You’re listening to Burnt Toast! This is the podcast about anti-fat bias, diet culture, parenting and health. I am Virginia Sole Smith.
Today I am just beyond delighted to be chatting with musician and comedian Farideh, who I have been high key obsessed with on Instagram for months now.
Farideh is known for relatable and hilarous takes on motherhood. In December 2022 her song Such a Good Dad went viral, generating over 10 million views in just three weeks. Her new album, “The Mother Load” came out on October 24. It is so good!
Farideh’s music hits that sweet spot of super relatable, mostly elder millennial discussions of motherhood, about bodies, gender norms, and socialization. There’s just so much good stuff here. She’s a delight. This is a really fun episode and we’re going to play some of her music, too—so even if you’re usually a transcript reader, consider listening today!
PS. If you’re enjoying the podcast, make sure you’re following us (it’s free!) in your podcast player! We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts! And while you’re there, please leave us a rating or review. (We like 5 stars!)
Episode 115 Transcript
Farideh
So I’m a musician. I’m a comedian, I guess now. I’ve been a musician most of my life and then I’ve just kind of been foraying into the comedy later in life. People can find me on Instagram at @IloveFarideh, same handle everywhere. I started getting into content creation a couple years ago and I’ve been mostly focusing on music for moms nowadays.
Virginia
I want to talk about the mom thing. But I first got into your work when literally 900 of my followers were DMing me the diet song. They were like, “do you know about Farideh? Have you heard the diet song?” I know in your bio you said the “good dad” song is what went super viral, but in our world, it was the diet song. In the Burnt Toast community and I think also just in fat activism, anti-diet communities in general, the diet song really went quite viral locally.
Farideh
That’s good to know. Of course you have your views, but that doesn’t always mean something permeates communities in the way that you thought. So that’s really cool to know.
Virginia
Oh my God, we’re obsessed with that. What I love is you when you first released it, you did a very funny video of you being a pirate and dancing with gnomes, which is great. And then you later released a version that makes me cry. And I was just like, how is she so brilliant? She can do both.
Farideh
I was a musician my whole life and then I kind of thought I had ended that career. I didn’t know what to do, so I started content creation and then I was doing funny stuff. And then just before the diet song come up, I had made the most obvious to everybody else but me connection of like, “Ph, I should be writing funny songs because that’s actually two abilities of mine together.” I should combine these things that I like, instead of separating them out.
So it was around December and I was just like, okay, so I need to build up a body of work really fast. Because I didn’t really have a collection of funny songs at my disposal. But it was the end of the year and I just knew that the vultures were circling. You know, the beginning of the year, let’s start the shame spiral. So I was like, this is a song that’s like half funny, half true.
This is part of the journey of music and comedy, because they both actually really live in the vein of truth. I also want to give myself freedom that I don’t have to be a comedian. I am a musician, and I will always be a musician. And while I’m experimenting with comedy, it can be both. I can be serious, I can be comedic, because that’s who I am.
Of course, the diet song comes from a very personal place. I was very heavily into diet culture as a young person. I was given a lot of messages from a very, very young age—like I’m sure many of your listeners were—about how my body needed to be smaller, and I kept it smaller as best as I could. And then one day, my body was like, no thank you and just decided to be not only unresponsive to diet culture, but would retaliate and rapidly rapidly gained weight, which I’ve come to understand is probably PCOS.
So I had to come to a place of being like, oh, diets are not serving me. They’re, in fact, harming me. It’s hard for people to understand a reality that I’m sure most of your listeners understand, which is that calories in calories out ain’t true. When I had the ability to make my body smaller, it was a full time job. It was my whole mind. And what a waste of a mind!
If a woman is only thinking about how to be smaller, she’s not thinking about the inequities in the world. She’s not thinking about how to make this world a better place. And that was a cost to myself. It was like, what a waste of whatever light I have in this world, but then you go macro and every night people are falling asleep being like, “I had two bites of a brownie,” Instead of being like, “Oh, that was a great day. I loved looking at my kids. Tomorrow, I can’t wait to do it again.” Right? Like, what a macro loss. I was just like, the vultures were circling. And I was like, I’m just going to write this song. Please don’t tell me about your juice cleanse. I love you so much, but I don’t want to know.
Virginia
I don’t want to know.
I think a lot about the songs that aren’t getting written, the books that aren’t getting written, the art that is not being made because women in particular, but anybody, so many people are just swept up in this project of body management and this failing project that then becomes so all consuming.
Farideh
Yeah, the thing of just like lay that weapon down and just live a life, just step into it.
Virginia
So let’s also talk about the mom bod song. This is another one that people send me constantly, and that I felt extremely seen by. It captures this weird dichotomy where dad bods are sort of affectionately held up as an ideal.
Farideh
They’re attractive.
Virginia
There’s something cute about them getting a little doughy or whatever.
Farideh
Moms in general aren’t allowed to be sexy. The mom bod is so trashed on. It’s a sign that you’ve let yourself go. It’s like just like yeah, well, if he got hit by a truck multiple times would he be bouncing back?
Virginia
How great would he look?
Farideh
Growing a person and delivering it is incredibly hard on the body. And yeah, our bodies change and we’re allowed to. I wanted to just have fun with the song and it was really come from that privilege.
I was in an all girl group for nine years and I would get on stage and I would sing every night. We would often be wearing outfits that complemented each other. That was sometimes very hard as the largest woman in the group because a lot of comparison would come up. At that point, I was the only one who was married. And I would have to consciously process that thought of like, actually, the thinner women in this group are single. Which was not the messaging, right? The messaging is, if you want a heterosexual relationship you have to be thin and if you’re not, then you’re not going to have a relationship. But of course that’s just not true.
Virginia
Right, these things are unrelated.
Farideh
But once again, because of privilege, I can say those things. Because I know deep down I am attractive with my mom bod.
Virginia
I’ll also just footnote for the child-free listeners: You don’t need to have a mom bod to justify your body changes. You are allowed to be fat and shaped however you’re shaped regardless. You don’t have to earn it through childbirth. Especially because a lot of folks don’t get their kids through childbirth. There are a lot of ways to be a mom.
Farideh
Totally. Our bodies are just allowed to change. Dad bods don’t come from being a dad.
Virginia
They just come from existing and aging. But I think it’s like a great song for capturing that. Like, let’s normalize bodies changing. Let’s celebrate the changes, whatever the backstory.
Farideh
I’m all for celebrating the dad bod. I think dad bods are sexy and also I think mom bods are sexy. Let’s celebrate them both because we happen to be gifted to age.
Virginia
The big theme of your work and the focus of the new album is definitely motherhood and the way modern motherhood comes with all of these insane expectations. The details! Your detail work is incredible. You get all of the details of the day of being a mom involves, from laundry and all that. But also the invisible labor, the mental load bullshit, and the way it is just always disproportionately falling on us, no matter how hard we fight for it to be more balanced.
You were told not to write songs about motherhood and that motherhood is not a sexy topic to write songs about. And then I started think about it. And I was like, that’s true. But also what the fuck?
Farideh
I’m sure anybody who’s listening will think wait, how many songs do you know about motherhood? They don’t exist.
Virginia
I’m drawing a total blank. And there are some songs about fatherhood. Like Cat’s In The Cradle.
Farideh
Because men can get away with that, right? They’re allowed to age.
I remember sitting down with songwriters and presenting a song that briefly said I was a mom—this is before I was one, this was just me exploring a song about it. And they were just like, “Oh, yeah, you never write songs that even briefly suggest that you’re a mom.” Like it was just known. If you ever want a song to do well, you would never ever write about motherhood.
I mean, and my career did probably the best after I became a mom. I toured with my child and the musical world was just really unprepared. There’s just no place for children even in like the best settings, right? And I saw how people would resent artists who became moms. It’s just because it makes you look old and unattractive.There’s really nothing less cool than a mother. And the music industry is about being cool in so many other ways. And young.
So what happened was, I took a comedy class to learn how to be funnier, because I was enjoying learning about that online. And in that class, they were like, “Write about motherhood!” And I was like, no thank you, I would like to be relevant. But so much of our writing comes from our personal experience. And then you start writing and you’re like, oh, my goodness, I have lived a whole life that is creatively completely unexplored.
Then I also in that class realized I was leaving my music at the door. Both of these things are overcoming my own snobbery that you learn as a young person, right? Old women, mothers, are boring and uncool. And musical comedy is not serious art. Right? So there was two things I had to overcome being like, oh, this is kind of cringey. But then, of course, when I did it it leads to the greatest or at least a whole new career. Like, I didn’t imagine it would happened. I was definitely like, my music career is over. I need to find another reason to exist.
Virginia
And it turns out you just needed to find a new subject.
Farideh
I just turned 40. And as a musician, I always lived with the clock ticking being like how much longer can I really do this? Because people don’t invest in people who are old, they invest in 17-year-old prodigies who are incredibly talented, but also easily morphable. Easily sexualized, like, it’s not the same.
That’s why it took me so long to start writing comedy songs, as well, because I just was like, my music career is over. There is no point in me pursuing this. And that’s when I moved into creating my own audience.
Because the other thing is, people also don’t think that women are a market. That’s why people are like, Barbie movie? She’s done so well! It’s like, yeah, because women buy. It’s just like, they don’t make clothes for plus sized people. And you’re like, but that’s the majority of the people.
Virginia
It’s all the people who need to wear clothes.
Farideh
I don’t understand. It’s so nice to be like, oh, but I could just build my own audience and meet and create music for women or parents and who are needing this kind of music who need to be heard, who need to be seen.
Virginia
And who you can reflect the experience of. And I’m thinking too about the discourse around Rihanna’s pregnancy or Beyonce’s pregnancy. We get so weird when women musicians become moms, right? We have such a weird, uncomfortable relationship with it, that we have to like dissect their bodies. There’s no parallel. No male musician who becomes a father has to do anything about it. It’s not even an interesting point in the interview.
Farideh
No, it’s not a thing.
Virginia
They’re just allowed to become fathers and carry on. And it makes sense that trying to tour with kids you would encounter all kinds of hurdles. Music, as an industry, it sounds like, is very much leaving out an entire population.
Farideh
Absolutely. I was just like, man, one day when I get the cash I’d love to make a grant for single mothers. Because I was able to do so much because of the support of my family. My dad is a musician. So, people came on tour with me. My husband came on tour with me, my dad came on tour with me, my mom came on tour with me, my aunt came on tour with me. But like man, single moms? Like where are they? There has to be so little single mom art in the world which means a whole voice is missing from our society.
Virginia
So, tell us about the new album. I got to listen to it this morning. It is amazing.
Farideh
I didn’t actually anticipate writing an album, it just kind of happened. I was like, oh, I guess I have enough songs here for an album. It’s always good to collect your body of work into something. I called it “The Mother Load” to explore many of the elements and the challenges we face as moms.
And I don’t know if it’d be obvious for people if they’re listening to the songs to know that they’re about identity. Because when you become a mom, you are cast as a character of Mother. You have no past, you have no future, you are just a servant of the family. So I wanted to have a couple songs that were a bit like, you know. I have a song called Used to be a Ho because it’s like, man, people, she used to have a past. She does still have a past and that’s okay. That’s normal. I wanted to press up against a few of those kinds of things.
And of course, division of labor is a big issue that moms face. Incontinence is a big one myself and my friends face a lot of and just removing that shame. Or I don’t know if it’s even removing shame, just we’ve been talking about it, just normalizing it.
Virginia
Just even talking about it with a lot of body related changes. You have a reel about hairy nipples and I was like, thank you!! Somebody finally said it. Can we please just discuss these things?
Farideh
Can we just be human beings? I also recognize that I have a lot of privilege to say a lot. When I talked to other friends who were like, “Oh, I would just never say that part of it.” I happen to be inside of a very stable, healthy marriage. I’m not like trying to attract anybody or impress anybody and I can say things without blowback.
A lot of people will be concerned about my marriage or be like, “you should just leave him” because of the division labor issues. And I’m like, well, I could not write these songs if I was inside the fire of that part of my marriage, right? Because when you’re a new parent, there’s so much growing and learning to be done. And, of course, those songs come from a truth! Of course, we did struggle. We did. There was not the language that there even is today.
I think COVID did something to that. It provided us with language for what we were all experiencing inside of our marriages. But we didn’t have words or at least it hadn’t permeated culture enough that we understood emotional labor, mental load, division of labor, how do we actually overcome this? Not just from our husbands, from ourselves, for myself. Invisible labor was just as invisible to me as it was to my partner.
Virginia
I can relate.
Farideh
The great thing is I’m writing the songs when my child is eight not two because there is a different fire, at least for our marriage that was the case. So there’s other privileges I get to explore. And also, I mean, he’s already used to me speaking the truth. So he’s just like, yeah, that’s what she does. Poor Matt, whenever he’s meeting somebody who is like, “Oh, I know who Farideh is. I love her videos.” He’s like, “they’re not all about me. They’re not about me.”
Virginia
And a lot of them are audience suggestions!
Farideh
They are! I don’t see this as only work of my own. I think that this is a collaboration, which has been a really fun artistic exercise. Because historically, everything comes from me, most of my artistic career. But now I’m like, well, no. I’m writing songs for others and therefore I want to reflect their lives. Not everything has to be my personal experience.
I asked people for specifics, like, you know, laundry is a big one that people really dislike. And I would say that we don’t have much laundry in our house. So I had to ask them, like, why do you hate laundry? And just like, Oh, I just hate it exists and it never ends. I’m like, well, then that’s great because I wanted to take it in a different direction. So it’s like songwriting with thousands of people.
Virginia
The one about the husband and the 45 minute poop was another one that you had that was suggested by followers. And I was like, yes. It is good that Farideh is voicing this.
Farideh
Exactly. And that’s not one of the issues in my marriage, but that is so common and the song did so well. People are just like, are we all just married to the same man? And it is a division of labor issue, right?
Virginia
Yes. Why is he checking out for 45 minutes?
Farideh
Because if you just disappear, that’s not okay.
What’s been really fun is that I’ve been experimenting with performing the songs live. Most, like 98 percent, of my followers are female. But then when I perform live, there are all these men in the audience and I play all these division of labor songs. And it is actually really wonderful to see men, because they laugh. They know they did that. Do you know what I mean? There’s a song called the vacation song about all the things a woman does and then he drives the car. And men will come up to me, and they’re like, “Oh, my God, I do this.”
Not every man, but there are men who are very good at taking a joke and you can really see that in the audience. So that’s been a really enjoyable thing because every time I get up on stage, I’m like, I don’t know how this is going to go. Because my whole set is taking you to town.
Virginia
And I’m okay if some of them are uncomfortable with it. You’re doing a real community service by making some men uncomfortable about this in live musical settings. That’s deeply enjoyable to me that that is happening.
Farideh
There was this old saying I had from like a performance coach when I was very young, that was like, 3 percent of the audience will always not like you and they might have even bought tickets. Even when I toured and people bought tickets, not everybody liked it. And you had to just be like, that’s not about me, right?
I know that my intention is not to rip men a new one. I have no interest in that. But my interest is to talk about the songs that I think are funny, that I think other people will enjoy, and that they do say something. That’s what I care about. And it’s not for everybody, especially if I’m going up on a stage and not everybody bought tickets to see me. That’s fine. It’s okay with me. That’s a blessing of being 40. That’s fine. I’ll just go back to my house.
Virginia
That is a celebration about being in our 40s. Knowing I don’t have to be for everyone.
Well, speaking of not being for everyone, I did want to ask, how are your trolls doing? Any good troll stories you want to tell as that part of your work? Because that’s a reality of being a woman on the Internet. We have our little trolls.
Farideh
Oh, the ones that get the most trolls is the song I’m a good mom, not a perfect mom where I talk about the ways in which I would say that I personally, if I’m being my harshest critic, that I fail at as a mom. I don’t always get her to brush her teeth. I don’t get her to read books. And people are just like, “But this is horrible. You should try.” And part of it is just like pushing that narrative of like, there’s so many expectations. If I was a dude and I was like, “Hey, I don’t always get my kid to brush,” everybody would be applauding me for existing.
There are so many expectations on moms. And I know, personally, that when I try to be that perfect mother, I become a worse mother. Because control comes up. You know what I mean? I’m pushing from a place that I just don’t have. We can work on connection instead of compliance. That’s essentially where I’m going is like, actually, I’d like to be the person who when she crawls into bed, she tells me all about her hard day. And she’s not feeling angry, because I was like, “brush your teeth.” Yeah, obviously, those are great things to do. I aim and I hope to do those things, but.
Virginia
We can all aspire to dental hygiene. I mean, teeth brushing is something we really fall down on in my house, too. I’m not gonna lie. It’s the end of the day and you’re just like, I can’t die on one more mountain. It is one mountain too many.
Farideh
And your book also really helped me with the food piece, because I have a child who’s definitely an an extremely picky eater. She hasn’t fallen into the area where—I have a list on my desktop where I track how many foods she eats, because they say under 20 is a problem and we are at 26.
Virginia
We’re doing great.
Farideh
Your book really helped me—this is The Eating Instinct—so much with realizing that what was happening was that because I was so afraid that my kid wasn’t eating and I was afraid of not meeting my duties as a mom of her nutrition. What was coming through was all my diet culture, right? I thought I had had achieved so much healing, so much understanding of diet culture, and then you’re like, oh, there’s a whole level hiding under parenthood.
Virginia
It’s all showing up here.
Farideh
Exactly. And I was like, oh, actually, the bigger issue to her nutrition is that I’m gonna give this girl an eating disorder if I keep with these messages. So I have to just back off, right? That’s the same thing with brushing teeth. Like, I can be a good mom, not a perfect mom. Actually, that means I’m a better mom.
Virginia
The response to that video reminded me so much of how diet culture teaches us to measure success according to these very narrow metrics. Like, your measure as a parent is absolutely never what your kid ate for their last meal. Parenting is so much bigger than that. It’s so much more complicated.
Farideh
We’re playing a long game. Yes, teeth matter. But so does mental health and finding opportunities to connect at the end of the day.
Virginia
Now this episode will get a bunch of people being like, but what about teeth? Seriously, guys. If your kid is already brushing their teeth, we’re not saying stop brushing their teeth. If you have achieved that, we admire you.
Farideh
We bless your soul. I have a kid who just throws down every single day. So I’m just like, alright, we focus on the mornings because I know we can get that one done and out the door. We can really hit that hard. And the evening, it’s definitely a reminder, but I won’t be screaming at my kid. If you’re just going to throw down about that, I’m like alright we’re not going to have that. You know what? We got dental insurance for a reason.
Virginia
Completely. These standards don’t empower us to decide what matters in the context of our own relationship with our child, which is exactly the same with diet and health advice, too, right? Like when your doctor is telling you you have to cut something out of your diet. It’s forgetting the larger context. We need this larger context, always.
Farideh
And it’s also like, if you should ever dare to do “what I eat in a day” as somebody not trying to lose weight,” like how when somebody leads with the vulnerability. Like basically that song me leading with my vulnerability, right? Here’s all the ways in which I feel like I fail, so that that other person can see. Because if you don’t have close relationships, if you’re watching people on social media, they’re not showing you the ways in which they’re failing, right?
So it’s an offering and not everybody wants that offering. Everybody is like, “wait, wait, wait.” And it scares them. Like, If I let these go, then my child will die and they’ll lose their teeth, and it will be a horrible thing. It’s just like, well, here’s an offering.
Virginia
It’s so true. It’s so important to just give ourselves permission to fuck it up more often.
Farideh
We all have friends who had parents who are way worse than us and they’ve just turned out okay.
Virginia
I sometimes think, if I’m not giving my kids some material to work with in therapy, like, am I doing my job?
Farideh
How will they be artists? How will they be funny? How will they be full human beings?
Virginia
There must be some suffering and conflict. They need something to unpack.
Farideh
That is the humility of parenting, isn’t it? That you have to get the challenge of being an imperfect person raising a child and the stakes are high. You don’t want to mess up. You want to do it perfectly, and yet to do it perfectly would be a disservice because they are imperfect.
Like, I feel that my mom did a great job raising me. But also, my mom wasn’t perfect. And that is actually something I rely heavily on as a mom, that it’s okay. You know what? My mom did not play with me. My mom did not do crafts with me and my mom was exhausted 24/7. You know what I mean? Like, I don’t think she got me to brush my teeth.
Virginia
It happened or it didn’t. Yeah, there’s a funny line in the song where you’re like, “You had my aunt teach me the birds and the bees.” And I was like, “Taking notes! Outsourcing is an effective parenting strategy!”
Farideh
When my mom heard that she was like, “You didn’t have to tell them this.” I was like, Mom, I had to reach real hard to find like your mistakes.
Virginia
So sweet, though. I love it.
You talked a little bit about your partner being supportive, but also having to occasionally say like, “I swear, I’m not that bad.” What about the rest of your family? I’m curious if your kid listens to any of your music and what they think.
Farideh
My kid listens to my music, but she doesn’t really always connect it. There are things I would write about my kid, but I’m like, that is not mine, right? Like, my daughter would love to be my videos and I tell her I would be more successful with you in them, frankly. Like, I would. But you can’t make that choice for yourself until much later. And I have to think about that. Like, I have to think about the 16, the 18, the 22, the 30 year old version of you, not just the 8-year-old.
And I know that other people make other choices and I don’t have a judgment over that. But that is just how I’ve chosen. My husband is terrified of social media. He’s just like, I never would do this. Never Never.
There have been some conversations we’ve had with some of our songs. With the vacation song he was like, “But that is what happens, you do everything and then I drive.{“ I was like, “Yes, but you and I have an understanding in our house, where I have more time and freedom than other people because my job is to be a musician and to write the songs.” Whereas my husband has to leave the house, and he has a very demanding job. We have distributed it in this way. Like I get us out the door, you get us there. And then when we go on vacation, you play with a child and I read a book. But having to say, like, it’s not the same. So many of the people who listen to me are full time caregivers and full time workers and this has just been assumed she’ll do everything.
Virginia
That’s what you’re trying to name.
Farideh
That’s what I’m trying to do. We have battled in our marriage, of course, that I’m not the default.
And then my mom, I’ve been a musician for a long time so my parents are always like, “oh, yeah, so that’s what you do now. Okay, that sounds great.” Like, there are some songs where I did say to my dad. I was like, “there’s a couple songs I’m just going to tell you not to listen to.”
Virginia
Just do yourself a favor.
Farideh
Just skip these.
Virginia
It doesn’t all have to be for everybody.
Farideh
The other option is that I just don’t speak about it and then my dad will probably watch it and then pretend he never saw it. And then we’ll never discuss it.
Virginia
We’ll have this strange, unspoken tacit agreement not to talk about the ho song.
Farideh
People who like don’t like to talk about things, that’s also a blessing.
Virginia
I’m definitely going to play your album for my kids. Because what I do like about your music—and I can see this as complicated with your own child—but for parents in general I feel like it’s a great way of making the work more visible to our kids, which is something I think about a lot. My kids are 6 and 10 so we are are out of the hell of the toddler and baby stage and I do think a lot about like, yeah, we’re trying to get them to do more chores now and it’s hard. It’s so much easier to just do everything myself, because kids are bad at things.
Farideh
They really are and they fight you the whole way. I’m supposed to give my kid chores and I’m like that just like, that just sounds like more work for me.
Virginia
So when I’m failing on the giving of chores, much as I’m often failing on the teeth brushing, if I can at least make visible what I’m doing. Like, I have to clean up dinner right now so I am not doing whatever you want to be doing. Trying to clarify the amount of labor that goes into supporting the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. Its really banking on a lot of my free labor here, and let me make that clear to you, not in a guilt inducing way.
Farideh
With my kid, she does listen to it but I don’t know if she’s making that connection. But maybe the connections aren’t made till later.
Virginia
That’s what I love about your music is like, it doesn’t need to be me giving a lecture in the middle of the kitchen holding a sponge. But if I have these songs on, it’s helping connect some dots that can be connected.
Butter
Farideh
Oh, well, I have a new hyperfixation on the whole like Sarah J. Maas book series. I did not allow myself to read for a long time because what happens is that I have a hard time existing in this realm if I’m into a really good book.
Virginia
I can relate, absolutely.
Farideh
Christmas and summers, I would let myself read. And this summer all I wanted to do was read and I just fell down this rabbit hole.
Until TikTok and BookTok I didn’t actually know what books I liked. I felt like nobody had good recommendations. I really like fantasy. That’s one of the things I like. So then I fell down the Sarah J. Maas hole. And you know what? I love living as a fae princess warrior. I don’t need to exist anymore. When I finished one series, my husband was like, “oh, that’s so great to get my wife back.” And I was like, “sorry. No, that’s just five books. I have another 11 to get through.”
Virginia
A Court of Thorns and Roses? Is that her?
Farideh
Yes. She has Crescent City and then now I’m in the Throne of Glass.
I love like discovering new artists that you like and thinking about their life and then reflecting upon that on yours as yourself, right? Because part of me can be like, well, I’ve been doing this for nine months and I haven’t had this huge thing happen.
And I’m like, this person has been at it, like they’ve been writing books for the last 15 years and I’ve just discovered them and what a wealth of material I get to dive into. So it just reminds me of like staying in these things for the long game. My success is not limited. It’s not downhill from here as it sometimes can feel. And then I’m just like, think about. I bet you she sat there at the page being like, I’m never gonna figure this out and why am I ruining my life? This is a waste of time, I should go get a nine to five job and just give up on this. I bet you she sat there thinking that, too.
Virginia
Oh my God, you’re so right.
Farideh
And then you get this beautiful thing. And you’re like, and I bet you she was just like, “I’m just going to have to write this badly. I’m just going to phone it in.” It’s nice to think about people and you have their work in front of you and you love their work and you’re just so grateful they struggled through those moments that are absolutely universal. You know, she’s probably like not figuring out the scene, not figuring out the scene. And then took two weeks off. She’s probably doing dishes and then the idea was like!
Virginia
Oh, that’s it. Yes, God and that is like the most frustrating. I’m sure this is true. For songwriting, too. It is the most frustrating thing about creative work where you’re like, I know it’s there, but I cannot see it and then it will come to you at some inane time.
Farideh
You don’t know what people will resonate with. Like the poop song. I was just like, I don’t know what to write today. This is dumb. I’m like, Oh, 10 million views. Okay. Well. I guess people liked that. Every time I every time I decide “this is trash. It’s horrible. Nobody likes this.” And I’m like, well, you’re not actually good judge. You’re not 10 million viewers. And when I’m like, “this is it. This is the song.” Nope, nobody likes it.
Virginia
This happens to me with newsletters where something that I’ve really dug into, especially if it’s something more heavily reported, a little more science-y or whatever, it will do fine. People will like it. But compared to something kind of off the cuff emotional, like I just throw it out in an hour, that’s the newsletter that gets wide circulation and tons of comments and engagement. And I’m just like, cool, cool. Cool.
Farideh
So, how hard I work is not actually…
Virginia
…Proportional to the success at all.
Farideh
That’s how I always feel about songs. If they don’t come out right away, then they’re not coming. It’s not going to come out. It’s not going to be great. I will say that there have been times, especially in in this journey particularly, because writing comedy song is very different than writing an emotional song. They’re very, very different. Because my songwriting process used to be like, sit down at the guitar, play, some chords, start singing, words would come to me. Sing from my heart. “Oh, this song is about this thing I’m doing.” Like a very much come from the music from my intuition from my heart. Whereas comedy songs are more cerebral. They’re like, “I will write about this.”
Virginia
Because you start with the concept, “I will write about husbands pooping.”
Farideh
Yeah, exactly. It comes from your mind instead of your heart. Like with “you’re such a good dad,” I kind of started writing and I struggled with it for a while figuring it out. I didn’t know what the punch line was. Because the song goes like “I did the cooking and the cleaning and the groceries and the laundry and then when you asked me what I did, I said I did nothing.” That was originally the idea of like the invisible labor to me. But then it kind of moved.
Or like the song on the album “supermom” originally it was about super dads about like how they get applause for absolutely everything they did. But it’s like, actually, it’s not as funny. So it’s interesting, I have to work a little harder. I have to refine more than in my other work. Because it’s not coming from the heart, it’s coming from more of a brain place.
Virginia
That makes sense. Because you’re both thinking through, like, what do I want to communicate about this real issue that you’re talking about and what makes it funny, and then also, what makes it music?
Farideh
And what makes an impact.
Virginia
So, since you recommended a really good deep dive series, and I love a deep dive series, I’m gonna recommend two books. It’s not as deep as well as Sarah J. Maas but I am excitedly waiting for this author to do more. The author is Sophie Irwin. She has two books that I binged last weekend, because I was solo, my kids were at their dad’s. And I had them both on audiobook, which was great because these solo weekends, I can just listen to an audio book for 10 hours straight. It’s a little bit magical. While I was working on our dollhouse and doing garden stuff and just puttering around the house. The first one is A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting and the second is A Lady's Guide to Scandal. She’s a modern writer, but clearly very Jane Austen-inspired. They are set in Regency England, so picture your Jane Austen, Bath, all of that kind of stuff. It’s a romantic comedy type of plot, but there’s just a lot of feminism. There are queer characters.
Farideh
Oh, I can’t wait.
Virginia
They’re super delightful. So much world building. When you are building the world as a nonfiction writer, I’m like, well, the world is ready built. I just have to describe what is already happening. I don’t have to think of stuff.
Farideh
Yeah, you just have to point out the stuff that people are missing.
Virginia
My sources give me all the details. I don’t have to make them all up. It blows my mind. So they’re just really, really fun audiobooks. The narrators are both British and do all the different accents but I’m sure they’re fun as a paper read, too. I just happened to do them as audiobooks.
Well, this was so much fun. Tell us again where people can get the album, how we can support your work, get more of your music, all that.
Farideh
You can find The Mother Load on any streaming platform that you listen to or follow me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, whatever you like. I would say Instagram is the best if you have to choose one. @ILoveFarideh because I’m conditioning your brain to love me.
Virginia
Well, it’s working. Thank you so much, Farideh! This was so much fun. I love having you here.
Farideh
Thanks for having me.
The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by me, Virginia Sole-Smith. You can follow me on Instagram.
Burnt Toast transcripts and essays are edited and formatted by
who runs@SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing.
The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.
Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.
Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.
Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!
Share this post