Sarah Marshall, Camille Dungy, and Kassa Overall

Summary

Live Wire with Luke Burbank Episode: Sarah Marshall, Camille Dungy, and Kassa Overall Release Date: June 12, 2026 Podcast Host: PRX, Hosted by Luke Burbank

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Episode Overview

This episode of Live Wire with Luke Burbank delivers a lively blend of cultural insight, creative performances, and thought-provoking conversation. The show features:

• Sarah Marshall: Renowned podcaster and media critic, discussing her new series The Devil You Know about the Satanic Panic eras, how moral panics shape American life, and a playful “Satanic Music Edition” of Name that Tune.
• Camille Dungy: Award-winning poet, reading from her new collection A Love Story, delving into motherhood, Black womanhood, and writing with intentional constraint.
• Kassa Overall: Acclaimed jazz drummer and producer, performing groundbreaking jazz-hip hop interpretations and discussing the interplay between contemporary and classic musical languages.

The episode’s tone is witty, inquisitive, and welcoming, with moments of laughter complementing deeper reflection on American culture.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Best News We Heard All Week

(Starts ~03:30)

• Luke & Elena share uplifting news stories to open the show:
  • TikTok Fragrance Dad: A man becomes "Fragrance Dad" after going viral on TikTok for his playful perfume reviews while abandoned at his daughter’s birthday party at Ulta.
    • "He is now TikTok full fragrance dad...he has no idea why it went viral." – Elena Passarello (05:14)
  • CPR Teacher’s Real-Life Rescue: In Wisconsin, a CPR instructor suffers a heart attack during a class and is saved by his own students, highlighting the value of practical training.
    • “He often thinks, is anyone listening to me in this classroom? Well now I know they're actually listening…” – Luke Burbank (08:17)

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2. Sarah Marshall: The Legacy and Lessons of Satanic Panic

(Interview starts ~10:31)

Exploring the Satanic Panic

• Origins of the Podcast:

  • Marshall explains her interest was sparked over a decade ago by how the 1980s Satanic Panic—once considered an “interesting relic”—still ripples through current American culture.
    • “At the time, it felt like this interesting relic...I had no idea when I started researching...that it would make such a pronounced comeback.” – Sarah Marshall (11:01)

• Defining Satanic Panic:

  • The term encapsulated mainstream fears and conspiracies—Satanists infiltrating daycares, fueled by credulous authorities and media.
  • Modern echoes: Today’s anxieties are “rebranded” for new scapegoats, often targeting marginalized groups.
    • "Maybe very American combination of something seeming very silly until you're being taken to prison because of it..." – Sarah Marshall (12:45)

• Role of Moral Panics:

  • Moral panics act as a societal tool for channeling unease during cultural change, allowing blame to be shifted onto an “other”.
    • “Fundamentally...the goal is to sorta look at all of the problems that already exist within society and then say, ‘no, it’s the lesbians that are witches...’” – Sarah Marshall (12:45)

Memorable Case Studies

• Patrick Swayze in Kentucky
  (16:39)

  • A town becomes gripped by panic when a visiting photography teacher and a purchase of black dresses coincide, spawning Satanism rumors. The real reason? Black dresses were for a Patrick Swayze movie funeral scene.
    • “I can't believe I have to even explain the connection, but sure...” – Sarah Marshall (16:53)

• Michelle Remembers and ‘Recovered Memory’ Craze
  (18:46)

  • Discusses the infamous book that launched dubious “repressed memory” therapies, resulting in false allegations and personal ruin.
    • “...even then you really weren’t supposed to do that, you know.” – Sarah Marshall (19:21)

• Cottage Industry of ‘Satanism Experts’
  (21:26)

  • Outlines how unqualified “experts” capitalized on public fears, providing misinformation to police and media.
    • "It also allows you to feel like a good person because you’re finding the worst villain you could possibly be looking for.” – Sarah Marshall (21:54)

The Backmasking Game: “Satanic Music Edition”

(~23:07)

• Sarah plays “Name that Tune” with alleged ‘satanic messages’ in songs played backward:
  • Correctly guesses “Hotel California.”
    • “Why am I enjoying these so much? Is this Hotel California?” – Sarah Marshall (25:39)
  • Discusses the absurdity and creativity behind the scare, with playful banter:
    • “One of the things about this backmasking is it is absolute doggerel...The lyrics are so bad.” – Luke Burbank (25:39)
  • Ends with a nod to ELO’s intentional message: “The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back, turn back, turn back, turn back.” (27:08)
• Closing Thought: Even after the panic subsides, its residue remains in American cultural anxiety.

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3. Camille Dungy: Poetry at the Intersection of Motherhood, Identity, and America

(Interview starts ~29:42)

The Long Journey of “A Love Story”

• Writing over 10 years, paralleling her daughter’s journey to adulthood.

  • “It wasn’t quite finished...when I finally was ready to release it, my daughter also moved out...so it kind of closed that chapter.” – Camille Dungy (30:01)

• Motherhood as Thematic Thread

  • Dungy writes “what’s on [her] mind,” leading naturally to poems on motherhood, Black identity, and family.

Notable Readings

• Poem: “Prelapsarian”
  (~31:30)

  • Evokes the physically and emotionally demanding early days of new parenthood.
  • “If she's acting hungry, she's probably hungry. She's too young to lie to you yet.” – Nurse’s advice (32:02)

• On Writing Constraints

  • Many poems are exactly 700 characters, reflecting "the average mother loses 700 hours of sleep in the first year of their child's life.”
    • “...this invisible labor also.” – Camille Dungy (35:20)

• Cyclical Nature of American Struggle

  • Dungy observes how the US cycles through ‘violences and celebrations’—personal and political.
    • “It’s frustrating but not particularly surprising...that we cycle through these violences as well as these celebrations.” – Camille Dungy (35:43)

• Poem: “Let Me” (Final Poem)
  (36:46)

  • A devastating meditation on survival, relationships, and America as both dream and threat.
  • “America, maybe the dream I still can't get over is that so far I have made it out alive.” – Camille Dungy (36:46)

• On Writing a "Simple Love Story"

  • “Perhaps one day I will write a simple love story, but this is the United States and I am who I am.”
  • Pressed by Burbank, Dungy answers, after a pause, “I guess not.” (40:53)
  • On perseverance and hope: “…I can look at home...my community...maybe we can grow that circle of love...until it gets really bigger, better.” (41:27)

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4. Kassa Overall: Where Hip Hop Meets Jazz

(Interview and Performance starts ~44:44)

Introducing the Artist

• Seattle-based jazz drummer, rapper, and producer.
• Latest album Cream turns hip hop classics into daring jazz improvisations.

The Concept Behind Cream

• Re-imagines rap songs (90s/00s) as if they were jazz standards from the ’60s.

  • “We took rap songs from the 90s, and we performed them like it was a jazz record in the 60s, like a Blue Note record.” – Kassa Overall (45:22)

• On musical tradition:

  • “There’s actually a tradition of that...Miles Davis and John Coltrane would take songs that were popular at the time and use those as vehicles to improvise.” (45:22)

• Hip hop melodies as "anchor points":

  • “When you play something that people know, they have an anchor point to understand how far you’re going.” (45:22)

Live Performance

(First song starts ~48:07)

• Performs a newly improvised mashup blending Busta Rhymes’ “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See” with Miles Davis’ “Nefertiti” and his own composition “Ready to Ball.”
  • "Gotta shine to it, I could get it if I put my mind to it… Don't go falling in love with the shiny things..." (49:32 – lyrics sample from performance)

Artistic Philosophy

• Embracing musical fluidity and experimentation:
  • “When you’re an improviser or a spontaneous composer...there’s no, like, ‘Oh, I ran out of ideas.’ It's actually the opposite. You're trying to find a way to contain it.” (46:09)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Sarah Marshall: "It is that maybe very American combination of something seeming very silly until you're being taken to prison because of it." (12:45)
• Camille Dungy: “Perhaps one day I will write a simple love story, but this is the United States and I am who I am.” (40:53)
• Kassa Overall: “When you play something that people know, they have an anchor point to understand how far you’re going.” (45:22)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Best News All Week | 03:30 | | Interview: Sarah Marshall – Satanic Panic | 10:31 | | Patrick Swayze Story in Kentucky | 16:39 | | Michelle Remembers/Repressed Memory Therapy | 18:46 | | Satanic Backmasking Game | 23:07 | | Interview: Camille Dungy | 29:42 | | Poem “Prelapsarian” | 31:30 | | Poem “Let Me” | 36:46 | | On “Simple Love Story” | 40:53 | | Interview & Performance: Kassa Overall | 44:44 | | Kassa Overall Performance | 48:07 |

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Final Thoughts

This episode travels through the quirks and shadows of the American psyche—from mass hysteria and moral panic to intimate love and creative rebirth—all stitched together with music that bridges genres and generations. Each guest brings their story, artistry, and wit, inviting listeners to reflect on what binds and divides, haunts and uplifts, in the landscape of American life.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hey there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host Luke Burbank. This week on the show, we're talking to the podcaster Sarah Marshall. Her latest series, the Devil youl Know, dives into the satanic panic of the 1980s and 90s, including how a Patrick Swayze film caused a complete freakout in a small Kentucky town. Plus, Sarah is going to play a little round of Name that Tune with us. Sarah Satanic Music Edition. Then the author Camille Dungey will stop by to read from her latest book of poetry, a love story in which she explores motherhood as a black woman and also the secret rules that she creates for herself when she writes her poems. Then we will get some truly experimental and fascinating music from jazz drummer Casa. Overall, he interprets classic hip hop songs as new jazz standards We've got a great show in store for you. Don't go anywhere. It all gets started right after this.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Luke Burbank]

O

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Elena Passarello]

from prx, it's live wire. This week. Podcaster Sarah Marshall.

[Sarah Marshall]

I mean, it is that maybe very American combination of something seeming very silly until you're being taken to prison because of it and then you're like, oh, no.

[Elena Passarello]

Writer Camille Dungey.

[Camille Dungey]

It's frustrating but not particularly surprising if you live in this country with your eyes open, that we cycle through these violences as well as these celebrations with

[Elena Passarello]

music from Casa Overall and our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Livewire, Luke Burbank.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everybody for tuning in from all over America and for these fine folks for coming out to the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon. It's going to be a phenomenal show this week for you all. We got to start things off, though, the way we like to each and every week with a little thing we call the best news we heard all week. This is our little reminder right at the top of the show that there is, in fact occasionally good news happening somewhere on this planet.

[Elena Passarello]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's good for the soul to be reminded of that. So we find those stories, we present them to you here at the top of the program. Lehner, what is the best news you heard all week?

[Elena Passarello]

Dad news.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Elena Passarello]

Best dad news.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Elena Passarello]

There's a gentleman named Tim Richards who has an 11 year old daughter, and a few years ago she got really into beauty. You know, the young kids now are really interested in skin care.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a lot of get ready with me, a lot of get unready with me.

[Elena Passarello]

I think it's the TikToks that's inspiring this. And speaking of TikTok, Tim Richards himself has a TikTok account.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Elena Passarello]

But he had only posted on it like three times and he couldn't figure out what to do with it. So his daughter decides to have her 11th birthday party at Ulta, which is this kind of like, it's like a

[Luke Burbank]

giant makeup kind of store at the mall.

[Elena Passarello]

Makeup, hair products, fragrance, which is kind of very important.

[Casa Overall]

All right.

[Elena Passarello]

And I think a lot of other young people were invited to this party and they just kind of abandoned poor Tim. Just dad alone in Ulta Beauty in. Well, he decided to entertain himself by going around and smelling all the perfumes and doing these TikTok reviews of them. He decided that Sabrina Carpenter's latest fragrance is not very good.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Elena Passarello]

But then he spritzed some of a new Bridgerton themed fragrance on himself while doing a kind of a hoity Toity accent. And he decided it was fabulous. Put it in some other reviews on the Internet. I don't think his daughter knew anything about it, but the video completely blew up and he is now TikTok full fragrance dad, which is just. Anyway, he has no idea why it went viral. He's very proud. He thinks his daughter is maybe into it, but might be mortified. And it just makes me think of my husband. And I don't have any daughters other than female cats. And so whenever I want to go shopping, he has to be my shopping buddy. And he is so much happier to go with me to the stores that have scented candles because he just goes over there and smells candles for a really long time. So I feel like if there's any kind of thing that maybe your male partner doesn't want to do, you should just give them things to smell.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Elena Passarello]

Maybe the cpa if your husband doesn't really like to pay attention to taxes, maybe there could be some kind of a smell bath along with you filing your W2s. I'm just. I'm just spitballing here.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like a dog, you know, you take a dog for a walk and they're smelling everything. It's how they experience their world. You're saying that's essentially your husband?

[Elena Passarello]

It seems like it's entertaining middle aged men across the nation. Based on this study of two people

[Luke Burbank]

that I have done, the best news that I heard all week took place recently in Appleton, Wisconsin. There was a guy there named Karl Arpst. And Karl Arpst teaches a CPR class. And he was teaching this to different folks that were there taking the class. And he was at the part of the curriculum where he was teaching them about signs that someone might be going into cardiac arrest. What are the things that you might notice if someone is having a heart attack or going into a cardiac event? And he was really getting into it. His hands started curling outward, his face contorted in a certain way. And I didn't know this could be part of it. He began snoring.

[Sponsor Announcer]

What?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Which led some of the people in the class to think maybe he was joking. Maybe he was just really going over the top with his demonstration. In fact, one of them who sensed something was off was a firefighter who was there getting his EMT training. His name is Logan Lehrer. And Elena, I just want to say, without objectifying Logan, he's really. Hubba hubba. Well written for the part of hero firefighter.

[Camille Dungey]

Yeah, like.

[Elena Passarello]

Like a hot EMT mustache and a

[Luke Burbank]

Sleeve of tattoos really leaning into the stereotype. Logan sensed that something was wrong. And this was not just Carl really showing them the signs of a cardiac arrest. It was Carl having a full heart attack. Like, lost consciousness on the ground. All six students surround him. Start doing CPR and the defibrillator. Wow. Which. That one.

[Elena Passarello]

I hope they got to that part of the lesson.

[Luke Burbank]

It's unclear, but it worked. They kept him alive, or at least, you know, his body functioning at a minimal amount until the real trained EMTs got there. The Red Cross says that less than 10% of people who suffer a cardiac event outside of a hospital setting survive. And this guy, Carl Arps, who, by the way, survived, went to the hospital, had a triple bypass, and was teaching the class seven days later. No. Said that he's been doing this for years and years and years. And he said he can count on one. I mean, he's not just teaching the class, but been doing, you know, EMT stuff. He said he can count on less than, you know, on one hand, the number of people who've been through something like he's been through where their life was actually able to be saved. So he counts himself incredibly lucky that his students that he taught were so good at this. And then he said something at the end that I thought was kind of like, we have a lot of teachers who listen. You're a professor, Elena, he said. Carl said, I often am up there thinking, is anyone listening to me in this classroom? Well, now I know they're actually listening and they're paying attention. And thank God they were. So, Karl Arpsticking around for a few more years. That's the best news I heard all week. This is Livewire. Let's get our first guest on out here. She's a writer, podcaster, and media critic who reexamines the stories that have gripped a nation, ruined a few lives, and then quietly disappear from the conversation. She's the host of the popular modern history podcast, you're Wrong about, which is a perennial top podcast pick on many sites. Now. Her latest project is the Devil youl Know. It's an eight part podcast with the CBC that digs into how the satanic panic started, why it spread, and why it actually never quite went away. Please welcome Sarah Marshall back to Livewire. Sarah, welcome to the show.

[Sarah Marshall]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Luke Burbank]

It's great to see you again. I devoured this podcast not unrelated to the fact that I grew up as an evangelical kid who was taught that there were Satanists hiding around every corner so this was the first I was learning that that probably wasn't true, which was a lot for me to process. Yeah. Because it's been thrown around so much in so many different ways. How do you define the term Satanic panic as it relates to this series that you're doing?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, this is an interesting one. So, I mean, I started researching this topic about 15 years ago now, 1215, something like that. And at the time, it felt like this interesting relic from the 80s that we hadn't fully reckoned with. Again, where, you know, in a very mainstream way, people were being warned that, yes, you know, Satanists are infiltrating daycare centers and nursery schools. And this is something that was on the mainstream news and that psychologists and, you know, people who maybe could have known better were feeling very credulous about. And I had no idea when I started researching this chapter in history that it would make such a pronounced comeback. But it feels like we're living through kind of a second wave of that. And it's, you know, we talk about it in the show. There's a lot of things that make it different. But, yeah, fundamentally it was trying to get back to this time in history that I think really shaped the present in ways that we hadn't fully reckoned with yet.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, there's a much larger conversation in the show about sort of the purpose that moral panics serve in a society. And it's easy. And again, I kind of have this, like, weird fond nostalgia about it because I went to, you know, a Christian school where they would make us watch these videotapes every year called Hell's Bells that were, like, about satanic lyrics in rock music. And it all seems so silly, but in fact, this is really something where you have, as you sort of point out in the series, you have sort of a group of folks who feel like their idea of traditional life is being challenged and they've got to find something to kind of blame for that and to focus on because they just want things to stay sort of how they've always been. And this is now where that energy gets sort of pointed towards. Can you talk about that?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. I mean, it is that maybe very American combination of something seeming very silly until you're being taken to prison because of it, and then you're like, oh, no, if we were going to destroy lives, I didn't think we'd do so in such a silly way. But looking in the face of that original sort of 1980s satanic panic, you can see Middle America being vulnerable to being sold a story about Satanism where actually, you know, in this way that you can sort of label as family values, but that can get into some insidious ideas, just like we're seeing now, it's really getting rebranded as the fault of all of these single moms, all these gay people, all of these kind of underdogs within American society who we would like to be to blame for everything that we're scared of. Fundamentally, there's, I think, something about any moral panic, even one that doesn't rise to this level of absurdity, where the goal is to sort of look at all of the problems that already exist within society and then say, no, it's actually, it's that the lesbians are witches and then they're chanting in a forest. And if we find them, rather than and if we find them, then we can party with them.

[Luke Burbank]

That's after Party in the Woods. We'll see you there. You're listening to LIVEWIRE from prx. We're talking to Sarah Marshall, the podcaster, about her new CBC series, the Devil youl Know, we have to take a very quick break, but more in a moment, including the role Patrick Swayze may have played in all of this. Stick around. More Livewire in a moment. Hey, Portland, get ready for the party of the summer, because it's almost here. Of course, I'm talking about the Sports Bra, proudly presenting its 5th annual Pride Block Party. You can join us Sunday, July 19th from 1 to 10pm it is a day packed with queer joy and community live DJs keeping the block bumping, amazing performances, delicious food carts and refreshing drinks. Plus, don't miss Lift Out Loud, the wildly popular Sapphic Deadlift competition where flex meets fierce. This is an incredible celebration made possible by our sponsors, the Women's foundation of Oregon Square, unrivaled Xfinity, Comcast and more. The best part, the Sports Bra, one of the true gems of Portland, Oregon, if I do say so, will donate a percentage of proceeds from Pride ticket sales to New Avenues for Youth's SMYRC program at Sexual and Gender Minority Youth Resource Center. SMYRC provides a free, safe, sober, supervised, harassment free space for queer and trans youth ages 13 to 24. Tickets are on sale right now and they're a little more expensive on the day of the event, so snag them early by going to the sports braofficial.com that's thesportsbraofficial.com come on out, show up and party with Pride at the Sports Bra Pride Block Party. Welcome back to Livewire from prx. We're at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon this week talking to Sarah Marshall about her latest project, the Devil youl Know podcast about the Satanic panic. You start the series with the story of this woman who's kind of like a visiting photography teacher at a high school, I think, in Kentucky. This is in the 80s.

[Sarah Marshall]

Hazard, Kentucky. Yeah, late 80s.

[Luke Burbank]

And she gets run out of town because of a Satanism scare that may or may not have its roots in a Patrick Swayze film. Can you please unpack that?

[Sarah Marshall]

I can't believe I have to even explain the connection, but sure, for the

[Luke Burbank]

few who don't know the story.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, for the few people who don't intuit why Patrick Swayze would scare people in this way. So, okay, so there's this very small town, Hazard, Kentucky. It's in East Kentucky, and a stranger has come to town with the purpose of teaching photography skills to people in the area, including high schoolers. And at the same time, something kind of odd is going around. And there's these rumors that someone was trying to buy all these black dresses, like a bunch of them all at once or a bunch of black fabric. Accounts are differing locally, but. So it's a small town where there aren't that many new things typically. And now two unusual things happen at once. And so,

[Camille Dungey]

yeah, they gotta go together.

[Sarah Marshall]

So they gotta go together. And why would you want black dresses or black fabric? Because you're a Satanist and because you need them for your rituals and for all of the chanting in the woods. And why would you want to come from the big city to teach photography skills to people? You wouldn't want to help people. That's unreasonable. She must be a Satanist. And it all fits together. And so, yeah, she left town truly fearing about what could happen to her if she lingered. And the reason that someone had been buying black fabric or black dresses was because a Patrick Swayze movie was being shot in the area and they needed them for a funeral scene. And that goes to something that is, again, very present in our lives now, because seeing people confidently assert that because they can't think of another reason for something to be happening, it's impossible for it not to be the first thing that popped into their head, especially based on what they've been told to fear.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, there is a very seminal book in the sort of genre called Michelle Remembers, which could almost be its whole own series, but it was based on, I guess, sort of allegedly true events where a woman starts to go to a psychiatrist and then they uncover these sort of hidden or repressed memories of hers, of all these really elaborate and gory sort of ceremonies that she was part of. They fall in love in real life, the people that wrote the book. Do you wonder if they fall in love? I see you kind of shaking your head somewhat doubtfully.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. They remain married, you know, for the rest of the psychiatrist's life. He passed away about 20 years ago and Michelle was not available for comment. But it's. Yeah, the story is just so wild because it is, you know, I realize that the 70s were an exciting time to be an unethical psychiatrist, but even then you really weren't supposed to do that, you know. And it's really. And the book is so compelling because there's this, this is such an interesting part of the satanic panic too, is sort of believe victims, believe the, we believe the children. And what's interesting is that very consistently in these cases, if people start saying, you know, actually I'm starting to feel like maybe all of the hypnosis or the sort of guided meditation that we did and the ideas that you gave to me and the suggestions that you, you gave to me about why I would be seeking therapy, because we also see this sort of wave of satanic panic oriented therapy in the 80s where, you know, for me as a woman in say 1985, if I were seeking therapy, it would really be quite likely for any random therapist I went to to be like, so you're a woman and you have issues and that's probably. There's a good chance that's caused by satanic abuse because why would you have issues if it wasn't for Satanists? This is a very fun.

[Luke Burbank]

And if you couldn't remember, if you couldn't remember the particular satanic events, that's just because you had buried them.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. And so there's this assumption that people probably have repressed memories and that that is probably more important to what they're going through than the things, you know, the trauma that they can actively recall and want to talk about. Certainly in the case of Michelle Remembers and so many others, you can see Michelle throughout this book, which is really heartbreaking to read, saying, I really don't want to keep going with this therapy. My life is falling apart. This is awful. Please can we stop? And her therapist is like, no, we gotta find these Satanists.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And then that sort of spawns or it's happening maybe concurrently with this whole cottage industry of like Satanism experts which are getting access to police departments and like training law Enforcement and showing up on Oprah.

[Elena Passarello]

Yes.

[Camille Dungey]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I mean, there was just this. It seems like there was this blind acceptance of people with, like, no formal training who are just now experts on this kind of abuse.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, it's something that you can make money doing it. And it also allows you to feel like a good person because you're finding the worst villain that you could possibly be looking for. And I think. I mean, Satan is about the most cartoony villain in a way that you could come up with. It's Satan. And that. That can be a diversion from the problems that are more complicated to look at. Because if you look at what's affecting kids, it's largely not something far off in the distance or witchcraft or something like that. It's the fact that this is a hard world and a hard country to be a kid in for reasons that I don't have to bum you out by listing. And a lot of them haven't really changed since we started freaking out about Satan back then. But those are hard problems with hard solutions. And I think part of what I wanted to do with the show is show that it's understandable to want to be able to sort of fix things by finding one scary villain and taking them out in one fell swoop. But that's why it's important that we watch horror movies and action movies, because then we can explore those urges safely in a theater, and then we can go back to work and do boring stuff all day.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. This is Livewire. We're talking to Sarah Marshall. Okay, Sarah, as we've already alluded to, a big part of the satanic panic in the 80s was this idea of what was called backmasking. It was this idea that, like, the theory was that there were all these songs out there where the artists had embedded messages in the song, and if you played the song backwards, you would pick up some sort of a command or a directive about something having to do with Satan. And as a kid who was looking for this in many songs, I gotta tell you, these messages are a major stretch. We're gonna play you the supposed satanic messaging in the song. We're gonna play the song backwards. And then you just have to try to figure out what even is the song. Like, what is the source material. But here we go. This is the first one. I'll give you a little hint, too. This is a more recent song. Okay. But somebody has decided that if you play this part of this song backwards, it says the stars above, above. He models on the arts of Lucifer. Did you? I mean, that's a slam dunk. Honestly, I think I heard everybody. Every syllable.

[Sarah Marshall]

As good as it's gonna get. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you name the song that supposedly has that message back masked into it?

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay. Could this possibly be Ariana Grande? That's all.

[Luke Burbank]

You're in the right era. You're close. It's actually anybody in the audience. Any guesses? Paparazzi. Okay, we found a Satanist. Get him out of here.

[Camille Dungey]

Maybe there's no other superstar, you know, that I.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, here's another one. Supposedly the satanic lyrics that are embedded backwards in this song. And this is an older one now. Now we're going back even before the 80s by a little bit. Supposedly this says Satan. He hears this. He had me believe in him. I mean, one of the things about this backmasking is it is absolute doggerel. Like, because they're trying to reverse engineer it from the sounds. The lyrics are so bad. They're not what I would write if I was writing a message in honor of Satan. But okay, Satan, he hears this. He had me believe him.

[Sarah Marshall]

Why am I enjoying these so much? Is this Hotel California?

[Luke Burbank]

It's Hotel California. That is absolutely. See, that's how you play the game, Sarah.

[Sarah Marshall]

And like, what a wonderfully creepy song. Four words already.

[Luke Burbank]

I was gonna say you can't find

[Camille Dungey]

Satan and you could check out, but you could never leave.

[Elena Passarello]

It's right there.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, what is it? They slash him with the steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast. They kill the beast. That's pretty Satany forward, honestly.

[Sarah Marshall]

And yet I also love. They're always like, it's just about fame. And it's like, yeah, fame is pretty creepy.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, here's the final one. This one, the back mask lyric is allegedly. And I will say, if anything, it's a bit on the repetitive side. I love Satan. I love Satan. I love Satan. I love Satan.

[Sarah Marshall]

That's fun.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I feel less safe in the world having heard that.

[Casa Overall]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

What? God.

[Luke Burbank]

Don't work too hard on this because I think it's unlikely you'll get it.

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay, so I'm feeling like this is more obscure. I'm just gonna say the wreck of the Edmund Fitzcarroll.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, God. That would be. Wouldn't that be amazing? An incredible development in the story of that song.

[Sarah Marshall]

Has anyone checked?

[Camille Dungey]

No.

[Elena Passarello]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not actually, like a pop music song as much as it's associated with, I guess you would say, an animated product that's also celebrated on playing cards. Pokemon theme. That's forwards. I can't tell the difference. And then just for, just for funsies, this is one last bit of backmasking. And it's actually very easy to tell what the person is saying because this is the band elo and they intentionally, Jeff Lynn intentionally wanted to do this on one of the records. So this is played backwards. This is what it sounds like. The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back, turn back, turn back, turn back. And Jeff Lynn was never seen again after that. So, anyway, Sarah Marshall, what a sport. The podcast is the devil you know. Do check it out. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on livewire. That was Sarah Marshall recorded live at the Alberto Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Make sure to check out her podcast, the Devil youl Know, wherever you get that kind of stuff. Hey, special thanks this episode to Becky Robbins of Portland, Oregon, and Jeff Parnaby of Dallas, Texas. Jeff and Becky are part of the Livewire member community, and they are generously supporting our show with a donation each month. And boy howdy, are we grateful for that support because it is the way that we were able to keep doing Livewire week in and week out. So big thanks to Becky and Jeffrey for keeping Livewire going. You're tuned in to Livewire from prx. Our next guest is a poet and author whose work is known for how it holds tension and tenderness in equal measure. She's written four collections of poetry, a book about urban gardening, and the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Journeys Into Race, Motherhood, and History, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her latest work, A Love Story, is her first book of poetry in almost a decade. This is Camille Dungey, who we talked to at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Camille, welcome back to livewire.

[Camille Dungey]

Thank you for having me back.

[Luke Burbank]

It is so nice to see you again.

[Camille Dungey]

Yay.

[Luke Burbank]

I really enjoyed this book. It took you, I've heard, about 10 years to write, or almost 10 years to write. First of all, why did it take 10 years? And is it hard to keep the thread going over the course of 10 years for a particular kind of book?

[Camille Dungey]

Well, I mean, it's a love story, so we like those to be long. Yes, ideally ongoing and evolving. And so the stories just kind of kept. It wasn't quite finished. And then one of the loves that I'm exploring is mother, daughter. And I realized when I finally was ready to release it, my daughter also moved out of our house at the same time. So it kind of closed that chapter. And then I let the book go at the same time, you know, did

[Luke Burbank]

you know initially, when you were starting to work on these poems that motherhood was going to be a big theme of the book?

[Camille Dungey]

I don't know. I think I'm the kind of writer that I like to just write regularly, and to do that, I need to write what's on my mind. And, you know, I had a person.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Camille Dungey]

So that was on my mind a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Camille Dungey]

And so it's not surprising, but it wasn't necessarily what I set out to do. I didn't say, now I'm gonna write about motherhood any more than I thought. I'm gonna write about what it means to be black in America, which is also on my mind and shows up a lot in the book. Right. So it's just, what are the things that are constantly in my view? And then how can I make those something that I can hold and see and, I don't know, feel a little bit more clearly?

[Luke Burbank]

Could we hear a poem from the book?

[Camille Dungey]

You can hear a poem from the book. All right. So you're on the motherhood angle. So that's where we're going to go. Okay. So there's a little. There's a big word here in the title. This is one of my favorite college words. I was in a lecture, and the professor was at the board talking about. This was the prelapsarian story, and I had to look it up. Which means he wasn't the best professor. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

I'd never heard that word or experienced it until I read this book.

[Camille Dungey]

Before the fall. Before the fall of Adam and Eve and before all the sins of man show up. Just so you know. So now you have this word. Prelapsarian. It's the title of the poem. That's why I gave you all that information. Prelapsarian. That first night, we slept without disturbance. Ray into a father, me into a mother, Callie into Callie. All of us knocked out by the work of being born. But the second night, we realized how excruciating our situation truly was. Impossible. Ray couldn't sleep on the uncomfortable chair that reclined into an uncomfortable bed. My bed's mattress was unevenly deflated. The baby refused her plexiglass bassinet. I imagined a princess asleep in a casket. I nursed her and tried to replace her. Ray rocked her and tried to replace her. I nursed her again. Ray made a sling of his robe, nestled the bawling baby against his bare skin. She slept, it seemed, just a moment. I nursed her again. I wondered if she was taking advantage of us, She's three days old, said the nurse. If she's acting hungry, she's probably hungry. She's too young to lie to you yet.

[Luke Burbank]

Lovely. Camille Dungey reading From a Love Story, her new collection of poems here on livewire. Now, you were writing obviously before you had your daughter and then after. In fact, there's a poem in the book I'm kind of paraphrasing where I think you write. I thought there was gonna be a lot more time for sort of, I forget the exact word you use, but

[Camille Dungey]

yeah, I thought parenthood was gonna be this reflective time, but it's a now centered endeavor. You might be worried about tomorrow, but you're worried about making sure tomorrow happens right now.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, other than being obviously a big topic for you, because like you said, it's right in sort of the forefront of your mind at all times. Did it change also how you thought about writing or what the stakes were for you for the writing? There's this other person in the world now.

[Camille Dungey]

Yeah. One of the things that changed was method. And so that poem that I just read is one of these, a bunch of poems in this book that are exactly 700 characters long because I discovered that the Average mother loses 700 hours of sleep in the first year of their child's life, which is a lot of sleep. It's in fact February in a leap year amount of sleep. Like, it's so much sleep. And so I just started writing these poems that had this weird little constraint of being exactly 700 characters long. And it's super persnickety and really hard to do, but also totally invisible. I don't tell you. Except for I just did, but I normally don't tell you which poems it is. So it's like this invisible labor also.

[Casa Overall]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

We're talking to Camille Dungey here on livewire. Her latest book is a love story. This book is not just about motherhood. It's about connection and place. And I'm wondering if it was hard for you or challenging for you at times to write about connection and place and togetherness in a place like the United States that over the last 10 years has been the way it is, particularly towards people of color.

[Camille Dungey]

Yeah. So one of the things that has been an interesting response is that this book feels so current, even though I've written it over a period of time, a decade. And some of the poems were written in another iteration of, you know, like a time or whatever. And like, it turns out we're a cyclical Nation, Right. And so a lot of the things that make it difficult to demand love, achieve love, just settle and rest, keep coming back. And so it's frustrating, but not particularly surprising if you live in this country with your eyes open, that we cycle through these violences as well as these celebrations.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's. There's a poem. It's, I think, the final poem of the book, Let me. Which when I read it, I thought she must have written this right before they. They published the book. And then I was looking in the notes and it had been. You know, it had been written many years previous. And to your point, it feels very relevant. Could we hear that poem?

[Camille Dungey]

We can hear that poem. Let me. Let me tell you, America, this one last thing. I will never be finished dreaming about you. I had a lover once, if you could call him that. I drove to his apartment in a faraway town. Like the lost bear who wandered to our cul de sac that summer. Smoke from the burning mountain altered our air. I don't know what became of her. I drove to so many apartments in the day. America. This is really the very last thing. He'd stocked up for our weekend together on food he knew I would like. Vegetarian pad Thai, some black bean and sweet potato, chili, coconut ice cream, a bag of caramel popcorn, loads of Malbec. He wanted to make me happy. But he drank until I would have been a fool not to be afraid. I'd been drinking plenty, too. It was too late to drive myself anywhere safe. I watched him finger a brick as if to throw it at my head. Maybe that's a metaphor. Maybe that's what happened. America. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference with you. All I could do was lock myself inside his small bedroom. I pushed a chest against the door and listened as he threw his body at the wood. Listened as he tore apart the pillow I had sewn him. He'd been good to me, but this was like waiting for the walls to ignite. You've heard that. America. In a firestorm, some houses burn from the inside out. An ember caught in the eaves, wormed through the chinking will flare in the insulation on the frame until everything in the house succumbs to the blaze. In the morning, I found him on the couch, legs too long, arms spilling to the carpet, knuckles bruised in the same pattern as a hole in the drywall. Every wine bottle empty, each container of food opened, eaten or destroyed. I didn't want you to have this, he whispered. If he could not consume my body, the food he'd given me to eat would have to do. Have you ever seen a person walk through the ruins of a burnt out home? Please believe me, I am not making light of such suffering. America, maybe the dream I still can't get over is that so far I have made it out alive.

[Luke Burbank]

Camille T. Dungy reading from a Love story here on livewire. At the very, very end of this book you write, perhaps one day I will write a simple love story, but this is the United States and I am who I am. Do you hold any hope that there will be a day that you can just write a straight up simple love story?

[Casa Overall]

Wow.

[Camille Dungey]

I guess not.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, that's an answer.

[Camille Dungey]

I want to be able to say yes, but my response to that question suggests that maybe not, but maybe it could be simpler. Like we don't have to make it as complicated as we do. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Maybe the follow up question then is what keeps you going when you, like a lot of us are struck by this feeling that things may not always get better. You know, maybe it doesn't bend towards justice as we sort of have hoped. So what keeps you going in the face of that?

[Camille Dungey]

It's, it's a question of scale and scope and where I look, right? So I can look at home and I can look at those places where I really can get love and be loved and love others. So I can look at my husband, my child, my parents, my friends, like this core, my community. And then each time that grows, we can get a little larger and wider. And then as with any kind of tension, there'll be a moment where it falls apart. But maybe we can grow that circle of love a little bit and a little bit and a little bit until it gets really bigger, better.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Start that by grabbing a copy of this book. It's a love story by Camille T. Dungy. Camille, thank you so much for coming on livewire. Appreciate you.

[Camille Dungey]

Thanks for having me.

[Luke Burbank]

You're listening to Livewire. A little preview of what we are doing on the show. Next week we're going to be talking to the best selling author Melissa Febos about her latest book. Here was the project. Melissa decided she was going to voluntarily stay celibate for 90 days but actually found it to be so revelatory that she continued this on for a long time and wrote this book called the Dry Season about it. Then we will chat with the journalist Evan Ratliff about his mind bending podcast Shell Game. Here's what he did. He created an AI version of himself complete with a voice clone that Sounded just like him. And then he unleashed this AI version of himself on friends, family, a therapist, and we're gonna hear how that went. Then we'll get some music from the very fun psychedelic cumbia band Tropa Magica. So we got a lot of Livewire coming your way next week. Do not miss it. We have to take a very quick break, but stick around, because when we come back, we are gonna hear some incredible music from jazz drummer Casa Overall, who's gonna do things with both hip hop and jazz that will make you hear and feel things based on those genres, but in a totally new way. So don't go anywhere. More Livewire in just a moment. Welcome back to Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay. Our musical guest this week is a drummer, rapper, and producer from Seattle. He's toured with Jon Batiste, among many others, and he's appeared on the NPR Tiny Desk Concert series. He's also a 2025 recipient of the Doris Duke Foundation Prize. His latest album is Cream. It's his fourth solo album, and on it, he pays homage to the twin passions of his youth growing up in Seattle. Hip hop and jazz drums in the tradition of Elvin Jones, transforming beloved hip hop songs from the 90s and aughts into timeless standards that are rhythmically adventurous, witty, and often sublime. This is Casa Overall, who joined us live at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Check this out.

[Casa Overall]

Hey, hey, hey.

[Luke Burbank]

Welcome to the show.

[Casa Overall]

Thanks for having me. This is awesome.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, can we talk about this album, Cream? I have been enjoying it so much as, like, a hip hop head and a kind of a, I would say, emerging jazz fan. I mean, there's a lot about the form that, I don't know. I found it so interesting the way that you were able to, you know, play your interpretation of some of these songs that I was aware of, but in a way that was, like, not a cover, but just had echoes of things that were familiar to me, like this perfect balance. How did you figure that out? And can you maybe explain for the audience what the concept of the album is?

[Casa Overall]

Yeah. Well, first off, thank you. So, in a nutshell, we took rap songs from the 90s, and we performed them like it was a jazz record in the 60s, like a blue Note record or something. And the thing about that is there's actually a tradition of that. You know, if you look at people like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, they would take the songs that were popular at the time and then use those as vehicles to improvise and the thing about that is, if you don't do something like that, then people might not have a way in. So when you play something that people know, they have an anchor point to understand how far you're going.

[Luke Burbank]

And is it almost a little bit of a. I don't want to say a trapdoor, but it's like somebody sees a track on the record as Big Papa, and maybe they're thinking about the Biggie version or whatever, and then two minutes later, they're just listening to really, really good jazz.

[Casa Overall]

Absolutely. So we're utilizing the harmony, we're utilizing the melody, we're utilizing the rhythm, but it's like we're taking them, like ingredients, you know? And the thing about music is that when you're an improviser or a spontaneous composer, as I would like to call it, there's no limit. There's no, like, oh, I ran out of ideas. You know what I mean? There's never a lack of ideas. It's actually the opposite. You're trying to find a way to contain it. So when you take a song like Big Papa, it gives you a framework to work within. Cause as a jazz musician, like, we're, you know, we can play a lot of notes.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. We could be here for hours.

[Casa Overall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So it really gives you a space to say, okay, just like a painter or something, you know, like, I'm going to deal with these colors, I'm going to deal with these historical contexts and then build off of that.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we hear a song?

[Casa Overall]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

What are we going to hear?

[Casa Overall]

Okay, so this one, in the spirit of improvisation, this one is partially freedom jazz dance and Busta Rhymes. Put your hands where my eyes could see but thank you. Shout out to Buster. But since we've been touring this last tour, we started putting Nefertiti, which is a Miles Davis song, over that foundation. So we kind of replaced freedom jazz dance with Nefertiti. And then I'm putting some of my lyrics from another song of mine, ready to ball. So it's like a whole mishmash. So this is kind of a new thing right here, right now.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, Casa Overall here on Livewire. Sam. It.

[Casa Overall]

Got a shine to. Got a shine to it Gotta shine to it I could get it if I put my mind to Gotta shine to it I could get it if I put my mind to it don't you. You go falling in love with the shiny things. Shine to it Put mine to it Gotta shine to it I could get it if I put my Mind to it don't fall in in love with the shiny. I'm not tripping off a little Getting big things Popping out a little zit need my contract with a couple zips and a full fifth Just to tell the truth with the pulpit that this is all just bullsh Should I get it even if it's with a full clip? Should I get it even if it's with a full clip? Should I get it even if I gotta sell a whip? Gotta shine to it I could get it if I put my mind to it Gotta shine to it I could get it if I put my mind to it Gotta shine to it I could get it if I put my mind to it don't go falling in love with the shiny things. I never seen a love as strong as human need is never enough as far as you can see See to build these golden handcuffs for you and me the jewelry's. I never seen a hate it's great, it's jealousy there's never enough to make us pleased to see that he got more than me I might have to make a plea shy too it got a shine to it I never seen another way we all look the other way Power is what power does Hope it don't devour us Gotta get it, gotta shine to it I could get it if I put my mind to it they gotta shine to it I

[Luke Burbank]

could get it if I put my mind to it Sa.

[Casa Overall]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Casa Overall live at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. His incredible album Cream is available right now. All right, that is going to do it for this week's episode of Livewire. A huge thanks to our guests Sarah Marshall, Camille Dungey and Casa Overall.

[Elena Passarello]

Lara Haddon is our executive producer, and Melanie Savchenko is our producer. Producer and editor. Eben Hoffer is our technical director. Trey Hester is our assistant editor, Valentine Keck is our operations director, and Ashley park is our marketing manager.

[Luke Burbank]

Our house sound is by Dee Neil Blake, and our house band is Sam Pinkerton, Ethan Fox Tucker, Rachel Brashear, and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Eben Hoffer and Tre Hester.

[Elena Passarello]

Additional funding provided by the James F. And Marion L. Miller Foundation. Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff.

[Luke Burbank]

For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head ON over to livewireradio.org I'm Luke Burbank. For Elena Passarello and the whole Livewire team, thank you for listening and we will see you next week. Hey, if you appreciate the work that Livewire is doing to amplify riveting and unexpected voices to a national audience, and I gotta tell you, it's a big audience these days, please, please, please consider offering some monthly support by becoming a member of our League of Extraordinary Listeners. Here's how it works. Membership starts at just five bucks a month and there are great perks at every level, including a special shout out on the broadcast. Impress your friends by being shouted out on live. It means the world to us and really does make it possible for us to do the show. So please, if you can help, support us by visiting livewireradio.org Memberships.

[Camille Dungey]

From prx.