Sara Bareilles on Love, Loss, Empathy, and New Album & Documentary ‘Good Grief’

Hi, beautiful human. I'm Zach. That's Dan. And we welcome to the studio truly an extraordinary human being who's contributed to culture in the most meaningful way time and time again. Please say hello to Sarah Bareilles. Everybody, >> you deserve a little standing. [laughter] Oh. I mean, like, can we get a wave? >> I mean, like, what is this? You're

>> a >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks for having me. >> Thanks for making >> to be here. >> Album again. [sighs] >> And this one is >> It's been a while. >> It's been a hot [laughter] minute. Yeah, it's been a minute. >> But it's funny like you needed the seven years for a bunch

of reasons, and I kind of want to understand what those reasons are. But this album came to you at the right time. >> Yeah. Like it wouldn't have come seven years ago, five years ago, six years. It just wouldn't have. >> No, this was a culmination of what started in 2020 with my long

intimate conversation with grief. that has taken so many forms like loss of freedom, loss of friends like to physical illness, loss of um democracy, [laughter] loss of hope, loss of um yeah, sanity, my fertility struggles, just like like you name it and it's in this record and it's uh and I feel so grateful for the

integrated ated sense that I have of going back into these kinds of spaces and having conversations about the art that I'm making and not feeling like there's a secret version of myself that I'm hiding in the back, you know, that there's like that there's any distance between the dog and pony show and like

what I actually wish I could be talking about. I feel so grateful for that. >> Is this the first time in your career when you can say that? >> I think so. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I I am someone who I think runs pretty I'm pretty much a truth teller all the time.