocal — there was one note at the top of the melody that he couldn’t quite hit — and insisted it be kept off the record, even though that meant it would be a shorter album than normal. He did this at such a late stage that early copies of the album actually had the title printed on the sleeve, but then blacked out. He now says in his autobiography “I could have persevered, double-tracked the voice, warmed up for longer – anything. It was a good track, and the record was lacking without it. When the album was re-released, the track was restored with a more confident vocal, and it has stayed there ever since.” During the sessions for Full House the group also recorded one non-album single, Thompson and Swarbrick’s “Now Be Thankful”: [Excerpt, Fairport Convention, “Now Be Thankful”] The B-side to that was a medley of two traditional tunes plus a Swarbrick original, but was given the deliberately ridiculous title “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”] The B. McKenzie in the title was a reference to the comic-strip character Barry McKenzie, a stereotype drunk Australian created for Private Eye magazine by the comedian Barry Humphries (later to become better known for his Dame Edna Everage character) but the title was chosen for one reason only — to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the song with the longest title. Which they did, though they were later displaced by the industrial band Test Dept, and their song “Long Live British Democracy Which Flourishes and Is Constantly Perfected Under the Immaculate Guidance of the Great, Honourable, Generous and Correct Margaret Hilda Thatcher. She Is the Blue Sky in the Hearts of All Nations. Our People Pay Homage and Bow in Deep Respect and Gratitude to Her. The Milk of Human Kindness”. Full House got excellent reviews in the music press, with Rolling Stone saying “The music shows that England has finally gotten her own equivalent to The Band… By calling Fairport an English equivalent of the Band, I meant that they have soaked up enough of the tradition of their countryfolk that it begins to show all over, while they maintain their roots in rock.” Off the back of this, the group went on their first US tour, culminating in a series of shows at the Troubadour in LA, on the same bill as Rick Nelson, which were recorded and later released as a live album: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth (live)”] The Troubadour was one of the hippest venues at the time, and over their residency there the group got seen by many celebrities, some of whom joined them on stage. The first was Linda Ronstadt, who initially demurred, saying she didn’t know any of their songs. On being told they knew all of hers, she joined in with a rendition of “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”. Thompson was later asked to join Ronstadt’s backing band, who would go on to become the Eagles, but he said later of this offer “I would have hated it. I’d have hated being on the road with four or five miserable Americans — they always seem miserable. And if you see them now, they still look miserable on stage — like they don’t want to be there and they don’t like each other.” The group were also joined on stage at the Troubadour on one memorable night by some former bandmates of Pegg’s. Before joining the Ian Campbell Folk Group, Pegg had played around the Birmingham beat scene, and had been in bands with John Bonham and Robert Plant, who turned up to the Troubadour with their Led Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page (reports differ on whether the fourth member of Zeppelin, John Paul Jones, also came along). They all got up on stage together and jammed on songs like “Hey Joe”, “Louie Louie”, and various old Elvis tunes. The show was recorded, and the tapes are apparently still in the possession of Joe Boyd, who has said he refuses to release them in case he is murdered by the ghost of Peter Grant. According to Thompson, that night ended in a three-way drinking contest between Pegg, Bonham, and Janis Joplin, and it’s testament to how strong the drinking culture is around Fairport and the British folk scene in general that Pegg outdrank both of them. According to Thompson, Bonham was found naked by a swimming pool two days later, having missed two gigs. For all their hard rock image, Led Zeppelin were admirers of a lot of the British folk and folk-rock scene, and a few months later Sandy Denny would become the only outside vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin record when she duetted with Plant on “The Battle of Evermore” on the group’s fourth album: [Excerpt: Led Zeppelin, “The Battle of Evermore”] Denny would never actually get paid for her appearance on one of the best-selling albums of all time. That was, incidentally, not the only session that Denny was involved in around this time — she also sang on the soundtrack to a soft porn film titled Swedish Fly Girls, whose soundtrack was produced by Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow?”] Shortly after Fairport’s trip to America, Joe Boyd decided he was giving up on Witchseason. The company was now losing money, and he was finding himself having to produce work for more and more acts as the various bands fissioned. The only ones he really cared about were Richard Thompson, who he was finding it more and more difficult to work with, Nick Drake, who wanted to do his next album with just an acoustic guitar anyway, Sandy Denny, who he felt was wasting her talents in Fotheringay, and Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band, who was more distant since his conversion to Scientology. Boyd did make some attempts to keep the company going. On a trip to Sweden, he negotiated an agreement with the manager and publisher of a Swedish band whose songs he’d found intriguing, the Hep Stars. Boyd was going to publish their songs in the UK, and in return that publisher, Stig Anderson, would get the rights to Witchseason’s catalogue in Scandinavia — a straight swap, with no money changing hands. But before Boyd could get round to signing the paperwork, he got a better offer from Mo Ostin of Warners — Ostin wanted Boyd to come over to LA and head up Warners’ new film music department. Boyd sold Witchseason to Island Records and moved to LA with his fiancee Linda Peters, spending the next few years working on music for films like Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange, as well as making his own documentary about Jimi Hendrix, and thus missed out on getting the UK publishing rights for ABBA, and all the income that would have brought him, for no money. And it was that decision that led to the breakup of Fotheringay. Just before Christmas 1970, Fotheringay were having a difficult session, recording the track “John the Gun”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “John the Gun”] Boyd got frustrated and kicked everyone out of the session, and went for a meal and several drinks with Denny. He kept insisting that she should dump the band and just go solo, and then something happened that the two of them would always describe differently. She asked him if he would continue to produce her records if she went solo, and he said he would. According to Boyd’s recollection of the events, he meant that he would fly back from California at some point to produce her records. According to Denny, he told her that if she went solo he would stay in Britain and not take the job in LA. This miscommunication was only discovered after Denny told the rest of Fotheringay after the Christmas break that she was splitting the band. Jerry Donahue has described that as the worst moment of his life, and Denny felt very guilty about breaking up a band with some of her closest friends in — and then when Boyd went over to the US anyway she felt a profound betrayal. Two days before Fotheringay’s final concert, in January 1971, Sandy Denny signed a solo deal with Island records, but her first solo album would not end up produced by Joe Boyd. Instead, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens was co-produced by Denny, John Wood — the engineer who had worked with Boyd on pretty much everything he’d produced, and Richard Thompson, who had just quit Fairport Convention, though he continued living with them at the Angel, at least until a truck crashed into the building in February 1971, destroying its entire front wall and forcing them to relocate. The songs chosen for The North Star Grassman and the Ravens reflected the kind of choices Denny would make on her future albums, and her eclectic taste in music. There was, of course, the obligatory Dylan cover, and the traditional folk ballad “Blackwaterside”, but there was also a cover version of Brenda Lee’s “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”] Most of the album, though, was made up of originals about various people in Denny’s life, like “Next Time Around”, about her ex-boyfriend Jackson C Frank: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Next Time Around”] The album made the top forty in the UK — Denny’s only solo album to do so — and led to her once again winning the “best female singer” award in Melody Maker’s readers’ poll that year — the male singer award was won by Rod Stewart. Both Stewart and Denny appeared the next year on the London Symphony Orchestra’s all-star version of The Who’s Tommy, which had originally been intended as a vehicle for Stewart before Roger Daltrey got involved. Stewart’s role was reduced to a single song, “Pinball Wizard”, while Denny sang on “It’s a Boy”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “It’s a Boy”] While Fotheringay had split up, all the band members play on The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. Guitarists Donahue and Lucas only play on a couple of the tracks, with Richard Thompson playing most of the guitar on the record. But Fotheringay’s rhythm section of Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway play on almost every track. Another musician on the album, Ian Whiteman, would possibly have a profound effect on the future direction of Richard Thompson’s career and life. Whiteman was the former keyboard player for the mod band The Action, having joined them just before they became the blues-rock band Mighty Baby. But Mighty Baby had split up when all of the band except the lead singer had converted to Islam. Richard Thompson was on his own spiritual journey at this point, and became a Sufi – the same branch of Islam as Whiteman – soon after the session, though Thompson has said that his conversion was independent of Whiteman’s. The two did become very close and work together a lot in the mid-seventies though. Thompson had supposedly left Fairport because he was writing material that wasn’t suited to the band, but he spent more than a year after quitting the group working on sessions rather than doing anything with his own material, and these sessions tended to involve the same core group of musicians. One of the more unusual was a folk-rock supergroup called The Bunch, put together by Trevor Lucas. Richard Branson had recently bought a recording studio, and wanted a band to test it out before opening it up for commercial customers, so with this free studio time Lucas decided to record a set of fifties rock and roll covers. He gathered together Thompson, Denny, Whiteman, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Pat Donaldson, Gerry Conway, pianist Tony Cox, the horn section that would later form the core of the Average White Band, and Linda Peters, who had now split up with Joe Boyd and returned to the UK, and who had started dating Thompson. They recorded an album of covers of songs by Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Otis and others: [Excerpt: The Bunch, “Willie and the Hand Jive”] The early seventies was a hugely productive time for this group of musicians, as they all continued playing on each other’s projects. One notable album was No Roses by Shirley Collins, which featured Thompson, Mattacks, Whiteman, Simon Nicol, Lal and Mike Waterson, and Ashley Hutchings, who was at that point married to Collins, as well as some more unusual musicians like the free jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill: [Excerpt: Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band, “Claudy Banks”] Collins was at the time the most respected female singer in British traditional music, and already had a substantial career including a series of important records made with her sister Dolly, work with guitarists like Davey Graham, and time spent in the 1950s collecting folk songs in the Southern US with her then partner Alan Lomax – according to Collins she did much of the actual work, but Lomax only mentioned her in a single sentence in his book on this work. Some of the same group of musicians went on to work on an album of traditional Morris dancing tunes, titled Morris On, credited to “Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield”, with Collins singing lead on two tracks: [Excerpt: Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield with Shirley Collins, “The Willow Tree”] Thompson thought that that album was the best of the various side projects he was involved in at the time, comparing it favourably to Rock On, which he thought was rather slight, saying later “Conceptually, Fairport, Ashley and myself and Sandy were developing a more fragile style of music that nobody else was particularly interested in, a British Folk Rock idea that had a logical development to it, although we all presented it our own way. Morris On was rather more true to what we were doing. Rock On was rather a retro step. I'm not sure it was lasting enough as a record but Sandy did sing really well on the Buddy Holly songs.” Hutchings used the musicians on No Roses and Morris On as the basis for his band the Albion Band, which continues to this day. Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks both quit Fairport to join the Albion Band, though Mattacks soon returned. Nicol would not return to Fairport for several years, though, and for a long period in the mid-seventies Fairport Convention had no original members. Unfortunately, while Collins was involved in the Albion Band early on, she and Hutchings ended up divorcing, and the stress from the divorce led to Collins developing spasmodic dysphonia, a stress-related illness which makes it impossible for the sufferer to sing. She did eventually regain her vocal ability, but between 1978 and 2016 she was unable to perform at all, and lost decades of her career. Richard Thompson occasionally performed with the Albion Band early on, but he was getting stretched a little thin with all these sessions. Linda Peters said later of him “When I came back from America, he was working in Sandy’s band, and doing sessions by the score. Always with Pat Donaldson and Dave Mattacks. Richard would turn up with his guitar, one day he went along to do a session with one of those folkie lady singers — and there were Pat and DM. They all cracked. Richard smashed his amp and said “Right! No more sessions!” In 1972 he got round to releasing his first solo album, Henry the Human Fly, which featured guest appearances by Linda Peters and Sandy Denny among others: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “The Angels Took My Racehorse Away”] Unfortunately, while that album has later become regarded as one of the classics of its genre, at the time it was absolutely slated by the music press. The review in Melody Maker, for example, read in part “Some of Richard Thompson’s ideas sound great – which is really the saving grace of this album, because most of the music doesn’t. The tragedy is that Thompson’s “British rock music” is such an unconvincing concoction… Even the songs that do integrate rock and traditional styles of electric guitar rhythms and accordion and fiddle decoration – and also include explicit, meaningful lyrics are marred by bottle-up vocals, uninspiring guitar phrases and a general lack of conviction in performance.” Henry the Human Fly was released in the US by Warners, who had a reciprocal licensing deal with Island (and for whom Joe Boyd was working at the time, which may have had something to do with that) but according to Thompson it became the lowest-selling record that Warners ever put out (though I’ve also seen that claim made about Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle, another album that has later been rediscovered). Thompson was hugely depressed by this reaction, and blamed his own singing. Happily, though, by this point he and Linda had become a couple — they would marry in 1972 — and they started playing folk clubs as a duo, or sometimes in a trio with Simon Nicol. Thompson was also playing with Sandy Denny’s backing band at this point, and played on every track on her second solo album, Sandy. This album was meant to be her big commercial breakthrough, with a glamorous cover photo by David Bailey, and with a more American sound, including steel guitar by Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers (whose overdubs were supervised in LA by Joe Boyd): [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Tomorrow is a Long Time”] The album was given a big marketing push by Island, and “Listen, Listen” was made single of the week on the Radio 1 Breakfast show: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Listen, Listen”] But it did even worse than the previous album, sending her into something of a depression. Linda Thompson (as the former Linda Peters now was) said of this period “After the Sandy album, it got her down that her popularity didn't suddenly increase in leaps and bounds, and that was the start of her really fretting about the way her career was going. Things only escalated after that. People like me or Martin Carthy or Norma Waterson would think, ‘What are you on about? This is folk music.'” After Sandy’s release, Denny realised she could no longer afford to tour with a band, and so went back to performing just acoustically or on piano. The only new music to be released by either of these ex-members of Fairport Convention in 1973 was, oddly, on an album by the band they were no longer members of. After Thompson had left Fairport, the group had managed to release two whole albums with the same lineup — Swarbrick, Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks. But then Nicol and Mattacks had both quit the band to join the Albion Band with their former bandmate Ashley Hutchings, leading to a situation where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport plus their longtime drummer while Fairport Convention itself had no original members and was down to just Swarbrick and Pegg. Needing to fulfil their contracts, they then recruited three former members of Fotheringay — Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, Donahue on lead guitar, and Conway on drums. Conway was only a session player at the time, and Mattacks soon returned to the band, but Lucas and Donahue became full-time members. This new lineup of Fairport Convention released two albums in 1973, widely regarded as the group’s most inconsistent records, and on the title track of the first, “Rosie”, Richard Thompson guested on guitar, with Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson on backing vocals: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Rosie”] Neither Sandy Denny nor Richard Thompson released a record themselves in 1973, but in neither case was this through the artists’ choice. The record industry was changing in the early 1970s, as we’ll see in later episodes, and was less inclined to throw good money after bad in the pursuit of art. Island Records prided itself on being a home for great artists, but it was still a business, and needed to make money. We’ll talk about the OPEC oil crisis and its effect on the music industry much more when the podcast gets to 1973, but in brief, the production of oil by the US peaked in 1970 and started to decrease, leading to them importing more and more oil from the Middle East. As a result of this, oil prices rose slowly between 1971 and 1973, then very quickly towards the end of 1973 as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict that year. As vinyl is made of oil, suddenly producing records became much more expensive, and in this period a lot of labels decided not to release already-completed albums, until what they hoped would be a brief period of shortages passed. Both Denny and Thompson recorded albums at this point that got put to one side by Island. In the case of Thompson, it was the first album by Richard and Linda as a duo, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Today, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and as one of the two masterpieces that bookended Richard and Linda’s career as a duo and their marriage. But when they recorded the album, full of Richard’s dark songs, it was the opposite of commercial. Even a song that’s more or less a boy-girl song, like “Has He Got a Friend for Me?” has lyrics like “He wouldn’t notice me passing by/I could be in the gutter, or dangling down from a tree” [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “Has He got a Friend For Me?”] While something like “The Calvary Cross” is oblique and haunted, and seems to cast a pall over the entire album: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “The Calvary Cross”] The album itself had been cheap to make — it had been recorded in only a week, with Thompson bringing in musicians he knew well and had worked with a lot previously to cut the tracks as-live in only a handful of takes — but Island didn’t think it was worth releasing. The record stayed on the shelf for nearly a year after recording, until Island got a new head of A&R, Richard Williams. Williams said of the album’s release “Muff Winwood had been doing A&R, but he was more interested in production… I had a conversation with Muff as soon as I got there, and he said there are a few hangovers, some outstanding problems. And one of them was Richard Thompson. He said there’s this album we gave him the money to make — which was I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight — and nobody’s very interested in it. Henry the Human Fly had been a bit of a commercial disappointment, and although Island was altruistic and independent and known for only recording good stuff, success was important… Either a record had to do well or somebody had to believe in it a lot. And it seemed as if neither of those things were true at that point of Richard.” Williams, though, was hugely impressed when he listened to the album. He compared Richard Thompson’s guitar playing to John Coltrane’s sax, and called Thompson “the folk poet of the rainy streets”, but also said “Linda brightened it, made it more commercial. and I thought that “Bright Lights” itself seemed a really commercial song.” The rest of the management at Island got caught up in Williams’ enthusiasm, and even decided to release the title track as a single: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Neither single nor album charted — indeed it would not be until 1991 that Richard Thompson would make a record that made the top forty in the UK — but the album got enough critical respect that Richard and Linda released two albums the year after. The first of these, Hokey Pokey, is a much more upbeat record than their previous one — Richard Thompson has called it “quite a music-hall influenced record” and cited the influence of George Formby and Harry Lauder. For once, the claim of music hall influence is audible in the music. Usually when a British musician is claimed to have a music ha

In this episode of Otome Shimai the sisters dive into a spoiler-free review of Virche Evermore: Error Salvation and test the limits of anguish, suffering, and zetsubou. Or does zetsubou actually have limits? This game makes it really unclear...As always, the first episode of Reviews in 2s will give you a sneak peak to the world of the game and the characters who live in it. We also yeet at least one LI off a cliff. Enjoy!Games discussed: Virche Evermore, Ikemen VillainsNone of the games or characters discussed belong to us.Support the show

It's our second episode of Patreon Request "Month" 2025, and the randomizer is going all the way back to 2023 to pick something we got THREE requests for, from Kris C., Carolyn Knudstrup and Emma Looman. It's an epic patience-testing three-and-a-half-hour live concert film spanning the entire illustrious career of the single most popular and influential musician of our time, arguably the most talented performer ever to rack up eleven #1 singles, ten #1 albums (fourteen if you count re-recordings), fourteen Grammys, over fifty million albums sold in an era when no one buys music anymore, seven hundred and forty-two ex-boyfriends, three thousand seven hundred and nine diss tracks about those ex-boyfriends, one old version of herself who can't come to the phone right now cuz she's dead, AND one animated voice role as a character named after Dr. Seuss's widow. But on this podcast episode, we boldly aim to dig deeper, peel back the layers and answer that all-important age-old earth-shattering so-controversial-yet-so-brave question, "but is her music actually any GOOD?" Join Tony Goldmark, Zach Hurst, Kit Quinn and Garrett Smith as they fail miserably to obtain tickets to TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR (TAYLOR'S VERSION)! Check out my guests' stuff! ZACH HURST BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/thevoyages.bsky.social Podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/wimdpod  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheVoyages KIT QUINN  BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/missionbreakout.bsky.social  Podcast: https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/d0ced230-d352-0138-e776-0acc26574db2  GARRETT SMITH Twitter: https://bsky.app/profile/bigdaddydrac1869.bsky.social   And check out this show on social media! Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/vaultdisneypod.bsky.social  Host's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/tonygoldmark.bsky.social  Twitter: https://twitter.com/efvdpodcast Host's Twitter: https://twitter.com/tonygoldmark Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/972385353152531 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/tonygoldmark Hear new episodes early and AD-FREE by supporting this show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tonygoldmark

On this episode of Destination on the Left, I talk with Sean McCarron, General Manager at the Conrad Orlando, about why the magic of any resort is in the people who give it soul. We talk about building a team and a culture that inspires. As Sean explains, there is one team, one mission and one goal. We also discuss external collaborations and partnerships that have been successful for the Conrad Orlando, including partnerships with local attractions, shopping malls and nonprofits. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Why Sean believes building a strong team culture is the single most important factor for guest satisfaction and operational success What makes Conrad Orlando and the larger Evermore Orlando Resort stand out in a highly competitive market, including innovative amenities and guest experiences How collaboration between different elements of the resort, Hilton's leadership, and external partners enhances the overall guest experience What specific team engagement strategies Sean uses, such as staff-led naming contests and regular roundtable meetings, to create a sense of ownership and empowerment among employees How Conrad Orlando successfully builds partnerships with local attractions, shopping malls, and nonprofits to connect guests to the broader community and deliver added value Why Sean sees creativity and collaboration as inseparable drivers of innovation and memorable guest experiences in the luxury hospitality sector Creating a Team-First Culture For Sean McCarron, culture is the foundation, which is why at the core of Conrad Orlando's success is a relentless focus on team members. As Sean explains, “Every single position is as important as the next. It's a wheel and an engine, and if any part isn't working, the engine doesn't work.” Satisfied, empowered employees are the primary drivers of exceptional guest experiences, especially when serving the top 3-5% of the global travel market. Sean's philosophy centers around creating an environment where employees not only have the support and training to excel but also feel valued and heard. One standout initiative is his monthly meeting with representatives from every department (excluding management), which provides an open forum for sharing feedback, new ideas, and operational insights. Whether it's naming contests to create a sense of ownership over new features like the cafeteria or relaxation area, or soliciting frontline input on guest experiences, empowerment at Conrad is far more than lip service. Designing Experiences that Inspire Opening the flagship Conrad Orlando was an opportunity to reimagine the guest journey from the ground up. Sean and his team took a collaborative, cross-departmental approach to sharing the resort's many assets. The goal was to create a “one resort” environment where guests are encouraged to explore, relax, and participate in a host of activities designed to rival the allure of central Florida's famous theme parks. Paddleboarding, kayaking, electric boat tours, and a variety of pools and beaches ensure guests have no shortage of options. Interestingly, Conrad Orlando has found that guests are now choosing to spend more time on the property itself, often splitting their stays between theme park visits and the activities offered on site—a testament to the resort's ability to foster a magnetic in-resort community. Breaking Down Silos On and Off the Property Sean credits much of the property's success to a culture of collaboration, both internally and externally. From the earliest planning stages, teams across the Evermore campus shared inspiration, ideas, and strategies, supported by visionary ownership willing to empower creative autonomy. This allows guests to have a cohesive experience across the various components of the greater resort, but also in novel group activities and leisure amenities. But the collaborative spirit extends beyond the property lines. Conrad Orlando has forged impactful partnerships with local attractions such as Gatorland—bringing in baby alligators for the kids' club—and with upscale shopping destination Mall at Millenia, which hosts pop-up experiences poolside. The resort's group programming goes a step further in giving back, with team-building exercises like the “build a bike” scavenger hunt culminating in donations to local children's charities. Resources: Website: https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/orlcici-conrad-orlando/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-mccarron-407a0512/ We value your thoughts and feedback and would love to hear from you. Leave us a review on your favorite streaming platform to let us know what you want to hear more o​f. Here is a quick tutorial on how to leave us a rating and review on iTunes!

Growing up in a musical family gave JT an early start into sound and rhythmic exploration. He set on the path to becoming a working musician while playing in his father's big band as a teen. Over the years he remained steeped in the improvised music scene, both as a performer and presenter. As a session drummer JT has appeared on Grammy record of the year “Folklore” (Taylor Swift) as well as the follow up “Evermore”. Grammy nominated “s/t”(Bonny Light Horseman) as well as critically acclaimed records by Bon Iver, Big Red Machine, Cassandra Jenkins, The National, Maya Hawke, Ed Sheeran, and many others. In this episode, JT talks about: Getting opportunities to record for Taylor Swift and others through older, more localized relationships Going from deep in the jazz world to deep into electronic music Being. not just your own marketing department, but your own HR department Being a booker for a music venue in Minneapolis, and balancing modern metrics like social media following with old school legwork What insecurity causes us to do and not do How your identity as a drummer is cumulative, not compartmentalized

Part 4 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we crown the winner of a March Madness-style tournament featuring our favorite rock artists.  Show notes: Round 3 begins The Smiths vs. Led Zeppelin James Brown vs. Rush Rolling Stones vs. The Cure The Clash vs. The Police U2 vs. The Replacements The Who vs. Talking Heads Tom Petty vs. Neil Young The Beatles vs. David Bowie Round 4 The Final Four The Championship Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Len and Beave go through their favorite albums of this first quarter century. From Taylor Swift to Beyonce to D'Angelo, and more, we go through our own personal top ten LPs from 2000 to this year. Tell us yours, and tune in for some great music discussion!

Send us a textThis week, Kait fills the guys in on what is or isn't going on with Taylor Swift. From Keith Urban to Imogen Heap there are some fun stories about collaborating with Taylor. Then they dive into the title track off evermore. What do they think of Bon Iver's involvement? Is this song better than exile? Listen in and find out! Tell us what you think @theswifttalk

“We would see Jesus.” — John 12:21 Evermore the worldling's cry is, Who will show us any good?” He seeks satisfaction in earthly comforts, enjoyments, and riches. But the quickened sinner knows of only one good. “O that I knew where I might find HIM!” When he is truly awakened to feel his guilt, if […]

Get an easy $200 from Melio for making your first payment! (Affiliate link. Terms below) https://affiliates.meliopayments.com/travelonpointsteam Episode Description This week several increased card offers came out including a new version of Amex's popular "no lifetime language" Business Platinum offer. Find out how to see if you are targeted for 250K points plus a new type of kicker. Other offers include Marriott's new hybrid 3 nights + 50K and AA's 75K business card.   In other news Brazil now has an e-visa but we will show you how to get it. We also discuss: food at the Masters, very good Wells Fargo checking bonuses, safety of helicopters, a crazy shark in Switzerland and why Evermore is probably the best Hilton value in the U.S. right now.   Episode Guide 0:00 Insane diving shark in Switzerland 0:48 Brazil's new e-visa is here - What is the process? 3:25 Talking about the Hudson helicopter crash & safety 6:30 Evermore Orlando now bookable with Hilton - Good deal? 8:36 Amex Business Platinum 250K + a kicker 10:44 Bonvoy Boundless 3 free nights + 50K hybrid offer 12:10 AAdvantage Business 75K + special perks 13:25 New Chase MyBonus 5X offers for Q2 14:34 Wells Fargo's VERY good bank business bonuses 16:27 Cool S - Food at the Masters 18:10 How the Masters keeps prices low Links Shark - https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/shark-statue-lake-neuchtel-switzerland-460708-20231027 https://x.com/AvatarDomy/status/1355402936638189568 Brazil visa - https://travel-on-points.com/brazil-visa-application-process/ Evermore Hilton - https://travel-on-points.com/evermore-orlando-resort-joining-hilton/ Biz Plat 250K - https://travel-on-points.com/200k-amex-business-platinum-offer/ AAdvantage Biz 75K - https://milestomemories.com/75k-bonus-and-waived-fee-for-citi-aadvantage-business-card/ Chase MyBonus - https://travel-on-points.com/chase-my-bonus-spending-offers/ Wells Fargo Bank - https://travel-on-points.com/wells-fargo-business-checking-bonus/ Masters Food - https://x.com/top100rick/status/1909580552111300643?s=46 Enjoying the podcast? Please consider leaving us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform! You can also connect with us anytime at podcast@milestomemories.com.  You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, or via RSS. Don't see your favorite podcast platform? Please let us know!

“And I was catching my breath, barefoot in the wildest winter…” What happens when a 21st-century American poet meets a 19th-century one? In this Show & Tell episode, we explore the literary lineage between Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson—two iconic writers whose work spans centuries but shares unmistakable DNA (literally—did you know they might be distant cousins?!). From slant rhymes and stylized punctuation to themes of isolation, longing, and hope, we unpack the poetic parallels between Dickinson's timeless verses and Taylor's lyrics. In true Show & Tell fashion, each of us brings a favorite Dickinson poem paired with a Swift song that touch on shared motifs such as separation, isolation, and hope. Tune in to find out which modern-day Taylor tracks sound like 19th-century poetry—and why we think Emily might vibe with Evermore. Take our listener survey: https://aptaylorswift.substack.com/survey/2658723 Subscribe to get new episode updates: aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe Stay up to date at aptaylorswift.com    Mentioned in this episode:  The Letters of Emily Dickinson The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson's Hope is the Thing with Feathers They Put Us Far Apart (Poem 474) It Was Not Death, for I Stood Up (Poem 355) Message in a Bottle – Taylor Swift Evermore – Taylor Swift Karma – Taylor Swift Beauty and the Beast (live-action & Broadway versions) Hamilton Taylor Swift by the Book Ancestry.com – Taylor & Emily's distant cousin connection Emily Dickinson Museum Tikvah (Hebrew word for hope)   ***   Episode Highlights:  [06:26] “Message in a Bottle” + they put us far apart [16:03] “Evermore” + It was not death, for I stood up  [29:31] “Karma” + Hope is a thing with feathers Follow AP Taylor Swift podcast on social!  TikTok → tiktok.com/@APTaylorSwift Instagram → instagram.com/APTaylorSwift YouTube → youtube.com/@APTaylorSwift Link Tree →linktr.ee/aptaylorswift Bookshop.org → bookshop.org/shop/apts Libro.fm →  tinyurl.com/aptslibro Contact us at aptaylorswift@gmail.com  Affiliate Codes:  Krowned Krystals - krownedkrystals.com use code APTS at checkout for 10% off!  Libro.fm - Looking for an audiobook? Check out our Libro.fm playlist and use code APTS30 for 30% off books found here tinyurl.com/aptslibro This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.

Happiness is a butterfly...or is happiness a sunset? There will be happiness after you...or will it always escape from my hands into moonlight? Two different schools of thought on the same concept are presented by two of the most established and prolific female songwriters in the world - Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift. On the one hand, Taylor Swift writes a full narrative of the five stages of grief and how to get back to happiness after all of it in her song Happiness from Evermore. On the other, Lana Del Rey wonders if it's even possible to ever get back to happiness at all on Happiness Is a Butterfly from NFR. Let's examine BOTH of these songs and determine if either of these women are actually mentally stable enough to be giving anyone advice about anything... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelizardreview.substack.com/subscribe

It's The Fourth Thursday in Lent in the Church Calendar, April 3, 2025.Our general order and lectionary come from the Book of Common Prayer Daily Office.Today's song: You Love Me (Ben Ward)Psalm 69:1-13Playlist of songs from Morning Prayer.If you have a prayer request please ⁠submit it here⁠. Sign up ⁠here⁠ for the email list.Morning Prayer and Worship is a production of Steady Stream Ministries, a 501(c)(3) non profit organization. Thank you for your support. ⁠You can go here to find out more⁠.Get an ad-free feed of the podcast with a monthly contribution of any amount!⁠Join our Facebook group here!⁠Photo by Musa Tuğrul Karataş.Collect of the DayFourth Sunday in Lent, Rite TwoGracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Get access to daily prayer on Patreon Opening Scripture:If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:8, 9Confession:Let us take a moment to confess our sinsMost merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.Grant to your faithful people, merciful Lord, pardon and peace; that we may be cleansed from all our sins, and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The Invitatory & Psalter:Lord, open our lips.And our mouth shall proclaim your praise. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Venite (O Come)The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.Come, let us sing to the Lord; *let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *and raise a loud shout to him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, *and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *and the heights of the hills are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, *and his hands have molded the dry land. Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *and kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. * Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him. The Psalms, OT and NT LessonsThe reading plan based is based on the 1979 Daily Office Lectionary Year AAFTER THE PSALMS: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: * as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.AFTER LESSONS: The Word of the Lord. Thanks Be To God. Sunday (3.19)Psalm 66; 67, Jer. 14:1-9, 17-22; Gal. 4:21–5:1; Mark 8:11-21 Monday (3.20)Psalm 89:1–18, Jer. 16:10-21; Rom. 7:1-12; John 6:1-15 Tuesday (3.21)Psalm 97; 99; 100, Jer. 17:19-27; Rom. 7:13-25; John 6:16-27 Wednesday (3.22)Psalm 101; 109:1–4, 20–30, Jer. 18:1-11; Rom. 8:1-11; John 6:27-40 Thursday (3.23)Psalm 69:1–23, 31–38, Jer. 22:13-23; Rom. 8:12-27; John 6:41-51 Friday (3.24)Psalm 102, Jer. 23:1-8; Rom. 8:28-39; John 6:52-59 Saturday (3.25) AnnunciationPsalm 85; 87, Isaiah 52:7–12; Hebrews 2:5–10; John 1:9-14 The Third Song IsaiahSurge, illuminare (Isaiah 60:1-3, 11a, 14c, 18-19)Arise, shine, for your light has come, *and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.For behold, darkness covers the land; *deep gloom enshrouds the peoples.But over you the Lord will rise, *and his glory will appear upon you.Nations Will stream to your light, *and kings to the brightness of your dawning.Your gates will always be open; *by day or night they will never be shut.They will call you, The City of the Lord, *The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.Violence will no more be heard in your land, *ruin or destruction within your borders.You will call your walls, Salvation, *and all your portals, Praise.The sun will no more be your light by day; *by night you will not need the brightness of the moon.The Lord will be your everlasting light, *and your God will be your glory. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. The Apostles CreedI believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. The PrayersLord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy Lord, have mercyOur Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. The SuffragesO Lord, show your mercy upon us;And grant us your salvation.O Lord, guide those who govern usAnd lead us in the way of justice and truth.Clothe your ministers with righteousness And let your people sing with joy.O Lord, save your peopleAnd bless your inheritance.Give peace in our time, O LordAnd defend us by your mighty power.Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgottenNor the hope of the poor be taken away.Create in us clean hearts, O GodAnd take not your Holy Spirit from us.Take a moment of silence at this time to reflect and pray for others. The CollectsSpecial Collects:Lent Week 4Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.Annunciation (Saturday)Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought to the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Daily Collects:A Collect for PeaceO God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.A Collect for GraceO Lord, our heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, you have brought us safely to the beginning of this day: Defend us by your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin nor run into any danger; and that, guided by your Spirit, we may do what is righteous in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.Prayer for MissionAlmighty and everlasting God, who alone works great marvels: Send down upon our clergy and the congregations committed to their charge the life-giving Spirit of your grace, shower them with the continual dew of your blessing, and ignite in them a zealous love of your Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. General ThanksgivingAlmighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen. A Prayer of St. John ChrysostomAlmighty God, you have given us grace at this time, with one accord to make our common supplications to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will grant their requests: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen. DismissalLet us bless the Lord Thanks be to God!BenedictionThe grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen.

It's The Fourth Wednesday in Lent in the Church Calendar, April 2, 2025.Our general order and lectionary come from the Book of Common Prayer Daily Office.Today's song: You Bring the Morning (Andy Squyres)Psalm 101Playlist of songs from Morning Prayer.If you have a prayer request please ⁠submit it here⁠. Sign up ⁠here⁠ for the email list.Morning Prayer and Worship is a production of Steady Stream Ministries, a 501(c)(3) non profit organization. Thank you for your support. ⁠You can go here to find out more⁠.Get an ad-free feed of the podcast with a monthly contribution of any amount!⁠Join our Facebook group here!⁠Photo by Suzy Hazelwood.Collect of the DayFourth Sunday in Lent, Rite TwoGracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

We never thought we'd see the day where we break down Taylor Swift's 9th studio album, "evermore", but we finally made it!! Take a listen as Nick, Ana, Amy, and Lacey break down their initial rankings on "evermore" before deep diving into the album as a whole! This episode is sponsored by Happy Mammoth! Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code TAYLORSWIFTFAN for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com This episode is sponsored by Quince! For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to Quince.com/taylorswiftfan for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order This episode is sponsored by Ruff Greens Fetch a FREE Jumpstart Trial Bag for your Dog today. Go to RuffGreens.com. Just use promo code TAYLORSWIFTFAN. This episode is sponsored by StoryWorth! Right now, save $10 on your first purchase when you go to StoryWorth.com/taylorswiftfan! That's STORYWORTH.com/taylorswiftfan to save $10 on your first. CONTACT THE PODCAST! Voicemail Number- (689) 214-1313 Email- the13podcast@gmail.com IG- https://www.instagram.com/the13podcast TikTok- https://www.tiktok.com/@the13podcast Twitter- https://twitter.com/the13TSpodcast YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@13ATaylorSwiftFanPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's The Fourth Tuesday in Lent in the Church Calendar, April 1, 2025.Our general order and lectionary come from the Book of Common Prayer Daily Office.Today's song: Grateful (Ben Ward, Stephanie Osorio)Psalm 100Playlist of songs from Morning Prayer.If you have a prayer request please ⁠submit it here⁠. Sign up ⁠here⁠ for the email list.Morning Prayer and Worship is a production of Steady Stream Ministries, a 501(c)(3) non profit organization. Thank you for your support. ⁠You can go here to find out more⁠.Get an ad-free feed of the podcast with a monthly contribution of any amount!⁠Join our Facebook group here!⁠Photo by Suzy Hazelwood.Collect of the DayFourth Sunday in Lent, Rite TwoGracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Get access to daily prayer on Patreon Opening Scripture:If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:8, 9Confession:Let us take a moment to confess our sinsMost merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.Grant to your faithful people, merciful Lord, pardon and peace; that we may be cleansed from all our sins, and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The Invitatory & Psalter:Lord, open our lips.And our mouth shall proclaim your praise. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Venite (O Come)The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.Come, let us sing to the Lord; *let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *and raise a loud shout to him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, *and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *and the heights of the hills are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, *and his hands have molded the dry land. Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *and kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. * Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him. The Psalms, OT and NT LessonsThe reading plan based is based on the 1979 Daily Office Lectionary Year AAFTER THE PSALMS: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: * as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.AFTER LESSONS: The Word of the Lord. Thanks Be To God. Sunday (3.19)Psalm 66; 67, Jer. 14:1-9, 17-22; Gal. 4:21–5:1; Mark 8:11-21 Monday (3.20)Psalm 89:1–18, Jer. 16:10-21; Rom. 7:1-12; John 6:1-15 Tuesday (3.21)Psalm 97; 99; 100, Jer. 17:19-27; Rom. 7:13-25; John 6:16-27 Wednesday (3.22)Psalm 101; 109:1–4, 20–30, Jer. 18:1-11; Rom. 8:1-11; John 6:27-40 Thursday (3.23)Psalm 69:1–23, 31–38, Jer. 22:13-23; Rom. 8:12-27; John 6:41-51 Friday (3.24)Psalm 102, Jer. 23:1-8; Rom. 8:28-39; John 6:52-59 Saturday (3.25) AnnunciationPsalm 85; 87, Isaiah 52:7–12; Hebrews 2:5–10; John 1:9-14 The Third Song IsaiahSurge, illuminare (Isaiah 60:1-3, 11a, 14c, 18-19)Arise, shine, for your light has come, *and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.For behold, darkness covers the land; *deep gloom enshrouds the peoples.But over you the Lord will rise, *and his glory will appear upon you.Nations Will stream to your light, *and kings to the brightness of your dawning.Your gates will always be open; *by day or night they will never be shut.They will call you, The City of the Lord, *The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.Violence will no more be heard in your land, *ruin or destruction within your borders.You will call your walls, Salvation, *and all your portals, Praise.The sun will no more be your light by day; *by night you will not need the brightness of the moon.The Lord will be your everlasting light, *and your God will be your glory. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. The Apostles CreedI believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. The PrayersLord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy Lord, have mercyOur Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. The SuffragesO Lord, show your mercy upon us;And grant us your salvation.O Lord, guide those who govern usAnd lead us in the way of justice and truth.Clothe your ministers with righteousness And let your people sing with joy.O Lord, save your peopleAnd bless your inheritance.Give peace in our time, O LordAnd defend us by your mighty power.Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgottenNor the hope of the poor be taken away.Create in us clean hearts, O GodAnd take not your Holy Spirit from us.Take a moment of silence at this time to reflect and pray for others. The CollectsSpecial Collects:Lent Week 4Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.Annunciation (Saturday)Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought to the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Daily Collects:A Collect for PeaceO God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.A Collect for GraceO Lord, our heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, you have brought us safely to the beginning of this day: Defend us by your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin nor run into any danger; and that, guided by your Spirit, we may do what is righteous in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.Prayer for MissionAlmighty and everlasting God, who alone works great marvels: Send down upon our clergy and the congregations committed to their charge the life-giving Spirit of your grace, shower them with the continual dew of your blessing, and ignite in them a zealous love of your Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. General ThanksgivingAlmighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies, that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen. A Prayer of St. John ChrysostomAlmighty God, you have given us grace at this time, with one accord to make our common supplications to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will grant their requests: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen. DismissalLet us bless the Lord Thanks be to God!BenedictionThe grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen.

To celebrate us hitting another 25 regular episodes wanted to take a look at an RPG, that I been meaning to play since it came out in 1995.  Sometimes it just takes enough time to pass for me to get around to take a look.  Here is an RPG inspired by Secret of Mana, but also feels very "American."  Its a game made for North America, and you can feel it all over its DNA. Its a pretty interesting game, that has 4 distinct Biomes.  Also its a game trapped on the SNES.  I am joined by a few people who loved this title, and one newbie to join us as we discuss Secret of Evermore. Starring Mike Albertin, Joseph Larrey, Blake Anglin, Carson Clark and late appearance from Phoebe Stanton.  Phoebe's Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/theletsplayprincess Phoebe's Podcast - https://nerdsabroadcast.podbean.com/ Gamer Looks at 40 - https://agamerlooksat40.com/ Helena - https://linktr.ee/helhathfury Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/GamesMyMomFound Follow us on Facebook. Instagram - gamesmymomfound_ YouTube  - https://youtube.com/c/GamesMyMomFoundPodcast Discord - https://discord.gg/YQRZB2sXJC

Resources to Click· “A Century-long Look at the Southern Baptist Commissions on Ethics (Part 1)” – Tom J. Nettles· “A Century-long Look at the Southern Baptist Comissions on Ethics (Part 2)” – Tom J. Nettles· “4.11 Tom J. Nettles, David Schrock, Stephen Wellum • Interview • “A Century-long Look at the Southern Baptist Commission on Ethics”· “An Open Letter to State Lawmakers from America's Leading Pro-Life Organizations” – National Right to Life· “Trustees affirm Leatherwood, ERLC staff toward ‘greater sense of understanding” – Scott Barkley· “Appendix B: Classification of Protestant Denominations” – Pew Research Center· “Whither the ERLC (or ePP*C*)?” – Mark Coppenger· “Transparency, Trust, and the Great Commission: It's Time to Open the Books of the ERLC (and SBC)” – Rhett Burns· “Evangelism, Islam, Border Security, and National Identity: Moving Past the ERLC's Mosque-Building Mood” – Alex Kocman· “Will the ERLC Divide Southern Baptists for Evermore?” – Jon Whitehead· “Specialized Politics: What Should a Christian Advocacy Organization Do?” – Jared Bridges· “Tuesday Live Updates: Southern Baptists approve abuse reform recommendations, pick Bart Barber as President” – Liam Adams & Katherine Burgess· “The Road to Dallas, Part 1: The SBC Annual Meeting as a Mission Trip” – David Schrock· “Biden Bows out of Presidential Race, Endorses Harris” – Brandon Porter· “Southern Baptist leader's remarks praising Biden cause series of events, leading to someone else's resignation” – Associated Press· “Explainer: ERLC sends letter to Congress urging support for Ukraine" – Jordan Wootten· 2025 ERLC Public Policy Agenda – Brent Leatherwood and Hannah Daniel· “Toward a Principled Pro-Life Ethic in Post-Roe America” – Tom Ascol· “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism” – Aaron Renn· “Assuming the Center” – Joe Rigney· “Elon Musk praised by CEO of once-banned company restoring free speech at Twitter” – Kassy Dillon· “NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins on the COVID-19 vaccines” – Jeff Pickering· “Common questions about the COVID-19 vaccine” – Julie Masson· “How Vaccines Protect the Vulnerable” – Catherine Parks·“Russell Moore on the ethics of th COVID-19 vaccines” – Chelsea Sobolik· “How the church offers hope for getting the Black community vaccinated” – Lourdes Anita Branch· “How should Christians think about religious exemptions for vaccination?” –Ashli Arbo and Matthew Arbo·“Reassembling the Wreckage of Religious Freedom: Why Now *Is* the Time for Urging Liberty of Conscience and Supporting Those Seeking Religious Exemptions” – David Schrock· “No Divine Law Equals No Moral Obligation” – Jared Longshore·“A Post-Mortem on the Push for Financial Transparency in the SBC” – Rhett Burns· “Did the ERLC receive a grant from the Democracy Fund?” – ERLC· “What was the Civility Project, and who funded that work?” – ERLC· FAQ's (Old) - ERLC· FAQ's (Current) - ERLC· “The Plot to Queer Evangelical Churches” – Megan Basham· “A Broken System Exposed: What Happened with Leatherwood and The ERLC Trustees” – Sam Webb· “Evangelical Call for Restitution-Based Immigration Reform” – Evangelical Immigration Table· “ERLC President, Baptist leaders back gun control proposal after Nashville school shooting” – Samantha Kamman· “Our experience at the Faith that Works March in Washington D.C.” – Brooke Kramer & Chelsea Sobolik· “Against Criminally Charging Women Who Seek Abortions: Avoiding Unintended Injustice” – Dana Hall McCain· “'Keep the door open': Nashville's mayor on governing a blue island in a sea of red” – George Chidi· “Southern Baptist trustees back agency president but warn against needless controversy” – Peter Smith· Theme of the Month: The Ethics and Religious Liberty Conundrum· Give to Support the Work  Books to Read· Shepherds for Sale – Megan Basham

Besties, welcome back for part two of Mia's deep dive into Taylor Swift's literary influences! With Karly still off living her best life in Australia, Mia takes the mic solo to continue unpacking the insights from Taylor Swift By The Book: The Literature Behind the Lyrics, From Fairy Tales to Tortured Poets by Rachel Feder and Tiffany Tatreau.  This time, she's covering the emotional rollercoaster of Lover, the poetic heartbreak of Folklore and Evermore, the gothic depths of Midnights, and the raw vulnerability of The Tortured Poets Department. From sentimentalism to postmodernism, Mia explores how Taylor's lyrics include literary allusions and how these albums have shaped her own life. If you've ever screamed “You're On Your Own, Kid” on a solo drive or sobbed to “Champagne Problems” after a breakup, this episode is for you.

We are called to be joyful, never stop praying, and be thankful in all circumstances. Joy is essential for Christians, even amidst trials and difficulties. We are to maintain a prayerful attitude, emphasizing that true power and strength come from communion with God rather than from worldly concerns or control.

It's out 150th episode this week and we celebrate this milestone with a special two-part conversation with David Marcus, who was kindly introduced to us by Stacy Havener. David began his career in 1987 at Mutual Shares working under the legendary investors Max Heine and Michael Price. Mutual Shares was the boutique where Seth Klarman launched his career in the late 1970s. This episode is particularly meaningful as we have long wanted to pay tribute to Michael Price, following his passing a couple of years ago. David's career is one of the most impressive and dynamic that we have featured on the Value Perspective. After rising through the ranks at Mutual Shares, he stayed on when Michael Price sold the firm to Franklin Templeton in 1996. He remained at Franklin Templeton until 2000, when he launched his own hedge fund with backing from Swedish billionaire Jan Stenbeck. After Stenbeck's passing, David was asked by the family to help restructure their assets, leading him to establish one of Europe's first family offices in the early 2000s. He stayed with them until 2009 when he launched his long-only fund Evermore. Following Michael Price's passing, David was once again called upon, this time to structure and manage the Price family office, a role he held until his retirement at the end of 2024. In the first part of our conversation, we cover David's first years at Mutual Shares; what it was like to work with Michael Price; a fantastic anecdote on real-life deep value investing; a journey to discovering European deep value investing; and finally, the most important and long-lasting lesson he learnt from Michael Price. Enjoy! NEW EPISODES: We release main series episodes every two weeks on Mondays. You can subscribe via Podbean or use this feed URL (https://tvpschroders.podbean.com/feed.xml) in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and other podcast players. GET IN TOUCH: send us a tweet: @TheValueTeam  Important information. This podcast is for investment professionals only. Marketing material for Financial Professionals and Professional Clients only.  The material is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, accounting, legal or tax advice, or investment recommendations.  Reliance should not be placed on any views or information in the material when taking individual investment and/or strategic decisions.  Past Performance is not a guide to future performance and may not be repeated.  Diversification cannot ensure profits or protect against loss of principal.  The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amounts originally invested.  Exchange rate changes may cause the value of investments to fall as well as rise.  Investing in emerging markets and securities with limited liquidity can expose investors to greater risk.  Private assets investments are only available to Qualified Investors, who are sophisticated enough to understand the risk associated with these investments.  This material may contain “forward-looking” information, such as forecasts or projections. Please note that any such information is not a guarantee of any future performance and there is no assurance that any forecast or projection will be realised.  Reliance should not be placed on any views or information in the material when taking individual investment and/or strategic decisions. The views and opinions contained herein are those of the individuals to whom they are attributed and may not necessarily represent views expressed or reflected in other Schroders communications, strategies or funds.  Any reference to regions/ countries/ sectors/ stocks/ securities is for illustrative purposes only and not a recommendation to buy or sell any financial instruments or adopt a specific investment strategy. Any data has been sourced by us and is provided without any warranties of any kind. It should be independently verified before further publication or use. Third party data is owned or licenced by the data provider and may not be reproduced, extracted or used for any other purpose without the data provider's consent. Neither we, nor the data provider, will have any liability in connection with the third party data.  

Good morning my friend... God bless you! THIS here is "TUESDAY TRUTH CLASS — "BLESSED be the LORD for evermore Amen and Amen!" — February 25, 2025." Thank you!—JC. ★ Support this podcast ★

Rebecca & Kelee are so excited to break down their favorite lyrics from Taylor Swift songs. They gush about Cardigan, But Daddy I Love Him, Evermore, My Tears Ricochet, and more. What are your favorite Taylor Swift lyrics?Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/47TxOAPQx11NmywBfipVkN?si=06971ac1788e4929 TTPD breakdown by maryhan @maryhan.music:https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Yq8ReH/ "But Daddy I Love Him" analysis by Deborah Rayne @d_rayneday:https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Yq8RPw/

This week on an all-new episode of Drunk Distory presents ‘The Dark Ride', we continue our deep dive into hotels with a side trip to the Drunk Distory's Resort Round Up. On this episode, get ready to get big pool energy as we talk all about the new Evermore Orlando Resort. This resort has luxury in spades all around a pool so big you can ride in a Willy Wonka style boat to get from one side to the other. Will this villa bespeckled hot spot full of beautiful people, provide all soaked in sun, fun filled splendor our drunk little minds can handle, or will its vast lake like setting break our bank.  There's only one way to find out!Drunk Distory, The Dark Ride, Funny, Comedy, Comedians, Adult Disney Podcast, Adult Universal Podcast, Adult Disney Podcast, Adult Themepark Podcast, sit down dining, Hotel, Deluxe Hotel, Giant Pool, Man made lake, group slide, Moderate Hotel, Value Hotel, Resort, Swan , Dolphin, Boardwalk, Yacht, Beach, Club, Crescent Lake, Epcot,  buffet, Magic Kingdom, Rides, Hollywood Studios, MGM, History, booze, Theme Park Podcast, Orlando, Amusement Park, Drinking Game Podcast

Legendary musician and multi-disciplinary artist Kim Gordon released a banger of a solo album in 2024, the blistering, sonically vicious 'The Collective'. This week we're joined by guests Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten) and Danielle de Picciotto (Crime & the City Solution, Love Parade) - who together comprise the genre-defying, trailblazing duo hackedepicciotto - to unpack this mind-bender of a record. Songs discussed in this episode: Evermore, Awake, Lovestuff - hackedepicciotto (Live in Napoli); Zeichnungen des Patienten O.T. - Einstürzende Neubauten; Murdered Out - Kim Gordon; Sucker - Charli XCX; HUMBLE - Kendrick Lamar; Can You Feel It - Mr Fingers; Baby I Can Drive My Car - Gudrun Gut; Dream Baby Dream - Suicide; BYE BYE - Kim Gordon, Miuzi Weighs A Ton - Public Enemy; The Candy House, I Don't Miss My Mind - Kim Gordon; Frenz - The Fall; I'm A Man - Kim Gordon; Spiritual Healing - Dälek; Trophies - Kim Gordon; Evermore - hackedpicciotto; It's Dark Inside, Psychedelic Orgasm, Treehouse, Shelf Warmer, The Believers, Dream Dollar, Bangin' On The Freeway - Kim Gordon; Grace (Live In Napoli) - hackedepicciotto

Episode Highlight: On this episode of the "Embracing Only" podcast, we are featuring one of the most impactful moments from episode 43, with guest, Joyal Mulheron. We all face challenges in our lives. Joyal shares three key pieces of advice to help you get through the harder times.Joyal is a policy and strategy expert with over 20 years of service to the United State's governors, the White House, and some of the most distinguished nonprofit ventures. In 2014, Joyal founded Evermore, a nonprofit dedicated to making the world a more livable place for bereaved families. Her work has been featured in Good Morning America, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, and others.This episode is just a short snippet that highlights the best and most powerful learning moment from a past episode. You can listen to the full episode (filled with more wisdom) here: Episode 43: The light in the darkness.Key Discussion Points:01:00 The Power of Community: Seeking community is a powerful way to help you feel less isolated and less angry about your own experiences. 03:14 Defensible Over Perfection: You can't be perfect so stop trying. Rather, focus on being defensible.04:18 Taking Things One Day at a Time: Everything is temporary, the good and the bad. Taking things one day at a time will help you to face the hard days with bravery.08:11 Finding the Problem Solvers in Your Life: We all face problems in our lives, but surrounding yourself with people who can help you solve those problems and believe in you will make those problems so much easier to face.In Summary: Joyal Mulheron urges us to be brave, aim for defensible rather than perfection, and take it one day at a time. She encourages us to surround ourselves with people who cheer us on.Resources from this episode:Follow Joyal on Linkedin or check out her website. If you happen to be a woman of color and you are looking for a community of like minded women, join Olivia here: https://www.mysistersshoulders.com/ Ready to make a change?→ If you are struggling to navigate your corporate career but are ambitious and have goals you want to accomplish quickly, Olivia is the coach for you. She can help you reach your goals. Reach out to her on LinkedIn or visit oliviacream.com.→ If you are ready to leave corporate or you want to start a profitable side brilliance but you're unsure of the next steps, Archita can guide you through a successful transition to entrepreneurship. Reach out to her on LinkedIn or visit architafritz.com.Connect with your hosts:Follow Archita on Linkedin or check out her website.Follow Olivia on Linkedin or check out her website.Follow Embracing Only on Linkedin, Instagram, and Facebook, or check out the website._________Produced by Ideablossoms

M

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has been writing and sharing a poem a day since 2006—a practice that especially nourished her after the death of her teenage son in 2021. Her daily poems can be found on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils, or a curated version (with optional prompts) on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, available with the Ritual app. Her poetry collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. Her most recent collections are All the Honey and The Unfolding. In January 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore, helping others through this platform to explore grief, bereavement, wonder, and love through the voice of poetry. She is the co-hosts of a podcast on creative process called Emerging Form. This episode was recorded live at TACAW in Basalt, Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode we get to sit down with Joe of Evermore Genetics, based out of Santa Cruz, CA.  We discuss how he has cultivated cannabis now for over 30 years & how that over time, turned into breeding cannabis.  He tells us about some of the varieties he's worked with over the years, including the True OG & Blueberry - while breaking down what makes up his Odder Popz lines.  He shares about the first time he tried rosin, how it's grown on him over the last few years & much more!   www.thehashishinn.com Instagram: @thehashishinn  www.patreon.com/thehashishinn Presented by:  Rosin Evolution www.rosinevolution.com THI710 - SAVINGS CODE to save 5% & SUPPORT the podcast

References JBC 2018. 1293: 2422-2437. Nat Metab. 2023 Aug 23;5(8):1275–1289 Page/Plant. 1971. 'Battle of Evermore" LZ IV. lp. w/Sandy Denny. https://open.spotify.com/track/6KCjY5kHvgWaWcAV6BBzxO?si=6f532f5bed624491

We talk about early indie darling Hyper Light Drifter, as well as Secret of Evermore from Caitlin's childhood. More light Sluggish Heavy Drifter, amirite?What We're Playing00:56 Caitlin: Metaphor: ReFantazio (Atlus, 2024)09:40 Mark: 20 Minutes till Dawn (flanne, 2023)16:38 Mark: Rayman Legends (Ubisoft, 2013)22:18 GOOF: Secret of Evermore (Square, 1995)35:05 Feature Game: Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine, 2016)SHOUT53:33 Caitlin: Stage Fright (Ghost Town Games)55:08 Mark: Valkyrie Squad: Siege Breakers (Digital Crafters)Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We're back this week to close out our title track series by covering the songs evermore + The Tortured Poets Department! The vibes are weird and we talk for an extended period of time about typewriters. But hey, sometimes it be like that. - Fundraiser info! Donations to Cozy Cats n Kittens can be made via Venmo, PayPal and wishlist. Every dollar donated will equal one entry in the giveaway. You can also post on any social media site about this fundraiser for free to spread the word and get one entry per post. 2 winners will be selected from the entries on February 7th to receive the Swiftlore Valentine's Package! Donations $25 and up (or purchases from the wishlist) will receive our Swiftlore Valentine's Package automatically. PayPal: cozycatsnkittens@gmail.com Venmo: @cozycatsnkittens Wishlists: Amazon and Chewy Remember to screenshot any donations or posts made and submit them to the Google form so your entries can be counted!!! Follow us on Instagram or TikTok (which rose up from the dead fr) @swiftlorepod for clips, polls, and other fun things. To join our ⁠Patreon⁠, subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/SwiftlorePodcast. At the end of this month we will be hanging out and watching Twilight, in case you're interested! Want to send us something? Here's our P.O. Box address! Swiftlore Podcast P.O Box 53 Penfield, NY, 14526 Lastly! If you're interested in purchasing "Daisy, Plucked", here is the link to ⁠order:⁠ https://cewitherow.com/daisy-plucked See you all next week!

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Day 4 of 13 days dedicated to everything Eras Tour! Let's dive into the official Eras Tour book together! Click for a⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠free Palestine⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Support us on⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Ko-Fi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! You can find us here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: @secretsessionpodcast_ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: @secretsessionpodcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: @secretsessionts ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify for Podcasters⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Google Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ e-mail: secretsessionpodcast@gmail.com Hope you'll join us in the next episodes, streaming every Wednesday. Disclaimer: we are not in any way affiliated/associated with Taylor Swift or her labels.

has not love's whisper evermore been ceaseless - #4000 (88R18 536 left) by chair house 241126.mp3has not love's whisper evermore been ceaseless■なんと今日の曲はピアノ万葉集プロジェクトを初めてからちょうど4000曲目となりました。ものすごく嬉しいです。あと536曲で終わりです。このピアノ曲達の別名は「ケイちゃん」なのですが、4000曲..

Poe Evermore is a gothic horror podcast that blends Edgar Allen Poe's actual life with his stories, characters, and the supernatural. CW: References to child abuse, and addiction. All stories are shrouded in kernels of truth, each a grain of sand in life's ever-hastening hourglass. Including mine. I'll tell you my secrets if you must know them, but they are not for the faint of heart. Stop me if I dive too deeply or recount too savagely the memories and visions that have shaped me. Look away if you must because if you come with me on this journey you may not like what you see for we will dance with the supernatural, the macabre, the Devil himself. And you will know me better... Transcript here. Credits: Written by Jeff Whitehead Edgar Allan Poe: Mick Wheaton Roderick Usher: Giancarlo Herrera William Wilson: Sean Babapulle Ada: Tanja Milojevic Tess: Janine Bower Toby Dammit: Russ Moore The Man: Harlan Guthrie Sergeant: Brandon Nyugen Editor: Daisy McNamara Sound Designer: Pacific Obadiah Music: Newt Schottelkotte Art: Ryan Carr Showrunner: Daisy McNamara Producer: Pacific Obadiah Director: Pacific Obadiah and Daisy McNamara A production of Eelsong Studios, Bloody FM, And Midnight Disease Productions. Transcript of Tal's Intro: Hi, I'm Tal Minear, executive producer of Regarding Dracula. I'm here today to tell you about another audio drama I think you'd like. Poe Evermore is a gothic horror podcast that blends Edgar Allen Poe's actual life with his stories, characters, and the supernatural. If you're looking to fill the void of gothic audio drama after the conclusion of Regarding Dracula, Poe Evermore is a great place to start. Our very own Quincy Morris, Giancarlo Herrera, plays Roderick Usher in this show! Listen on to hear the first episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ooooooo we did it! I think we did it! We succesfully got through our second of TWO back-to-back episode recordings. Rachel tells a story of her Taylor Swift trivia performance. It wasn't very redemptive. And Sam forgets all about the significance of olives in his Olive Garden cocktail! Speaking of Olive Garden, we go on quite a tangent about why Taylor chose Olive Garden as the restaurant feature of track 6 off Evermore. Rachel has a deep theory that Este and Taylor (narrator) are the same person in this song. "Hear me out," she begs. We're listening, Rachel. This song was so fun to break down and sip cocktails to. We hope you've got one in your hand as you tune in! Check out our "new shit" playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5LOn9LRJ8lnvnCbpl6fKVG?si=2ffe87e075a543f1

Send us a textLink to the Timeline. We are BACK to discuss everything you could ever want to know about the pop culture mega relationship between Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn so Swifties hold on to your butts because we've got every detail from the releases of The Folklore and Evermore albums to Taylor and Joe's final breakup.Support the show

As kids who were 7-8 years old when Led Zeppelin broke up and teenagers in the 80s when they had ill-fated reunions (Live Aid, Atlantic Records 40th), The Wolf & Action Jackson were resigned to the fact that Led Zeppelin would never tour again. So when Jimmy Page & Robert Plant announced in 1994 that they were reuniting to do a TV performance reworking classic Zeppelin material and introducing some new songs, we lost our minds. Gathering around the TV to see our heroes together in action was something that we'd dreamed about and we looked forward to hear how they would reword classics that we loved. The anticipation was met with a bit of ambivalence once we saw the setlist as it didn't include many of the big rockers that we loved. Instead, it focused on much of their acoustic catalog and slowing down great stompers into more mellow pieces. However, upon seeing the performance of these songs by these legends (and with an amazing cast of musicians) quickly changed our attitudes. Opening with the haunting No Quarter in the woods with Jimmy on acoustic 12 strings and Robert singing from the heart to open the video really set the tone. They stayed true to some like Since I've Been Loving You and What Is And What Should Never Be but reworked some (When The Levee Breaks, Nobody's Fault But Mine) into something unrecognizable. Still, the driving force of Gallows Pole and Battle of Evermore really let the material shine. And though they made some new music with folks in Morocco, none of it really lived up to LZ standards (though one new song Wonderful One could have fit well on LZIII or Houses of the Holy). Winding up with an orchestra behind them for classics like Kashmir just demonstrated the majesty inherent in the LZ catalog. Not only did we watch the video hundreds of times, but we got to see the boys on tour with their amazing band and an orchestra which we count among the most special concerts of our lives. Ugly American Werewolf in London Website Visit our sponsor RareVinyl.com and use the code UGLY to save 10%! Twitter Threads Instagram YouTube LInkTree www.pantheonpodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We hope the search engines, constantly hunting for yet more Taylor Swift content to satisfy users, appreciate our optimization just as much as veteran comedian Matt Braunger appreciates the T-Swizzle albums Evermore and Folklore. Matt finds these releases, which are far less poppy and boppy than her other works, to be a perfect accompaniment for a long road trip or just being pensive and sensitive around the house. Listen to Matt extol their virtues as you drift off to sleep and shake the wakefulness off.Listen to Taylor Swift by going to her website, www.MattBraunger.com. Also for albums and tour dates, visit www.MattBraunger.com.Hey Sleepy Heads, is there anyone whose voice you'd like to drift off to, or do you have suggestions on things we could do to aid your slumber? Email us at:  sleepwithcelebs@maximumfun.org.Follow the Show on:Instagram @sleepwcelebsTwitter @SleepWithCelebsTikTok @SleepWithCelebsJohn is on Twitter @johnmoe.John's acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is now available in paperback.Join | Maximum FunIf you like one or more shows on MaxFun, and you value independent artists being able to do their thing, you're the perfect person to become a MaxFun monthly member. 

Chris is back today and tells us about his trip to Orlando and everything he watched including Starting 5, Piece by Piece, The Penguin and more (3:00) + we go into everything that happened in sports while he was gone including Zach Edey, Yuki and the Luke Kennard injury (20:41) + Zach Randolph and Jarvis Greer getting inducted into the Memphis Sports Hall of Fame (40:44). We'll play Fill In The Blank in our last segment (1:15:03)

Dr. Denise DeRosa is a Pediatric Physical Therapist from New York City. She had two Cesareans and was confident that those would be her only birth stories. But when she unexpectedly became pregnant with her third, Denise started looking into her options. She researched VBAC, found The VBAC Link, and felt that she could have a VBA2C. Having worked in the hospital where she planned to give birth, Denise knew she would face pushback. She knew they were skeptical and she knew they would try to meddle. She worked hard with her doula to get her mind solid, her body strong, and to prepare for any situation or anything that would be thrown at her. Ultimately, she believed in herself. So with an unsupportive provider in an unsupportive hospital with an apprehensive family, Denise's preparation paid off! She labored hard, advocated for herself, and vaginally birthed a 9-pound, 5-ounce baby. Gina, one of our VBAC-certified doulas from California, co-hosts today's episode and shares information about how C-sections affect an infant's gut microbiome. She also mentions things we can do to help mimic the benefits of birthing vaginally if a Cesarean is necessary. Dr. Denise DeRosa's WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. We have our friend, Denise, from New York City with us today. Hello, Denise. Denise: Hi. Meagan: I'm so excited for you to be sharing your stories. You are a VBA2C mama just like myself. Denise: Yes, I am. That's right. Meagan: Yes and when we were talking about the C-section aspect of things, it reminded me a little bit of myself. Didn't dilate, baby didn't come down. What do we know? We know that this is a very common, common thing. In addition to Denise, we have a very special co-host today and her name is Gina Benson. Hello, Gina. Gina: Hi. Meagan: She is one of our VBAC doulas. Tell us where you're at, Gina. Gina: I am in the Sacramento area of California based in Roseville. Meagan: Okay, all right. Then we‘re going to make sure that she has her website and everything so if you guys are in her area looking for a doula, go check her out for sure. She is going to do a Review of the Week for us today. So I'll turn the time over to you. Gina: All right. “I've waited and prayed about this moment to be able to write the words, ‘I got my VBAC' feels surreal. Two years ago, I gave birth to my daughter via Cesarean and since the OR, I've been dreaming of a VBAC. It felt like a primal right I was robbed of. Yesterday, I gave birth at home with gestational diabetes to a 9-pound, 2-ounce baby. I pushed him out of my vagina, pulled him out of the water, and sobbed in joy relishing in my redemption and power. This would not have been possible without The VBAC Link. I listened every day postpartum, sobbed and cheered with the Women of Strength. I cannot recommend this podcast enough to all expectant parents. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Oh my gosh, do you guys have the chills? Because I literally have the chills. You know how when as a woman you shave your legs and you're like, Oh, I just felt my leg hairs grow? Yep, that just happened. Oh my gosh, thank you for such an amazing review and huge congratulations. I'm so glad that you've been able to walk the walk with us here at The VBAC Link. This is why we're here. We want to inspire, encourage, empower, and help you know for yourself what is best for you. We don't judge here at The VBAC Link, but we really, really do love your reviews. So thank you so much. Okay, so that review also talked a little bit about a big baby. Denise also had a larger baby with her VBA2C baby. I feel like there are so many things that are going to come together within this review and within everything. So, Denise, I want to turn the time over to you to share your C-sections to start and then your VBAC. Denise: Perfect, thank you. Hi everybody. I'm Dr. Denise DeRosa. I'm a pediatric physical therapist. I feel like I have to lead with that because who I am is what I do. That with motherhood is all merged together and really helped me in my journey for a successful VBAC. We'll start at the beginning with my first baby. I was pregnant. Everything was going great. Everything was wonderful. I was still working. I had an uncomplicated pregnancy. The only thing that was a little off was that the baby was measuring big. I was like, okay. Whatever. It should be fine. Those machines are way off anyway. I go to 40 weeks, 40 and 1, 40 and 2, 40 and 3. I'm 40 and 5 days and my doctor is like, “All right. I want to induce you tomorrow.” I'm like, “Okay, sounds good.” I didn't know anything. I worked at the hospital as well so I'm just trusting that we've got this and we were good. I loved my doctor. Everything was going great. That night before I went in to get induced, I actually did start feeling something. I was like, What is that? It feels like cramps or something. I don't know. At 3:00 AM, I think I'm in labor. “Hon, get up. We've got to get to the hospital. Let's go. Let's go.” We get to the hospital. It's 3:00 AM and I'm 3 centimeters dilated. I'm like, “Oh, okay. I guess that's good. I don't know.” We get all the things– the epidural, the Pitocin, and I pretty much just lay in the bed, sleep, do a puzzle game on my iPad, and relax because that's what they tell me to do. It is very easy for me to relax now. It gets to be 11:00 AM the next day. I'm like, “I feel a little bit different. Can I be checked?” I get checked. 10 centimeters, wonderful, beautiful. They turn off everything. You know when they turn off that epidural, it's like, bam. This is intense. Meagan: Especially when you were not feeling anything before. Denise: Exactly. Meagan: It can definitely pick up and be a little bit more than maybe you were expecting. Denise: Yes. I am in a Semi-Fowler position which is the one where you're essentially leaned back but not all the way back. You're inclined at a 45-degree angle. My hips and knees were at 90/90. It was essentially like I was sitting on the toilet but I was leaning back. I'm sure everybody knows the position that I'm talking about. That's the position to push. My husband is holding one leg. The nurse is holding the other leg. My doctor is telling me to push. It's just a disaster. I have to be honest with you. It was crazy because I didn't know how to push so he was telling me to push like I'm pooping and I'm pushing like I'm holding it in. Everything was spasming and everything was just a disaster. I remember saying, “Let me get up. Let me move my body. I'm a physical therapist. Let me move my body. I just need to move around a little bit and I'll be good. Just let me get up.” “No, you can't get up. You have the catheter in.”Meagan: Intuition. Your intuition was kicking in to move. Denise: Yeah, exactly. My pelvis was stuck in the position. I was just lying there. The only thing they did was flex my knees up and down. I think I got the peanut ball at one point but it's not like it was side-lying. There was no internal/external rotation. It was just one plain movement. Anyway, I pushed for 2 hours and nothing happened. My doctor was like, “All right. Why don't we give you a break? We'll turn on the meds. Relax for an hour and then I'll come back and we'll push again for an hour.” I'm like, “Okay, sounds good. I need a break. Wonderful.” A rest. He's like, “But you know, if nothing happens, we're going to have to get the C-section.” I'm like, “Okay, well let me try again.” No food. No water. Only Jello and ice chips. I hadn't eaten since the day before. I was just so out of it between the drugs and the not eating. I did sleep a little bit when I was relaxing there but I was shot. My doctor came back after an hour and he goes, “Denise, I just went across the hall and the girl across the hall, I turned off her meds and she pushed 3 times and the baby came out.” I was like– let's just say my hand went up in the air with one specific finger up. I essentially flipped off my– it wasn't even the doctor. It was just the situation. I was like, “Forget this. This is ridiculous.” Okay? Now that's the kind of relationship my doctor and I have that we can joke around and all of that stuff and after, I apologized. He was like, “Don't worry. I deliver people in handcuffs. That was not the worst thing.” Meagan: What? Denise: Yeah, you know if you are stationed at the hospital, you deliver everybody. You know?Meagan: Yeah. Denise: What do you think happened? I stayed in the bed. I pushed. Inefficient pushing. Baby never dropped. I was dilated to 10 centimeters but nothing happened. Okay, by the end of it, I was like, “Please give me a C-section. This is the worst day of my life.” She came out. They lifted her up and everybody in there was like, “Oh my god. Look at this big baby.” I was like, “What is she, 100 pounds?” I was so delirious. You know, at that point you are so delirious. Anyway, it was a girl. She was 9 pounds, 10 ounces. It was a big baby. She never dropped down. I didn't move my body and had a healthy baby, a healthy mom. Everybody was happy and I was just like, oh gosh. This is the best and the worst day of my life. When you become a mom, it's just the best but maybe not the best experience. Meagan: Yeah. Denise: That was my first birth. At the time, I was like, okay. It is what it is. I'll try harder for the second one. Now that I know what my body does, I'll VBAC. My doc was like, “That's fine. You can VBAC for the second, no problem.” Okay, great. In between my first and my second, I actually was pregnant and I was 8 weeks. I went to the doctor. I had a heartbeat but my doctor was like, “Come back in 2 weeks. Something is not right on here.” I'm like, “Okay.” I was going down the shore, the Jersey shore with my family. All 20 or us, a big Greek family vacation and I remember I was there and my doctor was like, “Okay, I want you to come back after that because the baby is measuring a little small.” I'm like, “Okay, no problem.” I'm down there and of course, that baby didn't make it. I wound up miscarrying while I was on vacation with my family. I called my doctor and he was there for me. He would call me every day and be checking in, “How are you doing?” I thought that was something doctors don't really do. He's a special guy. I could really tell. I felt like he really cared about me and cared for what was happening. In between my first and second, that happened and then I wound up getting pregnant with my second and I was like, oh I'm going to VBAC. Everything's going to be good. I took a labor and delivery course. I read my whole textbooks because sometimes physical therapists will be part of labor. So I'm like, I'm going to read up on this a little bit more. I take the course. Fast forward to 40 weeks and I started. I woke up in the morning. It was 6:00 in the morning and I was like, Oh, I feel something. This is great but let me not call my doctor right now. Let me stay home. Let me do the movements. I'm bouncing on the physioball. Of course, I have one of those. I'm walking around, doing the stairs, doing lunges, doing different positions. I'm like, “Let me just see where this goes,” and waiting as long as I can. I'm in touch with my doctor the whole day. 7:00 comes around. My husband comes home from work. I call my doctor. He's like, “Okay, well why don't you just come to the hospital and I'll check you? You've been in labor the whole day.” I'm like, “Okay, that sounds good.” I go to the hospital. He checks me. I'm 0 centimeters dilated. Zero. I'm like, “Come on.” He says to me, “Well, you've tried. You did.” He's like, “But what do you want to do? You want to keep contracting on an old uterus scar and something bad happens?” Meagan: Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. Denise: I was like, “No, I don't want to do that.” At the time, I didn't educate myself enough on risks. I just thought it was me. I was like, I'm a physical therapist. I've got this. I exercise every day. I'm good. I'm going to do it. When he said that to me, I was like, “No, I don't want something bad to happen.”Essentially, I had a repeat C-section because I wasn't really in labor is what I tell people. Yeah, that was my second and he was fine. This baby was 9 pounds, 4 ounces. Meagan: Staying in the 9's. Denise: Another large baby. Yeah, it was fine. I felt like at the time, I was like, I did everything I could. Obviously, now I know I could have done more but at the time, I was like, I did my best. This is just my story and I'm fine with it. It is what it is. I have been growing my business for a few years at that point. My pediatric physical therapist business here on Statton Island and I felt like that was my third baby. You know, when you are a businesswoman, your business is like your child. Meagan: Yeah. Uh-huh. 100%. This business is one of my children. Yes. Denise: Yeah, exactly. I was like, I have my boy and my girl. I have three bedrooms in the house. I have a healthy boy and a girl. That's another thing too. As a physical therapist, I see a lot of different things and all babies are miracles. That's how I feel. All babies are amazing and I'm like, You know what? I'm good. I'm going to work on the business. I'm going to go back to work. We have healthy babies. We're good. You know that expression? You make plans and God laughs. Right? You know? I was like, you know what? I wound up getting pregnant when I wasn't trying to get pregnant. I had been trying for the other two and I was nursing and that's the other thing. You can't get pregnant, right?Meagan: A lot of people think. Denise: But you know, it's funny. I got pregnant the month after my ya-ya passed away. Ya-ya is Greek for grandma. I was like, You know, this biotch just had to reincarnate herself and she hit me. I'm like, Why couldn't she get my cousins? They don't have any kids. They could have kids. I'm like, Ah man. She reincarnated herself. She cursed me. I don't think babies are a curse. It's just at the time that I was feeling all the feels. Meagan: You weren't in that space. Denise: I was like, you know? I was done having kids. I was like, oh my god. I can't get pregnant. I'll have another major abdominal surgery. Here we go. Also, Meagan, I know you know. No one wants to watch more than one kid so it was– I was shocked. Yeah. I was shocked. Denise: I was like, you know what? I did have two miscarriages. One before my first and one between the first and second. Let's just see what happens. I'm not going to tell anybody. Let's just see where it goes. I'm not going to decide what to do now. I'll just wait a little while and see what happens. You know, when you have two kids and you're pregnant with a third, that pregnancy flies. Meagan: So fast. Denise: Very fast. I was like, oh my gosh. I'm almost in the third trimester. What am I going to do? At every appointment, my doc's like, “Denise, when are we going to schedule your section?” I don't like to pick baby's birthdays. For me, I would rather they come when the baby is ready and I wanted to go into labor at least and then get the C-section. Then I was like, I got to this point where I was like, I have to make a decision here. What am I doing? Am I going to just schedule a Cesarean or am I going to actually try to do this? So I'm like, let me look things up. I found you guys. I found out that women actually have vaginal birth after two Cesareans. This does happen. I'm thinking with my own individualized plan here, I had no complications with either one. I didn't have high blood pressure. I didn't have anything go badly so I really felt like I was a great candidate. Then there's there my doctor who was like, “No, you're not a good candidate. Your baby never dropped. Your babies were big and you didn't dilate on your own.” I'm like, “I know, but I just feel like I can do it.” So this is something that I tell my patients all the time that you need to listen to your mom intuition. There's nothing that can steer you wrong. If you feel like something's wrong with your baby or yourself, you need to get it checked out. It's probably nothing and everything is going to be fine, but at the same time, the way that mom feels directly impacts baby and I just felt like, you know what? I feel like I can do this. I feel drawn to this and I'm going to go for it. Then the things that really drove me over the edge was that my cousin had a successful VBAC at the beginning of my third trimester so I was like, oh. If she can do it, I can do it. Then I also got in touch with a doula who I had been talking with professionally and we met. She said something to me that I will never forget which is, “I have total and complete trust in your body's ability to birth.” I'm like, “No one has ever said that to me. I've only been told I don't dilate and my pelvis is too small and I grow too-big babies,” not “You grow really healthy babies, really chunky ones with lots of rolls and that's the best.” I was never told that. I'm like, you know what? If anyone can do this, it's me. I trust in myself. I've got to go for it. This is my last chance because if I got another section, then it would be my tubes tied and that would be the end of the road. That would be fine with me too because I don't really want more than three abdominal surgeries anyway. I made that decision to go forth with trying to achieve my VBAC. I have to tell you, I left all my cards on the table. There was no stone left unturned. I went in. I stopped working in September and I used all of October to prepare myself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually because I would be reading even on The VBAC Link, the Facebook group all of the things people did. I didn't do everything. Listen, you only have so much time in the day when you have two kids already. But at least I was doing things that felt right for me and my body. Meagan: I love that you pointed that out because there are so many things, right? We even suggest it here at The VBAC Link. We're like, here's a whole list of things you can do to improve. Gina, I'm sure as a doula you have things that you suggest to your VBAC clients and I know I do too but it one, can get a little overwhelming honestly and two, like you said, time is a thing but three, here's a list. Pick what is appropriate for you. If every single one of those things is achievable, great. If not, pick some. Go with it. Right?Denise: Yeah. There are a thousand, bajillion things you can do. Meagan: There really are. Denise: Like I said, I picked what was right for me. I met with my doula. We did a pre-labor class specific for my body and how I would plan to move my body based on my anatomy. I know I'm a little asymmetrical from holding baby on one hip. I'm like, oh I've got to get that checked out. I prepared a lot and it was actually fun now that I'm looking back. I listened to you guys. I listened to other podcasts. I listened. I watched documentaries. I read books. I tried to do what felt right for me and then also educating myself on papers and even looking at my own research about different things that they tell you to watch out for when you're trying to achieve something that I achieved. Meagan: Out of the list– sorry to interrupt you– what were maybe your top three things that you were like, these were the best things? Obviously, you hired a doula and you got some education. What are, in addition to those, the top three things you did that really, really impacted the situation?Denise: The top three things were that I got my mind solid. I literally was like, Denise, you can do this. There was no– I had an intention. I think I listened to that– Henci Goer. Meagan: Henci Goer? Uh-huh, so good. Denise: I listened to that podcast maybe the week before and she said something like, “Have an intention, but not a goal because when you don't get it and it's a goal, then you feel all the feels. You feel like you failed.” I had an intention but I also had a feeling of, I'm going to do this. I'm not going to try. I'm just going to do. I'm an athlete as well so if you're an athlete or you're someone who pushes yourself physically, you can labor naturally like I did. I'm telling you, you can. You know like when you're on the treadmill and you're running and you just keep going and going? It's the same thing in labor. If you mentally train yourself with the physical, you're going to be successful. My top three tips would be get your mind solid and really find your why. Why do I want this VBAC? How is it going to feel? What is it going to be like? Imagine it. Then two, get your body right and then three, prepare for any situation that they're going to throw at you because they are going to throw things at you to make you sway the other way. They're going to tell you that you can't do it. They're going to tell you, as I get into my story, when you get to the hospital, they're going to throw things at you. I'm not even mad at the doctors in the hospital and the nurses because honestly, I really feel like doctors are really great people. They're not bad people at all. They are good people and the nurses are part of birth. This is the most sacred part of healthcare in my head– also palliative care and hospice care is important too but birth is really so important. Unfortunately though, there are policies in place and there are rules and regulations. I think everybody is just doing their best with that but my top tips would be mind solid, body solid, and prepare for anything they are going to say and throw at you because it's going to come. Meagan: Yeah, it's probably going to come. I love that. In our VBAC course, we focus so much on the mental prep too. I think a lot of times, we are more focused on that physical prep and what we can do with our body, but I think the mental part connects so deeply to the physical part that we cannot skip it. Denise: No, you cannot. Meagan: I skipped it with my second and look at what happened, I had a repeat section. Denise: So yeah, that's that. I guess I'll get into my third birth now yeah? Meagan: Yeah. Denise: Okay. Another healthy pregnancy, uncomplicated, everything was fine. I get to my third trimester and that's when I decided to go for the VBAC. I'm doing all the things like I said and I get to 40 weeks. I get to 40+1, 40+2. I go to the doctor and I'm like, “I'm not going to get checked today. I'm just going to talk to him.” He comes in the room, arms folded, you know? He's like, “What's going on? You don't want to schedule?” I'm like, “Doc, I want you to know that I have so much respect for what you do.” I essentially did a fear release which you talk about in the course as well. It's so important and holding things back and preventing it from labor. I essentially did a fear release with my doctor where I told him that I loved him and I respected him and I didn't think I know more than him because I definitely don't. I don't know how to cut through and do all of the surgeries and everything. I'm a conservative health profession, okay? We don't do any surgeries. No blood, no thanks. I just said that to him. “I don't think I know more than you. I just feel like I can't schedule it and I feel like there are things that I can do.” We talked about successful VBACs after two Cesareans at the hospital and it was essentially, “You have to get there when you're pretty much ready to push. They're going to try and give you a section and they're going to try and give the epidural and they're going to try and do the things and they're going to try and meddle. You come to the hospital in pain, you're going to get pain medicine because it's part of hospital regulations and all of that stuff.” I was like, “Okay.” He gave me my answer. It was too late to switch at that point. I thought about switching to a midwife and having my baby at home, but that was just something I really knew my husband would never go for. He was already scared that something bad was going to happen to me and the baby because that's what he was told at the appointments.We did essentially fear release on the 7th and on the 8th of November, I woke up with the same cramping I had with my second. I was like, oh, this is something. I think the fear release must have worked. Awesome. All right. Let's just see how this goes today because I have to keep my mind right. I have to go about my day. That's what everybody in every single VBAC Link story said they did. I walked my daughter to school. I take my son for a walk around the block. I did the curb walking. I did the Miles Circuit. I ate my dates and my tea. It was a normal day. I just ignored it and the contractions would get closer together and they would get farther apart and then change in intensity so I thought this was prodromal labor. I think I said that right. Meagan: Prodromal. Denise: Prodromal. Okay, sorry. I'm like, okay. This is what this is. I'm just going to rest and that evening, I put the kids to sleep and I was like, let me try to rest because I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring if I'm going to be fine or if I'm actually going to do this. So I go to sleep. I wake up 2 hours later at 12:00 and between 12:00 and 4:00 AM, I was laboring by myself. I didn't want to wake up my husband because I didn't want to go to the hospital too soon. I didn't want to wake up my kids obviously because no one wants to be around them when you're in labor, right? Or maybe you do. I don't know.I went in the bath. I'm trying to manage my contractions. I'm in the shower for an hour. I'm in the bath for an hour. I'm trying to sit. I'm trying to stand. Everything was worse sitting. 4:00 AM comes and I'm like, I think these are getting closer together. I download the contraction timer on my phone. I'm like, let me actually time these. They were 5 minutes apart. I'm like, okay. Let me text my doula. I text her but you know when you are past 40 weeks and everybody is texting you, “How are you doing? Did you go into labor yet?” All of the questions. I turned my phone on the Do Not Disturb thing a day before because I couldn't take anymore of these questions. I already had my own anxiety and stress about this. I turned my phone on Do Not Disturb. I called and texted her and then she texted and called me back and I wasn't getting any messages because I turned my phone on Do Not Disturb. I was like, oh goodness. 6:00 AM rolls around. I finally get in touch with her. I text my mom, “Can you please come here?” My doula gets there and at this point, I'm trying to just focus on my breath like we've practiced.I'm like, okay. Breathe in. Breathe out. I was trying to do whatever I can to manage this pain. I didn't want to go to the hospital at all at that point but I didn't want to go too early. When my doula got there, it was a complete 180. Oh my gosh. She came. She did the pain pressure points. She massaged. She got the essential oils. She did the rebozo think. I put on my Folklore and Evermore soundtracks for my Swifties in here and I was just jamming. It was like I was on the treadmill running like I used to do back when I was young and had better knees. It was great. I could have stayed there forever. I probably did it for an hour because I remember I listened to both albums and I was just fine. I was kneeling on the physio ball and everythings was good. I thought, man. I should have tried for a home birth. Oh well. I'm not going for a fourth so no home birth for me. My doula was like, “All right, Denise. Do you want to try to bring baby down and try some different positions?” I'm like, “Yes, let's do it,” because I knew that would be one of the things. I go to my stairs with one leg up and one leg down. I go to down on the floor into a half-kneeling position and I'm like, “Okay, let's do this contraction. Breathe in. The contraction comes.” My water breaks. I'm  like, “Oh my gosh.” Water is just dripping down my leg. That never happened before. My water just broke. Wow, this is amazing. I'm like, “Okay, let's go get changed.” My doula was like, “Okay, this is time to go to the hospital.” I'm like, “Oh my god. This is great. I'm getting on way.” I go upstairs and change. She's like, “Okay, we've got to move,” and my mom is like, “Come on, Denise. We've got to go to the hospital now. Come on!”My mom was very anxious and I said to her, “Mom, I know it's your birthday and I'm trying to be nice to you but please don't push me. If I'm not ready to go to the hospital, I'm not going to go.” I love my mom. She's my best friend and she really just cares for me.Meagan: Yeah, and a lot of the time, they're like, if you're in this much labor, you go to the hospital. That's how they were raised too. Denise: Right, exactly and that's fine. It's just that I knew I didn't want to go and also, I think the day before I listened to your podcast with Julie about going to the hospital and how everything shifts from when you're at home and you're so calm, cool, and collected and everything is good but when you get to the hospital, it's like, bam. Interventions, stress, people talking at you. Meagan: Touching, talking, questions, lights, new voices, new space, new smells. You have to re-acclimate. Denise: Meddling. Right. That was fresh in my brain too. I'm like, “I'm going to go when I'm ready.” Anyway, we're ready. We're ready to go. Let's go. I get in my husband's car. My mom is in the back seat. My doula drove herself because she was going to leave from the hospital when it was done. I live in New York City. There's traffic everywhere. It's Thursday at 10:00 AM and there really shouldn't be traffic then but of course, there was. I couldn't sit, right, because everything was getting worse. I'm leaning on my husband's truck with my arms in the middle and my butt at the window. God help whoever was next to us in the car like, “What is happening over there?” Meanwhile, my mom is in the backseat crying in between. I lost control of my breath so I was literally screaming during contractions. It was like I was at a concert except it wasn't fun. I said to my mom while she's in the back, “Mom, I'm okay. The baby is getting ready to come out. It's going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. The baby's fine. I'm fine. See? I can talk in between contractions just when it comes, it's very strong.” She was like, “I know. It's okay. It's all right.” My poor mom on her birthday. She thought I was going to have the baby in the car. That's what she thought. Meagan: I'm sure she did. Denise: Yeah, she was like, “Oh my god. There's a police cop over there. Flag him down. Flag him down.” She opened the window but then we already passed. It was quite a scene actually now that I think about it. Anyway, we get to the hospital and of course, there's construction at the hospital so it takes me 10 minutes to walk up to L&D.” Now this is the hospital that I used to work at so I'm like, oh god. Please don't let anybody see me like this, not my old co-workers or my boss. Please let me get to L&D. Please, please. All right, I make it up. It took me 10 minutes but I make it up. It was 10:45 AM. I get there and the nurse was like, “Come on, hon. Let's get in the room.” I have a contraction, I'm like, “Please wait.” She's pushing me, “Come on, come on.” I'm like, “Please don't push me. I'm in the active stages of labor.” Who do I think I am? I think I know stuff. Meagan: You do know stuff. You do know stuff. Denise: Thank you. I get into the room and girls, I'm not joking. There are 12-15 people in that room with me. They're all talking at me, talking at me, “Do you want the epidural? Do you want the C-section? We need to give you an IV. We need your insurance card.” Where am I going? You're going to get my insurance card. Relax everybody. Chill. Because you can't get a bracelet on me? Everybody knows who I am. The doctor has probably been talking about me for days. It's fine. You're going to get the insurance card. Meanwhile, I'm in such late stages of labor at that point. I'm contracting every 30-45-1 minute. I forget. I was like, “Please. I prepared for this.” I knew they were going to come at me like this. Not me, specifically. It's not a personal thing. It's just what I was. Meagan: It's just what they do. It's just what they do. You're a label. Denise: And I'm not offended. I didn't take it personally. I was ready though. I knew they were going to come at me and I had a plan which was, don't say no and don't shut down. I also heard along my journey, “Don't say no. Don't have negative energy.” You're not able to control other people's feelings, but you are able to control yourself. When they came at me like that, I was like, “Please just give me a second. Can you wait a minute? Please let me get through this contraction. I just want a second. Not right now.” I had all of the things listed of what I was going to say when they came at me. Came is a bad word. When they said things, I just knew how they were going to say things. Meagan: When they were approaching you, you knew your response wasn't going to be no. It's, “I prefer. Not right now. In just one moment,” and stuff like that versus, “No, no. Get away.” Denise: Right, exactly. Exactly. I could have been like that but I wanted to bring my baby into the world in the most positive way that I could and that's just how I approached it. I'm like, “Just check me. Just check me before you do all of these interventions.” They checked me and I was 9 centimeters. I'm like, “What's that? I dilated by myself.” My doula was like, “That's amazing.” My OB was like, “Yeah, but the baby is really high.” I didn't even hear him say that. She told me he said that after. I think I was blocking out a lot of negative things on purpose. That was one of the things I prepared for. He's like, “Oh, but the baby is really high.” I'm like, “Okay, just give me a second.” The anesthesiologist was like, “Let's give you the epidural just for insurance.” I'm like, “Not right now, just give me a second.” They're like, “The baby's heart rate is dropping.” I knew they were going to say that too. I said, “Okay, well what's it dropping to and what's it coming back to?” When they said it something that was essentially normal, I said, “It's a 9-pound baby in there. Of course its heart rate is dropping. It's being contracted by a strong uterus to get it out. Give it second.” I don't remember saying this but my doula said that I said this which is, “I'm okay. My baby is okay. I know no one in this room thinks that I can do it, but I can. Okay?” I was like, “That's what I verbalized.” I don't really remember saying that but I was outside of my body I guess. She was like, “I got the chills when you said that because everybody was so anxious in that room and only you held it together.” I was like, “Well, yeah. I knew what was going to happen.” I worked in the hospital for 7 years. I get it. There is litigation. There are policies in place and people are scared for their jobs. I get it. It's fine. So anyway, that went on for about a half hour and then the nurse who pushed me in the hallway that I wasn't so nice to was like, “All right, Denise. Can we try a position?” I was like, “Yes, please. Let's do it. Let's try to switch positions please.” She gets the peanut ball and I got onto my side into internal rotation where you put your knees together and you have your feet on the physio ball. That opens the outlet of the pelvis to get the baby to drop down. I already know all of these things but no one had offered it and I wasn't thinking straight to even bring it up. I flipped into the position and the anesthesiologist was like, “Can I give you the epidural while you are on your side?”I'm like, “No.” Meagan: Oh my gosh, he's still pushing this epidural. Get out of my room, sir or ma'am. Denise: I know. I didn't push anybody out because I didn't have time for that. I was focused on what I had to focus on and what I came here to do. So I go on my side. One contraction and I'm like, “Um, I think I have to poop.” I was saying it but I had that feeling that baby dropped but I really thought that it was number two. They flipped me on my back and they were like, “All right, hold your knees up to your chest.” I'm like, “I don't like this position.” Remember, this is the position that they put me in with my first to push baby and it didn't work? I had PTSD from it. I was like, “I don't like this position.” They were like, “Just try it. Just try it.” I hear my doula say to me, “Denise, J breathe.” I'm like, “Oh my god. That's the cue. That's the cue that I need to push. The breath that I need to push this baby out. That's the cue we talked about. Oh my god. It's almost over. It's almost here.” Then I hear the whole room shift and my OB says, “All right, well if she wants to have a vaginal birth, let's do it.”I hear my husband say– my husband was very nervous about this whole situation and he wasn't really talking. He was there but he wasn't really saying anything. I hear him say– everyone was saying, “Push, push.” But I hear him specifically say, “Push, push. Breathe in. Breathe out. Push the right way.” This 9-pound, 5-ounce baby shot right out of me. The doctors didnt even catch him. He landed on the table. I didn't know that but I heard that later. That was it. I said, “Baby, baby.” They let me hold my baby right away. We did skin-to-skin. My husband got to cut the cord. I got to call out the gender and you feel the room anxiety shift. The anesthesiologist leaves of course. Meagan: He's done. Denise: The whole energy of the room just shifts into, “Oh, okay. She did it. All right.” Meagan: It's actually possible. Maybe we shouldn't doubt her. Denise: Yeah. I don't mean that in a negative way, but there is so much anxiety and nervousness about birth whether if you don't educate yourself enough like I did or didn't do with my second and even in the L&D, room, things can go wrong. He could have gotten stuck. I don't know. So many things could have happened. When the air in the room changed, everything was great. Everybody laughed. The doc stitched me up. I got to nurse the baby right away and the nurse said something to me. She was like, “Wow. You are such a strong woman.” I was like, “Oh yeah, I'm a Woman of Strength now. I can say that.” She was like, “Wow, you are a really strong woman. I'm surprised the doctor let you have a TOLAC.” I said, “Oh, no honey. This was not his choice. This was my choice.” My choice was not the same choice I recommend for everybody. I put in a lot of work for this obviously as I've said and it's not really for everybody and that's okay. It's okay to have the birth that you feel the safest and the most comfortable with because this is your start into motherhood. But if anyone feels inspired today, I'm glad that I was able to help with that. Obviously, I joke around and my OB, I still love him. He came into my room the next day and said, “Ah, here's the champion.” Yeah. You know and he said, “Listen, you were the right person to do it. You put in the work and you knew what to do.” Yeah. Meagan: You put in the work and knew what to do. Denise: Yeah, so that's my story. It's a doozy. Meagan: Oh my gosh, I love it. Gina: It's perfect. Meagan: Yeah, right? I mean, Gina, tell me about your area. Do you have a lot of unsupportive hospitals and providers in this way where they come in and you would expect a scenario like Denise's? Gina: Probably not quite. They actually have gotten a lot better. Meagan: That's good. Gina: They are pretty supportive even after two C-sections. We do have supportive providers for that and hospitals for that. It's not unheard of. It's not like, oh. You can't do this. Meagan: Right. Right. Gina: Yeah. Meagan: That is the case in so many places. Gina: Yes. Meagan: Like in Denise's situation. Denise: Yes, New York City and New Jersey as well. In New Jersey, if you have two Cesareans, you cannot be with a midwife. It's not allowed. Meagan: Yeah. Even here in Utah, which is a supportive VBA2C state, but some of those hospitals also do that. They are like, “Oh no, if you're a VBAC in general, you can't be with a midwife.” It's a little frustrating. We have a lot of work to do but Denise, I bet you probably didn't change your provider's perspective completely on VBAC. I bet the next VBAC after two Cesarean mama that came in, he likely may have said, “No. Not going to happen.” But you never know. He might have been like, “Okay. We can try it.” It takes us to show the world that it's possible, that it can be safe, that it's reasonable, our bodies are amazing, and so many of the things you could have had with the heart rate or the baby wasn't coming down or a bigger baby or whatever. All of these things could have stalled you up and you were like, “No. I can do this.” You put the power in your pocket and took the lead. Denise: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I also read this along the way too. I had three births. My doctor has been to 20,000 births. Does he remember my birth? Probably because it was so dramatic. Meagan: Monumental for him, yeah. Denise: I'm his special patient as he calls me. But it's not the top of his list. He's on to the next thing and that's okay. This is his job. This is what he does. Like I said, he's not a bad person. He just wants to control the situation so he can make it the most safe in his opinion. But for me, I felt like by the end of it, my grandmother didn't curse me. She blessed me with an opportunity. My son is of course named after her and a lot of other amazing people like my dad and I just feel like you have to make your own story your own and you have to be comfortable with what you feel comfortable doing. I was more comfortable staying with a provider and a hospital I knew wasn't going to be like, “Oh yeah, Denise, you can do it,” but I knew in myself that if I believed in myself and I did the work and put in the work, I could do it. And it worked out for me. I wish I had that for three births but at least I had it for one and I get to come on here and share it with everybody that they can have the same experience I did. Meagan: That's really how I feel. Yeah, I didn't have the experience that I wanted for birth number one and birth number two but it brought me here today and that's okay. That's okay. So you have said that you have even more detail of your story on your website. Can you tell everybody, and we'll have it in the show notes, but can you tell everybody if they want to read more details on your story where they can find that?Denise: Absolutely. My business is milestonesinmotionptw.com and on there I have blogs about lots of different things but I decided to write my birth story which took me the entire fourth trimester because I had three kids by then. I wasn't sleeping. You know all the things. But yeah, it's a completely unedited version with a few more details. If anyone ever wants to reach out to me, I do have resources and I'm working on some virtual stuff with the business so if you have any issues post-birth with the baby with tummy time and crawling and stuff, I have some resources up there for you guys if anyone wants to check it out. And just reading the story– reading and listening to stories like on this podcast really made the difference for me too so thank you for doing it. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Thank you and like I said before, we'll have her link in the show notes so you can go and check it out. I love that you were pointing out tummy time and all of those things that you can help with. Then cute Gina actually is going to be talking about the gut biome and the effects of it and what birth can do and all of these things. Gina, I'd love to turn the time over to you to add this extra topic. Gina: Thank you. One of the reasons that we want to try to avoid unnecessary Cesarean births is because of the type of impact that that type of delivery can have on a newborn's long-term health. Some of the outcomes that we know can be associated with C-section births are increased risk of diabetes, obesity, and asthma. There is some research that indicates that those increased risks are because of the way the newborn's gut microbiome develops after a C-section versus after a vaginal birth. The microbiome is basically an ecosystem of bacteria and there are microorganisms that live in a digestive tract. For a C-section birth where the amniotic sac hasn't even been broken before you get to surgery, the baby basically has no exposure to any of the flora that are in the vagina which they would get in contact with if they were coming through the vaginal canal. That's part of what helps to populate that healthy gut biome. It gets the healthy gut bacteria in there for the newborn. The other part we know that helps build that healthy biome is actually the contact the newborn has with the perineum. If you think about where the perineum is in relation to your anus which is the exit of your digestive tract, that's where those bacteria are going to be. The baby also gets that exposure so it's a combination of all of it. In a C-section birth, sometimes they get none of it or only part of it. That's what seems to be a trigger for some of those outcomes that we see long-term for people if they have had a C-section birth. With all that said, is there anything we can do about it? Actually, yes. There is. There are a few things. One of the things that I do with my doula clients is I discuss the choices that they have for their birth and we use that to draft birth plans. I make sure we cover options for spontaneous vaginal births as well as induction and also C-sections because reality is that some babies are going to be born via C-section and I don't want anybody unprepared for it or not knowing what their options are to make it a better birth experience than just a sterile, surgical procedure. We have documented preferences for each of those outcomes. There are a few things that I make sure we include in a family-centered C-section birth plan that help support that healthy newborn microbiome. I learned about that somewhat from The VBAC Link doula training and I also attended a conference earlier this year called Micro Birth that was basically two days worth of people talking about newborn microbiome and how breastfeeding helps with it and everything. It was fascinating. The first option that I make sure we include in the C-section birth plan is to delay the use of the prophylactic antibiotics. That's what they give you ahead of time to try and prevent an infection from coming on during surgery. That's not a bad idea, but when we do it right away before the baby is born and before the cord has been cut, they can also get some of those antibiotics and that will interfere with their ability to build that bacteria in their gut. One of the ways that we can easily manage that is just delay it. Make sure they don't give us antibiotics until after the baby is out and cord has been clamped so we know that they have gotten all of their blood and they aren't getting anything else from the surgery or anything else from the IV. In most non-emergency C-sections, that should be an absolutely reasonable request because there's just a matter of timing. You're not trying to tell them, “Don't give it to me,” it's just a matter of when and all they do is just push it through your IV. It's also possible for some emergency ones depending on how much time they have. That's one of the really important ones that helps all of the other suggestions. Meagan: Fascinating. Gina: Yeah, the other one that we include in the birth plan is vaginal seeding. I know that's part of the VBAC Link course. Vaginal seeding is using gauze or a swab in the vagina to collect the fluids that are there prior to surgery and then you use that and you wipe it on the newborn's face. You make sure you get it in around their mouth and nose the same way they would be exposed to it if they came through the vagina during birth. That helps to transfer that to the baby. You can also make it even more effective if you make sure you include the perineum so maybe after you do the vagina one, make sure you include the perineum swab as well so you get all of it at one time and transfer it to the baby. There are a couple of times where some things that you don't want to use this for if the birthing parents has Group B strep or genital herpes, especially if they have an active outbreak, some of those conditions we know pose a risk to newborns and this wouldn't be a good idea. You don't want to try to introduce that just to get the flora there. It can be difficult to get the hospital to participate in this directly. I believe that ACOG has said it's still under research so unless you are being supervised, you shouldn't be doing this, but if you include it in your birth plan and you actually want to do it yourself, you can get the gauze. You can get the swabs. You can do it and either you or your partner can do it for the newborn. They can't stop you from doing it yourself but they may not want to particpate. Meagan: Yeah, they usually don't. We have clients who have ordered the gauze and everything online and then in Denise's situation where she was like, “I want to labor at home as long as possible,” and all of this stuff, they did it right before. They washed hands really, really well, got gloves even and did it, put it in a bag, and put it in their hospital bag because in case it does go a Cesarean route or whatever, they had it and then they don't even have to deal with the staff. Gina: Exactly. There are always those types of things where you can take it upon yourself and do it yourself. Yeah. Like you mentioned, doing it at home would be a great idea because you want to make sure that you've done it and the swab and everything is out before they start prepping you for surgery because they will use the sterile cleansing options and that will destroy some of it. Always make sure you do it beforehand if you can. Then the last thing that I talk about which isn't necessarily part of the birth plan, but it's a really effective way to help restore and build the healthy microbiome for the baby is probiotics. You can start them yourself prenatally and have a prenatal probiotic that you take. You can continue using it while you are lactating because it will transfer to the baby as well. There is one I know Needed offers.Meagan: There's a pre and probiotic. I really love it. I take it myself. Gina: Yeah. That one's on my list of options that I give to people. I have a few different ones I've looked into that have the right mix of bacteria that they're looking for so that's a great one to use. The other one is that you can actually have probiotics for a newborn. That's proven to be pretty effective if you have a C-section baby. That's one of the most well-researched ways of helping rebuild that microbiome for them especially if you are using it in combination with breastfeeding because human milk has the perfect sugars to feed those bacteria that we are looking for so it's a really great combination. There are a lot of different infant probiotic options out there and not all of them have the right mix of bacteria or the right type of bacteria that we know research shows comes through a vaginal birth and is also associated with good long-term health outcomes. There's one that they have studied the most to be effective. It's in Australia and it's called Imploran. You can buy it online and I'll provide the links as well but I also have a couple of others that have similar makeups that you can use. That's what I have to say about that but it's a very fascinating topic. I love to see even some of the negative outcomes with C-sections be improved by things we have learned along the way. Meagan: I love that. Thank you so, so, so much for sharing that with us. Denise, thank you for sharing your stories and your VBAC and your journey and all of your tips are so incredible. I'm so grateful for you. Denise: Thank you. Thanks for having us. Gina: Yes, thank you. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Joe and Ann Evermore live in Colorado and they take wild parenting to a whole new level. Their kids are five, eight and 10, and each of them is a skilled hiker and rock climber. In 2022, their oldest son Sam became the youngest person to climb El Capitan via rope ascent. Connect with Sam & Joe: Website Instagram If you enjoyed this episode: Listen to Raising Kids Wildly Thank you to our sponsors: Capital One: Check out the REI Co-op Mastercard program and learn about local REI Fund granteesHoney Stinger