David Simon’s “The Deuce” Charts the Rise of Pornography

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The New Yorker Radio Hour
Episode: David Simon’s “The Deuce” Charts the Rise of Pornography
Date: August 28, 2018
Host: David Remnick

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Episode Overview

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour explores three in-depth conversations:

1. David Simon discusses his television series The Deuce, which examines the rise of the pornography industry and its intersection with sex work in 1970s New York.
2. Yiyun Lee, fiction writer, reflects on her connection to place, memory, and fiction during a walk through Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery.
3. Nick Lowe, the “Jesus of Cool” British singer-songwriter, looks back on his career, the challenges of aging in rock music, and his family.

The focus of the first and central segment is the sociological and dramatic exploration of pornography’s transition from taboo to legitimate business, the realities of labor and misogyny in sex work, and the narrative approach behind The Deuce.

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1. David Simon on The Deuce and the Birth of Modern Pornography

Main Discussion Points

The Origins of the Deuce

• The Deuce was inspired by real stories about the rise of pornography, collected through a contact who had been a mob front for the Gambino family on 42nd Street.
  • “We walked out of Mark’s apartment... after listening to the guy for three and a half hours. He wasn’t done... We walked around the block and said, my God, I think we’re going to do a story about the rise of pornography.” — David Simon (02:13)

From Prohibition to Legitimacy

• The legalization of pornography in NYC stemmed more from court decisions than the sexual revolution.
  • “It was the courts, more than the sexual revolution that did this.” — David Remnick (04:20)
  • Simon elaborates on how courts, unable to consistently define “obscene,” essentially stopped enforcing prohibitions, enabling the sex industry to flourish rapidly with mafia investment.

The Labor of Sex Work

• Simon’s work centers the dignity and structural realities of all kinds of labor—even when undignified.
  • “Even when it’s undignified. That’s exactly right... I think that’s what we’re trying to convey, and then we’re trying to show you, well, so where does the power and the money route itself?” — David Simon (06:20)
• The Deuce straddles the line between individual experience and broader economic and power structures.

Misogyny and Writers' Room Dynamics

• Misogyny is a core theme. Simon acknowledges that to tell an authentic story, his team had to include women writers and invite argument and critique.
  • “This could in no way be the boys version of sex work, the boys version of pornography... We needed the woman’s voice in the room. We needed to be argued out of our own sensibilities.” — David Simon (07:59)
• Example: Changing a character’s name from a derogatory street nickname to a real name at the urging of women writers.
  • “Can this person have a name? ... She absolutely can have...” — David Simon (09:41)
• Lisa Lutz wrote an especially “fundamentally feminist” scene: a raw, honest diner conversation among sex workers (10:01–10:49).

Pornography’s Societal Impact

• Simon connects the ubiquity of porn to shifting gender attitudes and public tolerances, even within politics.
  • “We’ve gone so fast. I’m not sure we’ve taken stock of just how profoundly you think it’s affected consciousness.” — David Remnick (11:55)
  • “I think the blunt ubiquity of pornography has made the terminology and the demeanor with which men address women now... I think it’s transformed it.” — David Simon (12:38)

Simon’s Politics and Principle

• Simon identifies as left-leaning but is a “First Amendment literalist” — staunchly in favor of free speech, even for things he finds objectionable.
  • “I got no patience for anything that interrupts the idea of open speech. I find what’s going on on college campuses... incredibly naive...” — David Simon (14:14)
• He supports ideas further left than current politics, such as universal basic income, recognizing the impact of automation on work (15:28–15:47).

Legacy of Journalism

• Reflects on his journalism roots and hints at future writing projects.
  • “There are parts of me that think there’s gonna come a point where you don’t want to sit in those goddamn deck chairs at 4 in the morning... and at that point, maybe you should be writing prose again.” — David Simon (16:10)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Deuce’s mission:
  “If we fail... to create a world where real people seem to be laboring and trying to scratch out an existence... then I think we probably screwed up our mission.” — David Simon (06:20)
• On how porn and misogyny intertwine:
  “Porn itself influences the misogyny directed at... and the misogyny pushes porn. I think it’s quite a cycle.” — David Simon (13:51)

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2. Yiyun Lee: Cemeteries, History, and Fiction (17:39–23:44)

Main Discussion Points

• Lee takes listeners through Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery, reflecting on her love of visiting cemeteries worldwide and imagining the lives buried there.
  • “There are a lot of human stories buried in cemeteries. And I write fiction, so I like to imagine lives already lived...” — Lee Yiyun (18:14)
• She discusses the experience of immigration, finding a sense of home in California and how this seeps into her writing.
  • “I realized California is coming into my fiction too. So more and more, California feels native to me.” — Lee Yiyun (21:40)
• Individual family stories and local history (e.g., the Mazzanti graves) prompt deeper empathetic connections and narrative impulses.

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3. Nick Lowe: Aging, Music, and Family (25:03–38:07)

Main Discussion Points

Processing Loss and Growing Older

• Lowe mourns the recent loss of friends, notably longtime producer Neil Brockbank, reflecting on how mortality shapes his work and mindset.
  • “He worked for me for years and we collaborated. He also used to tell me if something I did was complete shit. Well, he died unexpectedly and really threw me for quite a loop.” — Nick Lowe (27:10)

Rejecting Rock Star Clichés

• Lowe has embraced aging in his music–rather than denying it like some contemporaries.
  • “To accept the fact that I was getting older and to actually sort of embrace it and use it as sort of an advantage instead of trying to hide it or be embarrassed about it... it sort of worked.” — Nick Lowe (28:54)

Family Memories

• He reminisces on his father, a Royal Air Force pilot, and how their worlds diverged, especially musically.
  • “He didn’t want really get it, you know... My mum was my big champion, you know, she sort of taught me how to play the guitar and sing.” — Nick Lowe (31:45–32:04)
• A moving story about his father’s final days and the symbolism of a half-shaved mustache (33:48–34:18).

Personal Identity

• Lowe frames his shift from potential pilot to musician not as rebellion, but as finding a life “that would have me.”
  • “‘A life that would have you and a life that would have me. How well put. Yes, it was a life that would have me. Exactly.” — Nick Lowe (35:49–36:03)

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Key Timestamps

• [00:09] - Introduction (David Remnick)
• [01:28–03:18] - David Simon details the real-life inspiration for The Deuce
• [04:20] - How courts (not just sexual revolution) legalized porn
• [06:09] - Simon on the dignity of labor
• [07:32–08:53] - Writers’ room dynamics and the need for women’s perspectives
• [10:01–10:49] - Feminist scene in The Deuce (discussion of menstruation among sex workers)
• [11:09–13:51] - The impact of porn’s ubiquity on society and misogyny
• [14:14–15:47] - Simon’s political philosophy (free speech, universal income)
• [16:08–16:35] - Journalism and future ambitions
• [17:39–23:44] - Yiyun Lee on cemeteries and belonging in California
• [25:03–38:07] - Nick Lowe on aging, music, loss, and self-discovery

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Tone and Style

• Reflective, thoughtful, and candid throughout, with Simon and Lowe both displaying self-awareness and humor even when addressing weighty issues.
• Lee’s segment is poetic, sensory, and deeply empathetic.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode deftly weaves together explorations of sex, labor, identity, and artistic legacy. Simon’s critique of both the structures of power and the culture they produce, paired with his commitment to authenticity and inclusivity in storytelling, sets the intellectual tone. Lee anchors fiction in the lived landscape and memory, while Lowe brings the conversation home—reminding us that finding belonging, whether in art or in life, is often about listening as much as it is about asserting one’s own voice.

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Notable Quotes Recap

• “We needed the woman’s voice in the room. We needed to be argued out of our own sensibilities.” — David Simon (07:59)
• “If we fail... to create a world where real people seem to be laboring... then I think we probably screwed up our mission.” — David Simon (06:20)
• “A life that would have you and a life that would have me. Exactly.” — Nick Lowe (36:03)
• “I like to imagine lives already lived and lives that are in the past so I can reimagine their lives and then I could make up a story.” — Yiyun Lee (18:16)

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Transcript

[Narrator/Producer]

From one World Trade center in Manhattan. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of the New Yorker and WNYC studios.

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. When the Wire debuted on HBO over 15 years ago, I don't think it's an overstatement to say that it changed television as we knew it. The show traced the underworld and the politics and the street life of Baltimore. And it was an ambitious piece of sociology as much as it was unbelievable drama. The Wire was dense, it was challenging, and not a few people say it was the best thing ever on television. That show was the work of David Simon and his latest project is a show called the Deuce and what the Wire had done for the drug trade of Baltimore. The Deuce does for sex work and the rise of pornography in 1970s New York City.

[Lee Yiyun]

So what's it like, Shay?

[David Simon]

Well, I'm just stuck.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

Loretta can tell you she's been in Sunlightin all year. Really?

[Nick Lowe]

Sunlightin'.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

Making movies during the day for the Machine.

[David Remnick]

Yeah, the Deuce is going into its second season on hbo and I sat down with David Simon almost exactly a year ago, just a few weeks after the first season had premiered. As I understand it, you and George Pellicanis, your collaborator on this program, had a conversation with somebody who sparked this idea. Tell me about that.

[David Simon]

We were working on Treme and the assistant locations manager was a fellow named Mark Henry Johnson. And he encountered this guy and befriended him and taken down tape after tape after tape of his memories of being a mob front for the mafia for the Gambino family on 42nd Street. Ran a bar up near the Brill Building that became quite famous in its day as sort of a demiman joint. Ran an after hours club later on.

[David Remnick]

What was the name of the place?

[David Simon]

If I say that, I think it identifies him and he's passed away and so has his twin brother. But I kind of feel like there's a lot of kids and grandkids and since the story is not, you know, it's not all heroics, I'm not sure that I have permission, if that makes sense.

[David Remnick]

Fair enough.

[David Simon]

But anyway, he. Mark said, you gotta come meet this guy. You gotta hear the stories. You know, it's about the rise of pornography. It's this moment where porn went from being under the counter, back alley in the basement to being the beginnings of a multi billion dollar industry and a legitimate one.

[David Remnick]

And what kind of stories was he.

[David Simon]

Telling you about all the people he knew and what happened to them? And who survived and who didn't and who was attritted and what happened. And, you know, all the lies within the truths and truths within the lies. But we didn't know that. We thought, oh great, it's a porn story. So George and I put him off and put him off. And finally we had a. We were coming up here for a sound mix, I think, on treme. And I said, george, you know, if we're. Let's just get this all over with because, you know, it'll be an hour, we'll shake hands, we'll be at the door. Three and a half hours later, we walked out of Mark's apartment in Tribeca after listening to the guy for three and a half hours. He wasn't done, but we were just. We pretended to go, need a cigarette? Neither one of us smoke. And we walked around the block and said, my God, I think we're gonna do a story about the rise of pornography. I mean, the stories were that compelling.

[David Remnick]

When the first episode opens, the world that we're in is the world of streetwalkers and pimps, not the world of porn. What happened?

[David Simon]

Well, I mean, there was. Listen, there's been pornography since the.

[David Remnick]

No, there's been skin magazines and the rest.

[David Simon]

Well, no, since the first French guy invented the camera and said, you know, he ran down the street looking for Parisian hookers to take their clothes off. And there's been prostitution since, you know, since, I believe, our testament. So nobody invented these things. But what happened around 1971 was the new York City courts began interpreting the inherent confusion over what is obscene in a very, you can either say pragmatic or laissez faire way. Which is to say we're done chasing this nonsense around to no particular point, because we can't obtain convictions anywhere above an appeals court. And the Supreme Court can't even give us any real guidance. So we're going.

[David Remnick]

So it was the courts, more than the sexual revolution that did this.

[David Simon]

There was sort of a hollowed out notion of what is the standard and of course, what are community standards in Times Square. They're very different from the rest of America. So it happened here and it happened with mafia money. And suddenly what was under the counter in a very short span of time became legal and unregulated.

[David Remnick]

I want to play a clip from the show. There's a scene where Maggie Gyllenhaal's character, a prostitute who goes by the name of Candy, she has a kid as a client, a kid who clearly it's his first Time having sex or anything close to it. And not surprisingly, he has an orgasm in no time flat. And he wants seconds.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

What do you do, Stuart?

[Nick Lowe]

I'm in school.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

What's your daddy do?

[Nick Lowe]

Sells cars. He's got a dealership.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

That's his job. Right. Someone comes in, knows just the car he wants, doesn't stick around, doesn't need a long test drive, doesn't argue about the color or whatever. Does he get in the car for less? Does he pay less than the guy who comes in? Takes forever. Gotta drive five or six cars, talk about the radio, the white walls, everything else before he's done and ready to buy.

[David Simon]

No.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

He doesn't give the easy customer two cars for the price of one.

[Lee Yiyun]

Right.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

This is my job, Stuart.

[David Remnick]

There is, as there is in the Wire and everything else you do, David, a really powerful sense of labor and even the dignity of labor in this.

[David Simon]

Even when it's undignified. That's exactly right. Which is to say, I think, our hearts, no matter where we go, whether it's recon Marines or trombone players or drug dealers or cops or sex workers, our hearts are either with. It's either on the assembly line or it's with middle management. You know, I think that's where our point of view is always strongest. I think that's what we're trying to convey, and then we're trying to show you, well, so where does the power and the money route itself? And if we sort of fail to do those two things, or we fail to create a world where real people seem to be laboring and trying to scratch out an existence, a plausible existence, and if we fail, I think, to address what they get and what they don't get in more macro terms, then I think we probably screwed up our mission.

[David Remnick]

Unless I'm crazy, one of the dominant themes of this is not just systems and economies and relationships of that kind, but misogyny. Oh, yeah, and this is created by David Simon and George Pellicanos, and Richard Price is a dominant writer here. But your writer's room is really interesting.

[David Simon]

Well, you just played in the first few. And yes, when we were trying to establish the template, I relied on sort of the. The writers that I came to the dance with many years ago on the Wire. But in order to shape the whole story and to bring it to a point that it needed to be, this could in no way be the boys version of sex work, the boys version of pornography.

[David Remnick]

How do you assemble a writer's room? How many people are in it and who's in there.

[David Simon]

Well, I chase novelists. That's my conceit, which is I'd rather have people who know how to write a multi POV novel than people who know how to write television. I can fix what ails a scene in terms of television. I can't fix content and I can't fix voice.

[David Remnick]

But even in the so called golden age of television, you don't have faith in that.

[David Simon]

No, no, I don't. I don't want somebody who can deliver a clinical 43 minute and 30 episode on TV. I want somebody who can write a novel to conclusion that has a beginning, a middle and an end. So I felt George was the first guy that I sort of threw it at. And then he and I went together to get Price. And then we, you know, on this one we went for Megan Abbott and Lisa Lutz. We needed the woman's voice in the room. We needed to be argued out of our own sensibilities. We needed to be argued into other sensibilities.

[David Remnick]

Tell me about some of those arguments. Give me an example.

[David Simon]

I'm trying to think. The one that I'm coming up with right now is not particularly substantive, but it's telling. There's a character named, whose name in the scripts was Thunder Thighs. Heavyset girl who was working. Heavyset woman who's working the corners. And she was named Thunder Thighs because that's what the original guy whose stories it was knew her as. We didn't have her real name. We had what he remembered her as and that was her street name. So she was that in the script. First moment when we brought women on and they looked at the scripts and they said, can this person have a name? You know, and instantly I think, you know, I felt a level of shame that like I didn't anticipate. It was like, she absolutely can have.

[David Remnick]

A name and I'm sorry, you're way better.

[David Simon]

Yeah, you're way better. But it was much more substantive than that. I mean, you know, there's a conversation in one of these later episodes where the working girls are in the diner and they all just want to get rid of the pimps. And they start talking about menstruation and they start talking about it in the most hyperbolic terms.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

Hear about these sponges, stick it up there.

[David Remnick]

Stops the blood long enough to fuck.

[Unidentified Female Voice]

John's can't tell the difference.

[David Remnick]

But you need to be careful. He gave me a yeast infection once.

[David Simon]

Larry, one of the pimps, you know, throws down his fork, shoves his plate away and walks away. And Then they can talk because he's not around. It was one of the most fundamentally feminist scenes in the piece. And it was. I think it was Lisa Lutz, if I'm remembering correctly, she delivered that one. So, I mean, what you're looking at is that's something, you know, I would not have thought to write that scene. And if I did write it, I literally would have gotten to the parts about. I would have gotten to all the, you know, all the genital realities and said. Or the venereal realities and said.

[David Remnick]

You would have run away from it.

[David Simon]

Yeah. Can a PA come in here and.

[David Remnick]

Tell me, you know, I think anybody who's watching this show has got to be casting their heads forward to where this lands, which is to say porn on every phone and computer and all the rest. The ubiquity of porn and the effect it's had on men. How do you feel about the effect.

[David Simon]

Of porn on society? Well, listen, you know, I come from newspapers. I'm a. I'm a First Amendment literalist. I don't see any means to regulate speech, open speech. But I think this has happened so fast that we've gone from, in 50 years from stealing your dad's Playboy or Penthouse magazine for a 12 year old to having any form of pornography, regardless of how sort of misogynistic the imagery might be, be available at your fingertips without intercession to that same 12 or 13 year old. We've gone so fast. I'm not sure we've taken stock of just how profoundly you think it's affected.

[David Remnick]

Consciousness in a way.

[David Simon]

Absolutely. I certainly think it's even affected political consciousness in the country. I don't think some of the things that were said in this last campaign cycle and accepted, and not just the pussy grabbing, which is, of course, the most startling moment. I mean, if you think back two political generations, maybe one and a half to Jimmy Carter and lusting in his own Heart in 1976, a very Christian, very sincere comment when asked about infidelity, that he had lusted in his own heart for other women. It nearly capsized his campaign. Trump barely broke stride after. After the tape came out. It was really a remarkable moment of.

[David Remnick]

And you think that's linked somehow to porn?

[David Simon]

I think the blunt ubiquity of pornography has made the terminology and the demeanor with which men address women now. I think it's transformed it. Yeah. And I think you really see it in, you know, give men the slightest bit of anonymity. You know, you have a lot of writers at the New Yorker. I imagine that what comes across the transom in terms of social media or comments at women more than men, you know, never fail. I mean, women are used to it. If you ever get used to it. Women have now been putting up with it for 10, 15 years of the Internet. It's astonishing. My wife is a novelist. What comes across at women nowadays.

[David Remnick]

She gets letters, she gets emails, she has a website.

[David Simon]

And I mean, you kill it out and you keep moving. And obviously the anonymity is part of the dynamic. But what men feel entitled now to say and to think and to even argue, I think is entirely informed by a 50 year run up that porn.

[David Remnick]

Itself influences the misogyny directed at a.

[David Simon]

And the misogyny pushes porn. I mean, I think it's quite a cycle.

[David Remnick]

All these projects and all your reporting and all your thinking in your adult life has led you to have what politics?

[David Simon]

David, I'm lefty.

[David Remnick]

How lefty?

[David Simon]

You know what? I'm left wing on about 85% of.

[David Remnick]

The issues and where not.

[David Simon]

I got no patience for anything that interrupts the idea of open speech. I find what's going on on college campuses to be incredibly naive, almost childlike. I'm very disappointed in it. I think dissent, open dissent, requires speech in order to survive, particularly in a time of an authoritarian government. And the idea that you would trade that away over some schnook that's saying some stupid stuff in a Berkeley lecture hall is embarrassing to me. It's like you would trade this weapon for that. That's not even tactical. So there are moments where I just walk, I listen to the left and I walk away and I say, man, you've never fought the way it has to be fought in your life. And that's why you just came up with that answer. But there are other times where I find myself to the left of the Democratic platforms. I think there should be a guaranteed income. I think we've reached the point in terms of the death of work and where we're going as a society in automation that we should already be guaranteeing people a basic income, which frankly, Richard Nixon got close to doing. He did, and was told, this will work. You give somebody 20, $30,000, 40,000, you give families that kind of money. It's all going back into the economy. It's not going into mutual funds, it's going right back into the economy. It would be an incredible boon to the country and it would, it would honestly take into account the fact that we don't need as many Americans to run this economy. As we once did.

[David Remnick]

You started out as a journalist and a damn good journalist. And I think you have a kind of love and some hate relationship to what lingers in journalism. How do you feel about it now? And do you have any plans to sort of make anything more than an op ed, like reentry into journalism? Because I could think of a good place for you to write.

[David Simon]

Is that an invitation?

[David Remnick]

It's always been an invitation.

[David Simon]

Well, I owe you a piece. You do. I owe you a piece. I mean, there are parts of me that think there's gonna come a point where you don't want to sit in those goddamn deck chairs at 4 in the morning at 164th street, you know, and wait for them to move the light. And at that point, maybe you should be writing prose again.

[David Remnick]

All right, then I'm patient.

[David Simon]

Cause then it's you. And it's an editor and a copy editor and, you know, and maybe a photographer.

[David Remnick]

Well, I'll wait for that day. And in the meantime, I'm loving this work.

[David Simon]

Well, thank you, David.

[David Remnick]

Thank you.

[David Simon]

Thank you for having me.

[David Remnick]

David Simon. Season 2 of the Deuce, which he created along with George Pellicanos, comes out next month on hbo. Yiyun Lee is a fiction writer who's published some great short stories and essays in the New Yorker going back to 2003. Li grew up in Beijing in the 70s. She was a child of the Communist regime, and as a teenager she spent a year in the Chinese army. After dark, though, she'd pull out her journal from where it was hidden under her bed, and as often as possible, she'd lose herself reading American novels. She moved to the States after college and started writing her own books in English, her second language. Lee eventually settled in Oakland, California, in the Bay Area, and she took us to one of her favorite places in the city.

[Lee Yiyun]

It is really a melancholy day for East Bay or for the Bay Area. It's wet and cold and chilly and windy. So it's a great day to visit the cemetery in a way. So this is the entrance, and so there's a main avenue. We are driving in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Wherever I go, I visit cemeteries. You know, I love Paris, and mostly I go to cemeteries. And when we visited Zagreb, we walked all the way uphill to, I think, one of the oldest cemeteries in Central Europe. And in Ireland, of course, you know, in America, too. I think part of the reason I'm drawn to cemeteries, I think there are a lot of human stories buried in cemeteries. And I write fiction So I like to imagine lives already lived and lives that are in the past so I can reimagine their lives and then I could make up a story. I think that's the main road and we can try to go up on the other side. You know, this is very much Haley, California, Berkeley. It's all hills and so all the roads are winding around the hill. And I think a lot of cemeteries you can easily find, you know, each lot who is buried there. And here it's a little difficult because it's a little bit like a maze. Every time you walk up there you find new things. Look at this. I don't know what this tree is. It's beautiful. And I think sometimes you notice names that you know right away, like Ghirardelli, the chocolate person. And some of the names are interesting to me. I think mostly because of the local history. You know, I'm not from California. I immigrated from China. And so I thought, you know, it doesn't matter if I'm from elsewhere, once I settle here, I want to know a little bit of this place. I want to know what happened. The making of California. It's almost like in itself a little story about this nation which to me is interesting. Different nationalities, different ethnicities. And I always imagine the people I read in the book, some of them probably are buried here. So now we're on top of the hill and if you look far, you can see San Francisco. But look at here, George J. Mazzanti. So if you see it's two hearts and that is Angelo Guy Mazzanti. So it's a five year old little boy with a little picture of a five year old boy that says forever young. So you know, the grandfather died in 1990 and, and the grandson died 1988. So the grandfather outlived the son for almost two years. And just think about that man, how that man felt. I like this lot, this, this plot a lot because they are from different places. A lot of immigrants buried here. United States Ambassador to the Federal State of Micronesia, California. Secretaries of State, California State Assemblyman. So this is a Chinese American who was, who held all these positions. And this is an old fashioned Chinese character that look almost like paintings to me. It's interesting as a. You need years of accumulation to understand the place. So I think I've written about China for 10, 12 years now, I think. But now I have lived in California for a little bit over a decade now. I realized California is coming into my fiction too. So more and more California feels native to me. In A way, you know, looking at the trees, the land. I've been working on this novel and one of the main characters, really the narrator, she's an old woman and she actually, in my imagination, she is in a retirement home not far from here, probably like five minutes away. And she, in my imagination, would one day be buried here.

[David Remnick]

Lee Yoon Lee at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Her most recent book is a collection of essays called Dear Friend from My Life. I write to you in your life. In a moment, we'll talk life and death with the beloved songwriter Nick Lowe. Stick around. I'm David Remnick, and next week on the show, the New Yorker's Eliza Griswold talks with Franklin Graham. Graham, who's the son of Billy Graham, is one of the most influential evangelical leaders in America. And they talk about Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and why Graham thinks both men have helped the cause of conservative Christians. That's next week on the New Yorker Radio Hour.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Okay, so this is downtown Piermont.

[Nick Lowe]

Nice. Looks like I'll be able to get a fancy coffee here.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Yes. Is that something you would like?

[Nick Lowe]

Yes, I think it is.

[Nick Paumgarten]

The Sidewalk Bistro looks like the place.

[David Remnick]

Last summer, the New Yorker's Nick Paumgarten met up with one of his heroes, the singer and songwriter Nicolo.

[Nick Lowe]

Hello.

[David Simon]

How are you?

[Nick Lowe]

How are you? I'm well, thank you.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

Playing in the area?

[Nick Lowe]

Yeah. Grant, I'm afraid that information is top secret.

[David Simon]

Oh, God.

[David Remnick]

I bet Lowe made it big as a pioneer of what the English called pub rock, a kind of back to basics rock movement that swept Britain in the 70s.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

Oh, I can't take another heartache though you say you're my friend but I'm at my wits end. You say your love is bona fide but that don't coincide with the things that you do.

[David Remnick]

Nick Lowe and Nick Paumgarten met a few years ago and they went shopping for eyeglasses. For some reason, Lowe wears these big, thick, heavy black frames that are a sort of signature look for him. And last summer, Paumgarten decided to catch up with Nick Lowe again.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

Baby, you gotta be cruel to be kind. Whoa.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Nick Lowe is this tall, blonde, geeky guy with glasses, except he's not blonde. He's got this great shock of white hair. And he's not really geeky either. He's actually about as cool as they come. The Jesus of cool, they call him, after an album of his from 1978.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

I remember the night the kid cut off his right arm in a bed to save a bit of power. He got 50,000 watts in a big acoustic towel.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Nick was staying near a town called Piermont on the Hudson River. He was playing some gigs nearby. One morning he and I went for a walk around town. A few weeks before, he'd lost one of his dearest friends and co conspirators, his longtime producer, Neil Brockbank. And he was pretty broken up about it.

[Nick Lowe]

This was Neil? Neil Brockbank. Oh yes. Thank you for knowing that. He was way more than a friend, really. He was. He worked for me for years and we collaborated. He used to produce my records. He also used to tell me if something I did was complete shit. Well, he died unexpectedly and really threw me for quite a loop. There was a sort of. There was a trio of. It was me fellow called Bobby, Irwin and Neil. And now I'm the only one of those left. The other two are now dead.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Bobby died a couple years ago.

[Nick Lowe]

Yeah, that's right. Both of lung cancer. Smoke like chimneys.

[Nick Paumgarten]

I've been interested for while in how rock and roll artists handle getting older. Some do the Mick Jagger thing. They pretend they're still jumping Jack Flash. Some go the Rod Stewart route. They sing it had to be you. But Lowe found a different way to go about it. He started writing and performing these low key, suave, cheeky little gems played with poise and panache.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

I'm 61 years old now. Lord, I never thought I'd see 30. Though I know this road is still some way to go. I can't help thinking on will I be beloved and celebrated for my masterly climb for just another bum when it comes to checkout time.

[Nick Lowe]

The thing was for me to. To accept the fact that I was getting older and to actually sort of embrace it and use it as a sort of an advantage instead of trying to hide it or be embarrassed about it. Some of my colleagues and associates have to do that, really behave like they did when they were young. And I wanted to avoid that rubbish, you know, at all costs. And it sort of worked. It gave us the excuse, you know, to do almost whatever we wanted. Yes.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

And when it's time to pay the bill. And then I get.

[Nick Paumgarten]

I saw him perform recently at Lincoln center and in some ways he seemed better than ever, but still, this getting older business, the deaths of old friends, it's all caused him to think a little bit more about his father. His dad was an officer in the Royal Air Force.

[Nick Lowe]

When was this?

[Nick Paumgarten]

This was after the war.

[Nick Lowe]

Yeah. Yes. Although he joined the Air force in the 1930s when it was. I don't Think back then, there was anything cooler you could have done than be an RAF pilot. It was like being in U2, you know, he was. He himself was from a military family, but his parents really treated him rather badly, actually. They seemed to do their best to avoid seeing him as much as they could. So he, they were in India. They sent him to boarding school in the UK and in the, in the holidays, instead of going out to India like a lot of them did, you know, he used to go and stay with his friend of, of his parents. He's out on his bike one day, he was about 14 or 15, I think, and he saw a plane in the sky and it landed in a field. And my dad asked the pilot if he could get a job, you know, in the. Wherever the airfield was that he'd come from, which wasn't very far away. He got a job sweeping up and cleaning out the plane. And in return for that, this guy gave my dad flying lessons and he learned to fly. And as soon, as soon as he could, he joined the Air Force. And he always used to say that the Air Force was. Became sort of his family.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

I live on a battlefield Surrounded by the ruins of the love we built and then destroyed between between us the smoke has cleared As I stumble through the rubble I'm a daisy and double and I'm truly mystified My new home.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Is a shell hall I gather your. Your father didn't know what to make of the music you were making or.

[Nick Lowe]

The music you were into.

[Nick Paumgarten]

He wasn't.

[Nick Lowe]

No, he didn't. He. He didn't want really get it, you know, he was. So I think he was sort of disappointed. You know, My mum was the. Was my big champion, you know, she sort of taught me how to play the guitar and sing.

[David Remnick]

Your mother?

[Nick Lowe]

Yeah, she came from a show business family in fact, so she was. She encouraged me like mad. And even if. And I brought home some of my really terrible records, you know, she made, my. My dad listened to them, poor chap. But the only. The only record I actually saw him put on was when we got. First got a stereo and he bought this record which was of trains pulling into the station. I don't think he had a clue what stereo was, but when he heard this record of trains pulling into the station, he put that on, he could, you know, and the train noise would go from one speaker to the other and he'd say, yes, come over here. You can hear about, Yes, I think this is better over here. Yes. You know, stepping over into the different parts of the. No, no. If you come here, you come here in all its magnificence, you know, that cheered him right up.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Not for him, Sergeant Peppers.

[Nick Lowe]

Nothing like that. When did your father die? It was probably about 12 years ago now, something like that.

[Nick Paumgarten]

And had he come around to what.

[Nick Lowe]

You were doing at this point? He had totally got it by this time. I'd. I suppose I had more actual visible success when I was on the TV all the time and actually getting records in the charts, 70s, 80s. Yeah. He didn't really like that stuff very much. He liked the later stuff much more. Yes, yes. It was rather sad. When he was dying in hospital, I went to see him and. And he had this RAF moustache all his life. Even from the very early pictures of him, he had this handlebar moustache. Sort of cliche in a way, except he had one in the 1930s.

[David Simon]

Right.

[Nick Lowe]

And I came to see him shortly before he died and someone had shaved half of it off. They'd obviously come around to do a. To shave him. Yeah. And they. Their hand had slipped or something like that, and. And they go, oh, dear, oh dear. But they just left him with half a moustache. It was very, very sad and poignant moment. He didn't. He didn't know anything about it, but, you know, I thought, oh, man, this is the ending.

[David Simon]

It is.

[Nick Lowe]

This is very, very bad.

[David Simon]

Yeah.

[Nick Lowe]

Very bad form indeed. You didn't have to tell him. No, I didn't turn. I didn't tell him. But yes, he saw me. For a man, he always thought that the greatest pop record ever made was Limbo Rock by Chubby Checker. And he said to me one night when he was. He'd had a few drinks, he said, why would anybody bother with this stuff anymore? It's impossible to beat it, you know. So, you know, the. The majesty of Bridge Over Troubled Waters, you know, moved him not, you know, imagine could have been anything, you know. Limbo rock chubby, chubby Every limbo boy.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

And girl all around the limbo world.

[David Simon]

Gonna do the limbo rock all around the limbo clock Jack be limber Jack be quick Jack go on the limbo.

[Nick Lowe]

The military world, you know, felt totally natural to me, you know. I've never recoiled in horror for all that marching, you know. I used to think makes all makes sense, you know, because I was raised in it. And I would have liked to have been in the Air Force as well, you know, I would been a pilot. I would have loved it. But I wasn't nearly bright enough to tackle the maths and all the other stuff and to apply myself. And in any case, by that time rock and roll had come along and I was, you know, it's willing slave.

[Nick Paumgarten]

It wasn't so much rebellion for you.

[Nick Lowe]

As it was just following.

[Nick Paumgarten]

Following a life that interested you.

[Nick Lowe]

Yes. And that would have you. A life that would have you and a life that would have me. How well put. Yes, it was a life that would have me. Exactly.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

In my life I've done things I'm not proud? And too often watch my dreams turn to sand? But it looks like I might have turned a corner? You make me want to be a better man? There's no new leaves left for me to turn over? I'm in a prison built by my own hands? I pray at last I found salvation? You make me want to be a better man? I can go on a living this.

[Nick Lowe]

Way.

[Nick Lowe Singing]

And that's a fact I know you understand? I don't know much but one thing is for certain? You make me want to be a better man.

[David Remnick]

Nick Lowe. He'll be on tour starting in Texas next month and he spoke with the New Yorker's Nick Pongarten. And that's it for the show today. We hope you'll join us next week and in the meantime, make sure to follow us on Twitter New yorkerradio. Have a great week.

[Narrator/Producer]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Bottin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Cal A Leah, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix, Stephen Valentino and Richard Yehudis, with help from Terence Bernardo, Michelle Moses, Emily Mann and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Torina Endowment Fund.