Taylor Dayne & Bronwyn Saglimbeni: Tellin' It From Her Heart
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So Taylor, you have your Bradley Cooper moment, but with Prince. And you go out on stage and he's at the piano, but you're singing stuff that you don't. It's not like you had a rehearsal or you even knew the lyrics. Like talk about what you had to do.

No, he was singing some gospel song. I was up in the balcony. Imagine like you're in old school theater. It was in the red light district. We were in Frankfurt. It was insane or Hamburg. I need some help up here. I need some payload. I'm like, what? What? No. I go, Diane, you're coming. The bodyguard's like, you ready? He wants you. And I go, uh, can she come with me? He's like, I guess so. So we go down. We're walking through this crap and everybody's staring and it's all fantastic. But literally you're just floating. You have no idea what you're doing.

Hello, I am so happy to bring on one of my favorite people, Taylor Dane, singer, songwriter, and legend. I'm Linda Severson, and this is the Beautiful Writers Podcast. Odds are that with 75 million albums sold and 18 top 10 hits, you have kissed, danced, or sang your heart out to Miss Taylor's voice. She's about to share stories of what it was really like to open up for Michael Jackson in a stadium of...

60,000 people on the Rad Tour? Plus, what happened when Prince brought her unsuspecting newbie little self up on stage in an instance remarkably similar to a Lady Gaga-Bradley Cooper scene from A Star Is Born?

Music literally saved Taylor in childhood. In her very raw and real memoir, Tell It to My Heart, named after that ballad you just heard, Taylor opens up in a way you've never heard her before. She gets super vulnerable and reveals the tools she used to go from an abused and deathly ill child to a teen with severe agoraphobia to somehow fully embracing superstardom in her early 20s.

My guest co-host today is Bronwyn Sanglimbeni, one of my other favorite people on planet Earth.

She's my co-author on our upcoming book, Time Debt. Like Tay, Bronwyn is a mom and a singer who, when not running her communications company and getting her clients ready for interviews with Oprah or Bill Maher or producing, writing, or directing over 175 TED, TEDx, TED Global, or TED Women Talks, Bronwyn is belting out rock standards to packed houses with her own band.

Yep, both of these ladies are creative ass kickers. If you haven't yet had your dose of caffeine today, no worries. We have got you. I'm going to do something new and I think fun for the show and include snippets of a few of Taylor's songs to come and a mystical moment at the close. So be sure and listen all the way through because she is so amazing.

We're going to talk about healing and what it's like to write brutal truths about family members who y'all are still alive. We're going to cover how to overcome the fear of being seen and learning to trust yourself. Bronwyn has really unique insights about why giving a TED Talk is stressful like nothing else, as does Taylor on how an audience will never reward you for holding back. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome.

Hey, hey, Bronnie. You're two of my all-time favorite rockin' babes. I can't sing. You both wow me with your voices, and I'm so happy to connect you two. Beautiful. I'm so happy to be here talking to you, Taylor, and to you, Linda, as always. But what a joy. Linda, you've been such a mentor to me. My heart is full. Thank you.

Oh, baby. All right. Kay, do you remember how old you were when you knew that you wanted to touch millions of people with your voice? Do you remember the first time you could see it or feel it clearly? Yeah, I think there's that moment. Of course, when we're four or five, we feel omnipotent. And there was this moment listening to radio and being able to sing along with it. You know, I grew up in an apartment building, so I was constantly staring out a second story window and dreaming.

And I have to say that, yeah, right then and there, I said, I know what I'm going to be. I don't know what the rest of y'all are going to do, but I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to sing like Stevie Wonder on that radio or Karen Carpenter.

And I don't know about the touching millions, but I just knew I'd be heard by millions. That was still me, myself, and I at four and five, trust me. You know, Taylor, one of my favorite, favorite quotes from your memoir is when you say, an audience doesn't reward an artist for holding back. I like triple underlined that and dragged my tween daughters into my office and I read it to them. And they're both in musical theater, shout outs to CMT.

But they didn't quite understand what it meant. So I explained what I thought it meant, but I wanted to hear in your words, what does that mean? An artist doesn't get rewarded for holding back. Yeah. Listen, I have the privilege and the honor of doing this, which means primarily recording music and touring and being paid for it for the last 30 years. Unbelievable. When I perform live, which I can honestly, and as Linda knows, you know, I tour a

All the time.

And for the artists I've watched and performed, if you can't connect with them, look, you can go through motions, but you have to connect. And the connection is everything. It's second nature to me now. It's a muscle. I've tuned it. I've worked it. I feel like if you're not really truthful, if you're not putting that on the stage, then I don't see how you can fake it to make it, honestly.

Yeah. But it's interesting. I remember hearing critiques of rock shows throughout my life saying, oh, it was a really emotionally honest show. And I'd be like, what the hell does that mean? And then when you get more into it, of course, when you get on stage and you get in the pocket, right? Emotional honesty means I am expressing all my vulnerability and I'm putting it all out there, which I feel like is so what you do. I mean, you just go for it, Taylor.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting. You said your daughters are in musical theater. So right then and there, they're saying words that perhaps they didn't write, but they have to live truthfully in these imaginary circumstances. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes perfect sense. In another way, they're playing a character. You know, I felt the same way if I broke down being on Broadway doing stage and somehow you have to truthfully live in an imaginary circumstance. When I'm on stage as Taylor Dane, it's

It's about as truthful as it gets. I'm counting how many people are in the seats. I'm wondering if I'm touching the last row. You know, in theater, you're hoping backed up by there's a million other layers involved. It says my name on the marquee.

So when you're Taylor Dayne on stage and you're just connecting and connecting and it's you they came to see and it's you and your voice and it's the authentic package, how do you see the audience differently when you are, say, in character and you're feeling them without, it's not like you're looking out at the audience trying to make eye contact. You're staying in the little microcosm of the stage. Yeah.

Theater is this wonderful world, which it is touring. I've had some of my band members with me 25 years, but I've had the luxury of performing multiple characters now on stage. But I will say definitely there's a separation, but I go into character pretty much the same way. It's like getting on a bull and riding in a rodeo. It's like I'm going out for broke.

I think musical theater is really valuable for kids. I remember my sister was in Oliver and it was a big musical in our town. I'm sitting in the front row and my little sister gets up there and she's singing and dancing and doing everything and she's getting the applause. And I'm thinking, I want to do that. Why is she getting all that attention? And so I joined the theater. And here I'm like three years older than her. And I was an athlete. Like I had never cared about that stuff, but I was like, Hey, that looks like fun.

So I joined, and I think I was the Wicked Witch of the West for the first one. And then I was the Grinch Who Stole Christmas narrator. And then I remember the hardest one was I played Joe in Little Women, and I was dying at some point. And I remember dying. Here I am like a kid, but I really felt the feelings, and I cried the cries. And years later when I was ghostwriting for a man. Wow.

I had to embody who he was in order to write for him. And I had to pretend that I was him. And I remember slipping into it so quickly and I thought, you know what, thank God for my parents that they thought to put us in musical theater as a kid. Who would have thought that that kind of training when you're little allows you to slip into confidence and different personalities and characters and ways of being as an adult. But it absolutely gave me that training.

That's amazing. And actually, when you think about flipping into character, Taylor, your memoir is so much fun to read, but those opening chapters of little mini Taylor are absolutely gut-wrenching. I mean, I had to read it with one eye open because it was so terrifying and so hard. Was it hard slipping back into those little socks and shoes? Oh, that's a good question. It was, as Linda knows, because she's personally been involved in some of the processes,

Yeah, I have to be honest. This is my first time up at bat. But Linda, just to revert back to what you're talking about, every song I've taken on, whether I've written it or not, you're taking on a whole story. And you are embodying the voice, the words, the lyrics. That is literally what an actor must do. They don't write the words, but they have to live truthfully through them. So

I've always been a great interpreter, I guess, when it comes to their lyrics. That's why at some point, as you read down in the book, it's so important for me to become part of the writing process fully engaged because you have to tell your truth at some point.

Now, if somebody can write it better than you, amen. But that is the nature of the written word. That is the nature of why we are. And those interpreters, these actors and writers and what did Linda was nothing short of an incredible interpreter. Thank you, sweetie. It was hard, but every time I ever go start a book for somebody, it was hard initially. I always felt like I was an actor. I always felt like I was taking on a role.

But then the more you get into it, the easier it gets. And it was funny, every single time I ever sent a chapter to a new client writing something as them, I never got it right the first time. I always got the email back. Yeah, I like some of it, but it just doesn't feel like me yet.

And then I would take that and I would go, okay, okay, I know how this works. And then I would just delve so much deeper. In one case, I read somebody's diaries. I read nine of their diaries. And I would know all, right? And if they were a motivational speaker or self-help guru or something, I would listen to every single thing they had on tape, sometimes hundreds of hours. I would read all their prior books. I would read their blog posts.

And then I would send them back that same chapter reworked. And every single time on the second time, I nailed it. Wow. And I always knew to look for it. Unless I heard from them something like, oh my God, it's effing brilliant. I knew I hadn't nailed it. But what was funny, and I learned this about writing is I almost never got it right the first time. I always thought I can't do it. I'm going to have to quit.

What we're all trying to say is it's not like we don't get our life right, although we do. Don't get it right. But rereading those chapters, writing them, living through them again. And I have a picture next to my bed of the little girl, that little four-year-old girl, nursery school. And I just look at her every day when I take that moment and I go, wow.

For listeners who don't know your personal story yet and they haven't read the book yet, can you give us a little bit about what we're referring to? You want to give us a little teaser of what you were going through, Tay? Well, everybody has this story. For me, I grew up in New York. And the brief account of this is my parents were first-generation children born in the States from Holocaust-surviving parents.

So struggle basically is, and fear and all those other lovely feelings were part of their narrative. And in the home, you know, it's something to bear. Then let's strap on the depression because this is the late 30s, a war like we never saw before, obviously, early 40s, late 30s, just a crazy time throughout the world. For me, I was, my parents had me. I was the second child of two other siblings, the only girl with two brothers.

My father had a lot of rage. There's no other word to call it.

They were raised by the streets. My mom was raised by a single mother, parent, a father that was absentee. As Jewish immigrants and children of, they struggled. So that came into their home with their own family. You know, my father was supercharged and I think he wanted to be great at everything. And my mother was his only family, really. And my father was her only family. And once they started having children, we

We became the only family and they grew up on our time. That's the best way I can put it. They grew up on our time by living it through it.

what was so intense reading that first portion of your memoir, Taylor, wasn't just the rage in the house, which you can see, like my stomach gets queasy thinking about that. But as if that's not enough, you then have a battery of health issues, the likes of which I've never even heard of for a child, for anyone, let alone a little girl. Seriously. I mean, how did just,

Describe that just briefly for people who haven't read that yet.

Are you familiar with Louise Hay, the writings of Louise Hay? Of course. I mean, I have massive love for Louise Hay. Okay, so you brilliant women. So for first comers into self-help and self-awareness and knowledge, Louise Hay says it best. If I'm living in the environment, it has to go somewhere. So that mess, that explosion was all around me. Now, it had to go somewhere. And I internalized everything. One brother peed in bed for years and years till 13, you know,

It goes somewhere. So all that rage and confusion, and I tried to control it, and I controlled it inside in my gut. And one thing over time is if you haven't spoken to enough cancer patients and people that you know that have suffered through disease, that's another one of her big ones. That's where mine went. Mine went, I started burning up inside. It had to go somewhere, the rage, the fire.

And I held it in. I never, you know, I was that try to be perfect, walk on eggshells, little, little girl, very little girl, which is probably more heartbreaking because this is a four and five year old. And back in those days, there wasn't a lot of comfort.

Well, it's so strange to sit here 30 years later and 35, 40 years later, because I love my parents. I'm so grateful every day they're alive. And, you know, they're different people. But at the same time, what's the comfort? We're in survival mode. That's basically what it was. We were all in the foxholes. My brother's one then. They lived in one room. I was in the other. And then if I go in there, if I snuck in, God knows, I always tried to sneak into my younger brother's bed. But he peed all night. Let's face that. Yeah.

And he would get mad if he found me when he woke up. And I was like, oh, my God, I just wanted the comfort of something to not be alone, if you will. But yeah, all that rage, that non-controllable stuff went inside me. And I started bleeding through my urine and pretty soon it developed into a pretty bad infection and through my kidneys and my bladder.

A lot of people that I would imagine are thinking of writing memoir, but wouldn't go there because people are still alive and you can't be honest. How are you able to be so freaking honest about all this, knowing that people are alive that are affected by your story?

Well, I take onus for everything. All I said is to him, he's 88. I go, just maybe you shouldn't read this. He goes, well, we had a test. I go, I guess you know where the TED talk was about. And he goes, oh, geez, oh, geez, daughter. But at the same time, it's honest. But my parents stayed with me last week. I'll see him Monday. You live through it. That's amazing.

So one of my favorite moments in the book is when you are having a full... What I love about this part, Taylor, is in the book, there's no preamble. You just drop the reader just off stage of an audience of 60,000 screaming people waiting for the opening band to Michael Jackson on the Bad Tour. And you are literally...

about to shit your pants. Can you please take us through that? Okay, guys, have you seen Gladiator or any of those movies? Okay, so that roar, it's a roar, it's a rumble, it sounds like a train, like you're, I can't explain it to you, but you know you're being fed to it.

You can't see it yet because you have to have this explosive entry. And here I am, my first single. Obviously, it's huge. It's in Europe. I'm there. I'm opening up for Michael Jackson. But it's literally like I'm just a tantalizing morsel being thrown out to the titans before the big guy comes out or Hercules walks out or you know what I'm saying.

And you had, you weren't you on the scene, but you had some training in the Russian mob club. Yeah, okay. Different kind of training. That's for 60 drunk. Yes, you're right. 60 drunk, crazy. But you're right. Those were, that was a tough audience too. So you know what? I had a lot of training there. It was kind of like the Beatles where they played multiple sets, right? It's like, that's how you got your training. Hour upon hour. I'm a huge fan.

believer and the outlier. And I understand those 10,000 hour philosophy. It is without a doubt. Absolute. Oh, totally. I was thinking about you today when I saw a star is born.

And that scene where Bradley brings Gaga up for the first time. And she's like, no, no. And I was thinking of you and I was thinking of this bad tour. I mean, you were ready, but God, not really. Talk about trial by fire. When you saw Star is Born, did that feel familiar to you at all? One of my favorite films. And you know what? They had to sell me on it at first to watch it. And one of my favorite films, because there she is. So honestly, so many people said, God, Taylor, that so reminds me of you.

Listen, she's phenomenal. She's so honest. Talk about a raw performer. But when he looked at her finally slowly and he goes, yeah, you just got to trust me. Oh, Jesus. You just got to trust me. Because really, that's what it comes down to. There is either somebody you're going to trust, somebody that you can open that. And that was what we saw, that really special moment where they spoke to each other through the music. And it was authentic. It was real. It was truth.

So Taylor, so you're literally like dying inside. I can't go out there. I can't go out there. There's lions ready to eat me. But at some point, your performance self kicks in and you're like, not only am I not going to get eaten, I'm going to turn it out for what out there, which is what you proceeded to do. When did you make that switch psychologically? Walk us through going from, oh my God, I'm going to die to tell it to my heart.

Well, this was a 22-year-old girl saying that, go back five years. Every time I walked out the house, you know, I was highly agoraphobic. I'm sure you went through that period. So my point was, I learned how to take one step at a time and that I wouldn't die. You learn that it's in your head. It's not necessarily reality. Wow.

You've got to master that. You've got to take those muscles and do a lot of tools, meditation and obviously the behavior modification stuff I did in the day. Early on, as you saw, as an 18-year-old, I had to have my boyfriend sleep next to me bed by bed, in bed, then separate, then separate. So one step at a time, that's how you do anything.

And then that is the only work that kept me alive. That's why the survival mode was so, how can I be this attached and need to feel, need people to fear of losing control of myself because I was so riddled with anxiety. Imagine that that's what kept me alive. That's what kept me. That was my mantra. I need to become famous. And how do you become that feeling where you see her finally on stage in a star is born so free at a piano, just free.

And that freedom is everything. And that freedom has been in my life now for the last 25 years. What a freedom it is. Well, and I saw that with you when you and I were in Carmel and we were in that house that I used to rent. There were six of us. We're all just sitting around talking. And suddenly I see this. I see you on stage, but not singing your stuff because you were just talking about your family or talking about your dad and the pain of some of the men and

things you had dealt with. And suddenly I see, I have a vision. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life, Taylor, having that vision about you. Because it just dropped in. And all I see is you talking about the pain of what you were going through. And then there you are, Fleetwood Mac singing Stevie Nicks' line. And there you are talking more about pain of men. And there you are with John Mayer singing something of your body. And I said to you, hey, Taylor, I'm going to put you on tape. Do this.

And I had you stand up and do it in front of us. And instantly you nailed it. Instantly you were singing anybody we asked you to sing. Aretha Franklin. I mean, anybody. It was magic. You are so great. Yeah. Well, that's what inspires people. That you could see all that nuance, all those changes, all that growth. And, uh,

I'm so grateful that I was allowed to live through it, that I pushed through it, because that's what you see, the gratitude and push and the energy, that force, that life force. That's what you see on stage. The weirdest part about it for me was that I had you put that on tape and I left that retreat saying, Taylor has to do a TED Talk. And I didn't know anybody at TED.

And I think I said to you, I'm going to get you a TED Talk. Did I say that to you? Linda, every day we had the private meetings. You're like, this is what you're going to do. This is what we're going to do. I'm like looking at you like you have 10 heads. I did have 10 heads because I didn't know what I was talking about. I didn't know anybody. I mean, here I went to really start fleshing out a memoir. She's like, a TED Talk. I go, she goes, no, this has to be heard now.

I want you to think, okay, and we're going to do it. And this is going to happen. You have no idea. I'm very this. This is going to work. Are you serious? Three weeks later. Well, and okay, so Bronwyn, I have to tell you what happened. So we leave there and keep in mind, I know nobody at TED. I've never given a TED Talk. And I don't know what I'm doing, except I just had this vision for Taylor. And I'm like, I'm going to get to a TED Talk, Taylor. I leave there on Friday. Okay.

Monday morning, I call one of my best friends and my mentor, Betsy Rappaport. I call Betsy and said, hey, I need to get Taylor Dayne at TED Talk. I'm going to send you this tape of her singing. It's so startling. And I email it to her and she calls me back. She goes, you're not going to believe this, but I'm having lunch tomorrow with a dear friend of mine who happens to be the head of TED Women.

And she said, she's the co-founder of Ted Women, Pat Mitchell. And she said, I'm having lunch with her tomorrow. Do you want me to pitch it? And I said, please. So I said, take it with you and play it for us. So they're sitting at lunch. And then Pat says the conference that year was on time. And Betsy just loved my time debt stuff. She had heard some stuff I was doing for my memoir on time debt. And she pitches me instead. Remember this, Taylor? No, I just remember when you came back to me, you're doing Ted and I'm doing it with you. I'm like, wow.

Okay. Thank God.

So all of us testers were rocking to a Taylor Dane concert. It was unbelievable. That's amazing. And everybody danced with me 20 times. It was a magical event. It was the most daunting thing we'd done probably, the most challenging thing I'd done probably, if you put me up with Dancing with the Stars. It was definitely a six-month run. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. Well, please, Nancy Pelosi was in the audience. Ashley Studd.

Eve Ensler, like it was intimidating AF. Incredible. That's incredible. That they were in the audience. It made no difference to me because I was just like, this is insane. We're editing it 10 minutes before I'm doing it. Yeah. You were a little last minute on the editing. You were rewriting it to the last second.

But you know what? I don't know if you know this, Taylor, but Bronwyn produced, wrote, directed, had a hand in over 175 TED Talks, TED Global, TEDx. I've midwifed a lot of them. Yeah. And I will tell you, Taylor, everybody I work with says, holy shit, I have no idea how hard this is. It's the worst. Yep. Why? I mean, the best and the worst. Why, Bronwyn? Because everyone I talked to while we were there,

Elizabeth Lesser was there and she's done Super Soul Sunday a couple times and she rocked the house. But Elizabeth said to me, this is the hardest thing I will ever do. Why? Why is this so much harder than even being on television?

I have a couple of thoughts. I think primarily it's hard because it's not like, let's say Elizabeth Lester used to be inviting places to speak because she's got a fan base that's rallying there. TED Women or TED Global or TED whatever, they're thinkers, they're movers, they're shakers. And they're there to sample from ideas. And yours may be their cup of tea or it may not. And so number one, I think there's a higher risk of

feeling rejected or the audience doesn't feel you or whatever. So that's a pressure point. But also it's the time, it's the form factor. You've got what, eight minutes or 18 minutes if you're really lucky and you have to synthesize your whole situation in 18 minutes and make it so tight that the audience gets teleported into another headspace entirely so that they stop checking their phones long enough to freaking hear what you have to say. It's a tremendous amount of pressure. And on top of that,

It's got its own legend to it. And when you're there, you're in that rarefied air and the expectations are sky high. I completely get it. Completely. Yeah. So scary. I mean, there's a reason they call it the talk of your life, you know. No pressure. Oh, God bless us.

Okay. We're saying, why am I doing this again? Why? Yes. Right. Although honestly, I don't know if you guys experienced this too, but I always know when I'm about to do something incredibly good for my life, because there's always the voice that goes, Bronwyn, why do you do this to yourself? Why are you doing this? Don't you say this here? You perform all the time with your band.

And you give keynotes all the time. But didn't you tell me once that you still get scared every single time before you perform? Oh, yeah. In fact, that's one of my nerdy questions I have for Taylor. I get scared every single time. And I have breathing that I do. In fact, I triple underlined the part in your memoir, Taylor, where you say, my voice is the one thing I can trust. My whole life, I've been like, yeah, but what if this is the one time shit doesn't work? Well, what do you do?

Drink some hot tea, cross your legs and get out there.

I've not had the perfect voice even right now. You know what I'm thinking about? I'm thinking I'm on a plane tomorrow. I'm going to new Orleans and how am I going to save this precious vehicle for the next two weeks for this press stuff? And then I'm thinking I'm going to be screaming and rallying and putting it up. So I have to keep it on a simmer down now when I'm out for the next four days, it's a constant battle because remember singers, we carry our instrument with us. We don't get to put it in the case when we're done with the show. Like,

Like all my other musician friends do. So I always was jelly that way. So you have to be careful, though.

I just was at a rehearsal for a different band that I'm just sitting in with this coming weekend. And I'm just singing two songs with these guys. And so we did the songs. I rocked it. It sounded great. They sounded great. And 10 minutes later, I'm like, okay, I got to head out. And they're like, wait a minute. Don't you want to run it again? And I said, I got to get a keynote in Orlando in 24 hours. Like, I got to go. And I could see their faces and I couldn't tell. Are they like, are they seeing me as a diva who's just too good for rehearsal? Or are they fully understanding that I'm just trying to protect my pipes?

No, they better understand and just say, oh, God, I wish I just got work to do. Then they'll be like, wow, she's very professional and she nailed it. And moving on. We got to do we got to do to protect. And I think that's true universally of women. Like, I think we will turn ourselves inside out to accommodate everybody. But ultimately, we have to take care of whatever our treasure is. For us, it's our voices or whatever. But I just think that's such a great lesson in general.

Well, and it's a hard lesson to learn when you lose it. So it becomes a valuable thing. At a very early age, I lost a lot of things or I didn't have the luxury of having them as a whole. So I recognize what's going to keep it together and what won't. Taylor, when you're writing a song,

How does it appear for you? Do you hear it? Do you see it? Do you feel it? What's that process like? For me, it's a melody first. And I'm usually working with a producer. So we're building the track unless they have a track already prepared that I love. And then I'm just like, put up a mic because you got to kind of free flow at first. For me, I have to free flow and figure out a melody. And then if I have another top writer in there with me, usually I try to close my eyes, not think really.

and see where the melody lies and see what words seem to form from it because it's instinctual. Melodies catch, melodies don't, and then we form it. It's like a puzzle. You find all these pieces until it becomes 100% done.

Oh, that's cool. I feel like that is the ultimate vulnerability, throwing out a melody and throwing out lyrics on top of it. That has always terrified me. How did you move through the fear of what if this sucks? What if this is cliche? What if I suck? Like, did you ever have those self-doubts or were you always just like, it's coming through? Are you kidding me? I had people in record companies telling me it does suck. You suck. Like, isn't that in the book? Like, that sucks. That's true.

Clive Davis. I love how Clive Davis, you would want to be pushing for a certain song. And he's like, no, we're going to do this song. And every time he said that to you, the damn song was like a huge hit. Oh, I know. I was so annoyed reading that. I'm like, damn it. Damn that man. Definitely. Definitely. Oh yeah. He definitely shut me down a couple of times with some right answers, but you know, he missed a few too. Like I wrote whatever you want. Tina made it a huge hit. He didn't want to put it on my record, but here's the point. The point is you're

You stand around long enough, you get to sit down. You have to eventually trust yourself. And that's what practice makes perfect. That is trusting your decision-making. When I watch Robert De Niro, is he the best actor in the world? Because he's made decisions. This is a guy that's been doing it since, what, 16, 18, 19. And you love his decision-making. You love his choices. Yeah, yeah.

That's it. And he is now very capable of diving into his choices immediately. You don't even see the effort. People are like, you just think effortlessly. And I said, well, doubtful. I feel like I just ran a 60-minute aerobic, but you'll never see that.

Amazing. Yeah. Okay, Bronwyn, you got to do our rapid fire Q&A. I'm so excited. These are great questions, Linda. Just the first thing that comes to your mind, just quick answers. Okay. Okay, you ready, Taylor? Why not? All right. Singing with or for Prince or Michael Jackson? Prince.

We got to talk about Prince when we're done with this. I'm desperate to talk about Prince. Where's your heart? Los Angeles or New York? New York. But my freedom is here. Yeah, you live here. Yeah. Okay. Favorite decade for singing? Well, for me as a fan was the 70s. For singing, 80s, 90s. And what about favorite decade for self-love? Oh, no. No.

That is so good. Okay. You're shopping in the mall. I love this question, Linda. You're shopping in the mall. What makes you happier to hear over the sound system? Your ballads or your dance revixes? Ballads. Which ones? Which ones still make you smile the widest? Love the lead you back. I'll always love you. If I heard send me a lover, like when people, I would say no, but it was one of those two. Yeah. Classic. Just classic. Yeah.

What top three foods do you most crave? Ooh.

you know what, if you left me with bread and butter for a few days, I'd be all right. Like, you know, when they're like, put him in a cell, bread and butter. And I'm like, what's so bad about that? Make sure he's got a little water. Good bread and butter. How about that? Good damn bread and butter. There's nothing better. And a good piece of chicken. That's three foods. That sounds perfect to me. Well, you said crave. I don't crave fruit. I don't crave vegetables.

vegetable I crave me a good piece of meat I'm so paleo it's pathetic that's hilarious okay what do you love about your body strength my ability you know strength what do you love about your mind agility it's fast it's a quick mind and what do you love about your heart I guess I consider it to be still naive on some levels open and obviously not so open

It's still available. It's still real. I still keep it truthful and real. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Prince, talk to me. I want to hear it.

So Prince was yelling at me at the end. I was like, no, no, no. You think the Bradley Cooper thing with Gaga was crazy? He's like, come on stage. I go, what? He goes, come on stage. I go, can I bring her? I'm like, I'm not going up without Diane. Diane Jones is my winger, my best friend, my singer from the Russian club. I took her every, I go, I'm going to be famous and I'm taking you with me. She goes, all right, girl. All right. Like, you didn't believe me. I'm like, listen, you can sit here at this club and get all the gold and diamonds and crap you want, but I'm out. I got a cap on this. That,

That's how I was. I said, you're coming with me. I couldn't imagine breathing without her. And that whole craziness that, you know, it's an after hour club anyway. I was doing quite well, but as a breakout artist and we were at his concert, one of the Love Sexy at the arena. And, you know, he sent one of his guys down for us.

and they invited us to the after show and I was just going back to a restroom I was dating a huge German star at the time he flew in and we were at one of Prince's notorious after shows you know after hour shows where he goes and plays for three hours yeah literally but imagine Sheila's there and the whole crew that's with him and Kat was on even like everybody's up stage the same band that just finished easily a two and a half to three hour show at an arena then takes a break maybe and

And he goes and fires him up and does the same thing. And if not more, more, yeah, this guy, it was a very, very, it was intense.

And of course, what I loved about it and what I loved about him was always he was like, damn, girl, you know, he just called a spade a spade. He was like the whole mystery. And then, you know, I'd like shove my finger down. You know, he's chewing gum and it's so noisy. I'm like, what's that sticking out of your mouth? And I go to grab it. He's like, damn, girl, why are you touching my mouth? I'm like, I don't know what's hanging out of it. He just seemed like, you know, remember, I only had brothers. I get it was Prince because everything about him is just so perfection.

But I mean, when a man grabs a call like that. But that moment of like, so Prince is chewing gum and the way he's chewing it is so precarious and odd that you stick your hand into his mouth area to catch it like a mother. It's not precarious. He was sexually taunting me with it. And I'm like, his body was standing next to me. And he was like, sticking out going, yeah, babe, I've been wanting to meet you for a long time. I'm like, what the hell are you doing there? It was an instinct. What do you mean?

That was my favorite. We were just hanging out in front of the bathroom before backstage, and I was just like, damn. Oh, he just went full on right back to Minneapolis. It was funny. So you have your Bradley Cooper moment, but with Prince. Yes.

And you go out on stage and he's at the piano, but you're singing stuff that you don't, it's not like you had a rehearsal or you even knew the lyrics. Like talk about what you had to do. No, he was singing some gospel song. I was up in the balcony. Imagine like you're in old school theater. It was in the red light district. We were in Frankfurt. It was insane. Or Hamburg. I need some help up here. I need some payloads. I'm like, what? What? No. I go, Diane, you're coming. The bodyguard's like, you ready? He wants you. And I go, uh, can she come with me? He's like, I guess so.

So we go down, we're walking through this crap and everybody's staring and it's all fantastic. But literally you're just floating. You'd have no idea what you're doing. So when I get to the stage, I'm crumpled up behind him because the piano was always to the far right. And he's like trying to play and talk in the microphone and then turn around and go, get your ass up here. Get your ass up here. So I walked up to him and I kneeled next to the piano. He goes, go up there, go in the middle, take my mic, take my mic. I go, no. He goes, no.

I go, no. I go, could she come with me? And he looks at me and I'm dragging up a girl with me. Beautiful. My sister, you know, my black sister looking like fly as air. Donna Summer. And he's like, whatever. Just get up there. Because he kept trying to play on the piano. It was like, what a moment. Yelling at me. Get

get up there girl laughing though but like you are a mess he goes you are a mess of course she walked right up to the microphone me I wouldn't even trust myself to sing a word I didn't even know what he was singing apparently it was some made up it was a gospel whatever time will stand the test of time even if you see the taping of it he stops in the middle things it goes girl it's time with him the test of time like he was trying to tell me the lyrics every time who knows that is amazing it

It was amazing. It was completely raw. It was fantastic. And once I was in the moment, it was amazing. And Diane was there and we were playing between Kat and Sheila and everybody else. A week later, I was in Minneapolis. I love that story. You were with him? Well, yeah. A week later, he's like, you need to come to Minneapolis. And then we went to another big party there and at his home. And I'm just saying, that's the kind of guy, he was real. He appreciated it. He was full on encompassed in who he was. Amazing. Amazing human being. You know,

You know what Bronwyn loved? We were talking about your book yesterday, Taylor, and Bronwyn was like, God, I just love her sexuality. I love how she just saw Robert Plant and was like, yeah, I'm going to have a night with Robert Plant. Damn it. Well, he talked me into it didn't take too hard. First of all, he was like, my mate. It all came from him. I was still only 24. They all came on to me. I was just like, oh, maybe, oh.

And you can see that almost in the image that we have because he's just all Robert Plant. And I'm like, this is not happening. I mean, that's what I love, though, is I feel like the reader gets to be vicariously in your shoes, getting wooed and sexed up by Robert Plant. And I got to tell you, Taylor, I'm real glad I had that experience as a reader. Let me tell you.

And I am so sad I didn't get to stay with him. They made me go with the plant. I wanted to experience the full-on Robert Plant package. Absolutely. Okay, so wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm going to change focus here a little bit. Any thoughts on the Me Too movement and how it's rolled through the music industry, like R. Kelly and Keisha? Tip of the iceberg. Tip of the iceberg. Really? Wow.

Is music business as bad as Hollywood? I mean, how could it not be? So women have ridden a lot of waves to be where we are today. And we stand on top of

not bodies, but women that were forced in their era. And the most important thing is to stay with your truth and your integrity. And I personally can say that I can stand here and I can say that I'm happy and I'm clear with my choices, not always worked out the best for me and things that I couldn't control. I've come to peace with this. Yeah. But the movement is real.

And do you think it's getting better, Taylor? Do you feel hopeful or are you like, you know what? Power corrupts absolutely and we're just screwed. No, I never feel that. I never feel that. Because again, everybody has their story, but it's timing. People aren't always ready to hear it. Yeah. And you know, do you think it's getting easy? Oh God. We've been knowing that. It's not like everybody didn't know that was going on. They've all known. It's just become, we have different platforms to express it in now and women are,

I'm not just going to say women, but whoever feels they're bullied into situations or there's so many of them. I share. You know, we all share our stories, although it might be a better time now. Timing is obviously, unfortunately, sometimes everything.

God, I hope that's true. I hope that the timing's good for women to just, to have more power. In fact, that drove me nuts reading your story, Taylor. You're the one with the voice. You're the one with the power, the charisma, the finesse, the talent. And all these guys are making all this money off of you and you are killing yourself, delivering perfect performance after perfect performance. But the power wasn't in your hands. No. Well, there you go.

There you go. I mean, is that part getting any better? It's just basic negotiating contracts. Is it getting easier for women artists to be like, this is bullshit. I'm not doing this. I don't want to just say it's female artists. Look, the Modernization Act, the Music Modernization Act is just one part of it. Nadina LaPol, women that are going in there and really punching these guys in the face. It starts at the Senate. There's so much money that's filtering into the wrong hands through the music industry.

Wow. Not the wrong hands. It's the hands that are getting filthy rich. It's a huge business. And yet it's profited off of dreams. And yet I've met more musicians that are now graduating school and educated, which is so promising. I meet kids from going to these conservatories and music school, and I'm always astounded. I'm like, you guys are actually studying what I spent my years studying.

learning through. Yeah. We talked a little bit about that on the show that I did with Paul Williams, who's the president of ASCAP, American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. And he's been fighting for a long time on behalf of you artists to get royalties and even just to get paid on tracks on services like Spotify and Pandora.

Well, it's gone up a little bit because these laws, these huge corporations and some financial institutions reap a lot of financial rewards for staying. You know how many lost royalties and revenues that are just sitting in some bank in the sky, if you will, that nobody pulls on. And after a certain amount of years, it reverts back to the, you know, if it's not claimed. Oh, my God.

I can't claim these royalties if you don't know how to get them. If you don't know how to get them. Oh, God. Well, it's a nice little maze. That is so unbelievable. Eventually, we are going to be chipped, right? Eventually, my chip for my being, right? My intellectual property, my IP will be me. So anything that has to do with me will come back to me. Anything that I've recorded or done as it should. I have a woo-woo question I want to ask you both.

Taylor, starting with you. Have you ever received any kind of seemingly mystical sign from nature, a dream, or your muse that when it came, radically helped your creativity? Oh, yeah.

A hundred percent. The story of my daughter, just the idea of having twins, the idea of having a thought, seeing a photo above me and knowing within two weeks, that's exactly what I'm going to do. And I pursued it. And it seemed the most, yeah, there was a couple of curve balls thrown in there, but it was the most meant to be thing. You know, my twins are now 17, did it with a surrogate.

I knew I was always having a girl yet for six months with this area going for two, you know, flying in and out. I was on Broadway at the time and just,

I met a channeler. She's the one originally who told me I was going to get pregnant at 35. Then she said to me, be very careful. And of course I did. And that is in the book, but why I chose not to have that child and why I knew when she told me she'll wait, the soul waits and she waited and nine 11 happened in there. I was in my apartment and a calls couldn't come through. And I had a surrogate pregnant with twins in LA, the only legal state I think besides Delaware. And, uh,

Wow. She told me my daughter's name. This was months, obviously two years before this. And she goes, listen, if you need to abort now, which I had to make such a terrible, you know, difficult decision, but this was two years before. And yeah, I mean, you can see miracles when they happen. And my daughter, 9-11, I got a call two days later when they finally could get through to the apartment. I was in New York and the surrogate said, they're wrong. They're wrong. There's a girl.

So all that's why they thought she was a boy. You thought you were having twin boys and then... Well, we started. I flew back twice for amnios and you see what you see. The numbers, the levels. Boy, you know, I had two boys. And you know Levi's name is Levi Lotus. Jeremiah Augustus Dane. I said, after six months, he's keeping every last one of those names. It was supposed to be two boys. She's my angel. Although some days she's just the devil. But

But yeah, sorry. That's amazing. How many mountaintops I've stood on, how many times I've gone in nature so scared. You know, my prayer beads are a step in front of the next and getting lost in that and looking outwardly instead of inwardly when depression hits or fears. That's been the greatest saving grace for me is learning how nature helped heal me.

And the quietness of that. And each step was a prayer, was a prayer bead mantra. How about you, Bronnie? Any really mystical experience help your creativity?

Yes. When I was trying to decide what to do with my career because I was so burned out, I'd been doing PR for many years. And I was like, you know what? I hate this. And I was thinking about going to graduate school. I was thinking about moving to D.C. I was thinking about moving to New York. I didn't know what the hell I was going to do with myself. But I was living in San Francisco. And one night I had a dream. And in my dream, I was looking at a wall. And the wall was covered in cursive handwriting. I could still see as clear as day. I leaned to see what the writing was about.

It was the story of my life. It was like somebody had been watching everything the whole time. And every inch of my life was recorded in just such loving, tender observations on this huge wall.

And my heart was like exploding watching this wall like, oh, my God, I've never been alone. I've never been alone. Wow. And then I get to this one. It was so beautiful. And I get to this one section of the wall. And it says, don't go anywhere. You are exactly where I want you. What? And so I thought, well, I'm not moving to D.C. or New York. I'm going to stay in San Francisco. And I just surrendered. And I said, well, listen, spirit, God, universe, whatever.

I will absolutely follow your leads. I'm just going to do whatever the next step is. And within a year and a half, I met the man that I would marry and have three kids with, my beloved Sal. And a year later, I started my own business. And I've been in that business ever since, which is a communication coach and teaching people how to shine on stage or when the pressure's on. And it's brought me so much joy. And I think, sweet Jesus, had I not had that dream, I might have...

you know, gotten some degree I really didn't want him to begin with from some really expensive school. You know, it was one of those moments where you're like, oh, thank God that I'm not the only oars in the water. You know what I mean? Amen. I think that's the best answer anybody's ever given to that question. Thank you. Oh, God, I love that. Thank you for asking that question. Jesus, that's beautiful. How often would people, but here's where it comes down to, you listened to that voice. You trusted it. That's true.

You got to have faith. When I look back on the biggest turning points of my life, they were always those moments where I had a vision or a dream that told me to do something that seemed so harebrained. And I'm so grateful to my parents. My parents were the type of people that I could come home with any news, basically. And if I said, this is what I want to do, this is in my heart, they would say, you go for it, babe. And that came down to quitting college and

with three classes left, a college that they mortgaged their house for me to have. I mean, that's massive for my parents to have said, we trust you. We know you want to be an entrepreneur. You go do it. Or when I had a dream, I'm supposed to write a book about my dog walking clients. And they were like, you go for it, babe. We don't care that you don't have a degree. You just go for it. In every case of my life where the biggest things have happened, they were always from a vision that I trusted. And

The challenge for me, and I bring this back to you, Taylor, the challenge for me is I have less desire to take big risks. And I think I get a little bit complacent. You know, I have a great life. I'm a lot more comfortable. I'm not as hungry. And so how do you deal with that? Do you ever find that you're getting less hungry or are you as driven as you always were?

No, I mean, obviously, I think we're all sitting here going, how does J-Lo do it? You know, how does Madonna? I mean, well, first of all, they're Leos. Let's put that in the equation. I'm a Leo. Oh, that's classic. You know what, Linda? You just nailed it. You like where you're at. You're loving your life, you know? And I think if you feel that urge, like I still wake up with this sense of urgency. That might be some of the anxiety. And then I have to center it. And then I have to...

keep my deadlines. I have to write it out every day and I have to stay focused on it because it is easy to get caught up in our distractions now. And we have many more on our plate. I do. I have kids, you know, you have a nice big house, you have horses, you have dogs, you have a hubby. So. And a grandbaby. Oh my God. Larry's daughter has been staying with us and I've had the baby for a couple of days on my own. Hard AF. Oh my God. It's so hard.

And it's so blissful. And I just want to smell her little head. Yeah. Yeah. We're around here for a certain amount of time for a reason. So maybe it's not supposed to be all me, me, me, me, me and driven, driven, driven. And yet there's times where you have to pick yourself up to say, I still got something to say and get back on it. Move it. So that's where I'm kind of at. So I push through it, but not always. And I mean, my body gets tired now. We're in them fifties, girl. Oh,

Oh, I know. Larry says to me the other day, I was complaining about, gosh, I never want to stay up all night anymore. I think it's healthy to go to sleep at 11, and I do almost every night now, or if not earlier. But I'd like to every once in a while just have the excitement of an all-night work session. Like, let's just power through just for fun. Nope, don't want to do it. And Larry looked at me and goes, the old gray mare ain't what she used to be. I'm like, how is that? Wow.

I feel you. Bronwyn's hilarious. Bronwyn says she sleeps like the dead. I do. I'm like a vampire. I fold my hands over my chest. I have an eye mask and earplugs and do not fuck with me once I sleep. Same way. That's awesome. You want no sensory disruptions. I get that. Exactly. So I have another question for you, Taylor. You talked about

I feel like there's this generational fascination with fame in one sense of the word. But when I hear you talk about fame in the book and on this call, you talk about it through the lens of freedom and feeling free and that there's this moment of connecting with big numbers, big audiences, big platforms.

That's the kind of fame you're talking about, the kind of fame that is the aperture through which you get this shot of freedom. Can you talk about that? Because there's more to fame than just being famous. I think I know where you're heading. There were many trappings with fame. Tremendous. And I kind of bring that through in the story and what fame brings. There's a lot of notoriety, but we have celebrityism now. It's far more different. Famous for something that you did. These things that like famous for being famous.

influencers now. We're in a whole new chasm of a whole new world of what fame actually means. But continuing in anything, in any art form like that, we can name a lot of names. There's a lot of hard work that goes into it. So it's not fame for fame's sake. It's the work that goes into it. Fame for me has brought at my most intensely depressed times of it. I felt very, very isolated with it.

At the height sometimes of fame, I felt isolated and I felt misunderstood. And I felt like, how am I so loved in one way and told no or not liked on another? As I've grown and changed and also grown as a woman and a human being, I look at it very differently. It's far more all in my hands now. And I far more take ownership for it, all of it. And that's freedom. That is freedom.

It always will be. This is your show, your business, your this. You can't continually sit there and point the finger at anybody. And I'm not really a big fan of that because I don't see how it gets shit done. Yeah, that's right. You inspire me, Taylor. Well, you're a great friend. You're just a great person. You're a great parent. I love watching you with your kids and your dog and just your people. And then

You have this energy about you where you get better with age and you get clearer and you get more big hearted and more determined. But there is a mellowness about you. And I wouldn't say it is the gray mare getting tired. You're not tired. You're very healthy, but there's a mellow trust about you now. And it's...

It's well said. It's beautiful to be around. It's comforting. And I would hope that for all of us, that we all get fuller lives and more complete lives and happier lives, that we all have a bigger trust. We walk with a bigger trust. So thank you for mirroring that for us.

I love you for even being able to put the words to that because not often can I express that. But I think that you feel a sense of confidence when you're around friends like that. And this is what you get to share with the world. Brahman, the same for you. This kind of confidence and which you'd be shocked how many voices hear it. And as you girls know, because you use your voice so well, I've had to learn how to sit back and trust that whatever

Whatever I'm doing on stage is channeling and working for these people in this audience, and it's going to make them better people. Why? Because this isn't all about me. God knows. Amen. Amen. Right? Yeah. Amen.

So service is everything. And when you find the joy and the reciprocity in that, and that's kind of what this ride is, you know, I'm like, okay, so today I'm not so perfect, but you know, on stage, don't think so much. Just trust this. They're here because they want to be. Yeah. That's it. That's it. You know what? I always tell myself when I'm getting nervous or when I'm starting to feel my ego creep in before I go on stage or give a big talk. I always tell myself, I say, Bronwyn,

You are just the hired help here. You're just here to make the other people in the room feel better and feel good and feel like a larger version of themselves. And as soon as I say that, I'm like, I'm in. Let's do this. Right. So, right. You're not so much worried about jumping on stage with Michael Jackson and me, myself and I, although a lot of that still reigns. But I think that's what you see. That's the knowledge. That's the self-knowledge that you're seeing. That's that comfort you're seeing, Linda. Yeah.

And I know you experience it well. And Bronwyn, it sounds like you get it as well. Yeah, we're lucky. We're lucky to be able to be conduits for the work of other people. We're lucky. When I'm doing my best work, I feel like it's just flowing through me. I'm just a vessel. Like you said, Bronwyn, we just show up. We just show up and go, okay, what am I supposed to do today? And

thinking about Liz Gilbert's shit sandwich yesterday when she talks about in Big Magic that every job has its shit sandwich that you have to eat. And you just have to pick the job or career or creative project of which you're willing to eat this shit sandwich. And Bronwyn and I, Taylor, are working on our time debt book right now. And it's hard, man. We met last week at the end of a retreat. She came out to Carmel. We did a couple of days together and we

We were figuring out how to express things that had been plaguing us individually. But once we got together, we were brainstorming. It was so flowing. We were having such a beautiful time. And then we were like, okay, Monday morning, we're going to call. We're going to have this part finished. Okay, see you in a couple days on Skype. And then shit hits the fan for both of our schedules. And from when I get off the phone, I'm so tired I can't even talk because I've been doing other edits and stuff.

Stuff hits, and that's the shit sandwich. I thought, you know what? This is the slog part, and it's not always going to be fun. We're not always going to be teaching. We're not always going to be flowing. We're not always going to be helping. Whether you're writing your own book, you're working in tandem with somebody else, or whether you're helping somebody else bring through their stuff, or whether you're entertaining an audience. Some days, it's just really hard, but I still feel so much gratitude to be that person who gets used.

for the messages. You bet. You bet. That's why you're still doing it because you know. Good you for knowing. That's why we're still here. All right. Well, my heart is so full. I love it.

I love you ladies so, so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for including me on this conversation. This was just a joy. What a pleasure to meet you and speak with you. Really. Truly a joy. My badass rock star friends. I'm the micro rock star and Taylor is the mega rock star. Every day, getting there. You're a rock star to me. Atta girl. I love you guys. Big kiss guys.

Before we close, I'm going to play a short audio from that writing retreat in Carmel where I asked Taylor on the fly to sing snippets of other people's songs along with speaking her story. It's this tape that morphed into her TED Talk as she took it and expanded it into a much longer story, which then led to her writing her memoir.

And I think it's a good reminder for all of us just to start. The path doesn't have to be clear and we don't even have to know where we're going to end up. But there seems to be magic in moving forward. Love men. I love men. I might not like them sometimes very much. Probably a lot of the times. My father, my brothers, ex-lovers. But I do. I love them. Show me Russell Crowe in Gladiator.

Fighting for honor and glory and truth and the butchering of his family? What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man. Give me Mel Gibson. In Brave War, battling over fields and revenging the death of his young murdered bride? Or Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall? Please. Tortured, beautiful, and strong. And you can see why. First.

Suddenly appear Every time you are near Just like me They long to be Close to you

Thank you, Tay, for shining your light brighter than ever. Again, her memoir, you guys, is called Tell It to My Heart, and you can pre-order it today and have it in about a week. If you'd like to hear Taylor in concert, her tour dates are listed on taylordane.com.

Huge thanks to Bronwyn, who, if you haven't yet heard, has a very popular new podcast called 20 Minutes with Bronwyn. You guys, it's currently in the top 10% of podcasts because everything about the show is golden, from her music to her topics to her smooth narration. You can also find Bronny at bronwyncommunications.com.

As for me, all things Book Mama are over on bookmama.com or on beautifulwriterspodcast.com, including info on my March and April Carmel writing retreats, which are filling fast. And lastly, thank you as always for your five stars and sweet thoughts about this show on iTunes. It really does help send people over here to our little party. Until next time, write on beautiful. I'm so, so grateful for you.

the reason I'm alive I'd give everything cause I was born to save