Michael FaceTimed his father so I could ask him about his journey.

I always carried that guilt with me and, but just to know that he was okay and that he had a good life, and a life certainly that I wouldn't probably have been able to afford him at that time in my life, you know, uh, was, uh, was, you know, a, a great reward.

Think he's cousins with Dr. Dre.

It was a clear black night.

A clear white moon.

Warren G was on the streets.

Trying to consume.

Some search for the E.

Right.

It's what we do naturally.

That's why we were, we got up on two legs in the first place, you know, is to move, you know, and to migrate.

And, uh, I think we bring something, uh, greater than ourselves when we do that.

You know, this country...

You know, I mean, if you were gonna really boil it all down to, uh, who has a right to be here, uh, you know, as far as, uh, the, you know, African Ame- American influence on our culture, it's probably one of the greatest influences on our culture.

All, of, of things that we think of as American, you know, our music-

Hmm.

It just kills the whole mental joy of having a podcast.

I think about all the bottlenecks, right? And when I built this business, all I was thinking about was fulfillment.

The main goal was fulfillment on everything, right? How can I limit every single bottleneck for a podcaster? How can I take away all the difficulties and obstacles from doing a podcast? Most podcasts don't last past six weeks, right? So, you know, like 70%, such a large percentage don't last past six weeks.

So I said, how can I stop that from happening where they can last more than six weeks? They can last a year, last year.

Because the reality is, is that people do these podcasts and they may not go in the first, like, 15, 20 episodes, but it might be episode 21 that changes everything.

Just imagine Shea, Club Shea Shea.

If Cat Williams' episode doesn't happen... club Shay Shay maybe may have not exist today, right? That one episode changed his whole entire business model for his podcast.

That's what I'm saying.

Was it true that you said in a quote or some story that you said, hey, guys, I don't know, I could be messing up your sound a little bit?

Well, there was always that fear for me.

The situation for me as it evolved was unbelievable.

Because I'd worked for a few bands over the years or other artists.

Usually, if someone was the main writer or it was typically not a situation where people would welcome a newcomer to come in and write songs.

But Pat and the guys were a different breed.

Their sentiment was really as a band and it was like all comers.

If you had to give up one, what would you give up?

Why are you so confident that this will carry through, what, like another four months now to the election?

Well, the history is that the president's party tends to be somehow penalized in a midterm election.

In fact, political scientists even call this midterm loss because it's such a thing like clockwork that you see every midterm election.

You see the president's party lose seats in the Congress.

And so just from the macro perspective, we expect that the Republicans are going to lose seats.

Democrats will gain control of the U.S. House.

But then we look even deeper and we see the reasons why this should be happening.

So how much of a bellwether might Michigan be?

Yeah, wait, wait, what, what? What are you doing?

Yeah, um, I'm, [sighs] I'm sorry.

I don't know that one.

Got it?

Yes, I got it.

I apologize.

I was just getting into it.

[clears throat] [coughs] Every time you're near.

But before we hear it, I asked Michael McDonald to talk about the origin of that track.

Uh, that was one of the f- you know, uh, I always, uh, you know, uh, fear the, uh, you know, when I moved to Nashville, people would say, "Hey, come on down to Music Row.

We'll write a song." You know? And, like, for me, I always wanted to have something already started so I could play, you know, hopefully, 'cause I- I- the idea of sitting in a room cold with someone and not coming up with anything scared me to death, you know.

Um, but, uh, uh, yeah, those were some of my most fond memories of- of just making myself do it, you know, braving the- the, uh, situation.

And, uh, that was one of those, uh, with John.

We- he- he had a little bit of an ideas for something that we kinda went past and what- came up with Learn To Let Go, uh, with no idea what we were gonna write.

But, you know, uh, it- it- it was just- it kinda developed on the moment.

Let's hear Learn To Let Go from the album Walk This Road.