Thomas Austin is a Nashville singer-songwriter who calls his music theo-folk. A pastor's kid from Maryland, he spent years as a worship leader, and now goes to an Anglican church. His song "Normal Church" went viral on Instagram and brought a comment section full of theology arguments he'd rather not have. He and Korby talk worship music, metaphor, doubt, and whether emotion is a lesser kind of truth. Thomas plays "Just Emotion" and "Normal Church" live in the studio.

00:00 How "Normal Church" went viral

04:40 Growing up a pastor's kid: "Coldplay concert followed by TED Talk"

13:00 Korby on praise and worship music, and five years at Mass without converting

27:54 Christianity's discomfort with metaphor, and songs that write themselves

Mid-episode: "Just Emotion" (live)

39:50 The altar call, the wedding day, and Peter on the beach

47:26 Faith without feeling, and raising a daughter to know the stories

1:01:59 Pickleball as a spiritual discipline

1:15:42 Christian Wiman, Dostoevsky, and suffering without answers

Closing: "Normal Church" (live)

Mentioned: C.S. Lewis (The Great Divorce, The Silver Chair, The Problem of Pain), Christian Wiman (My Bright Abyss), Wendell Berry (Jayber Crow), Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek), Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov), G.K. Chesterton, Kierkegaard, George MacDonald, the Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil," and The Rabbit Room.

Korby talks with journalist and author Jordan Ritter Conn about his new book American Men, interviewing 50+ men about masculinity, the four men whose stories made the book (Ryan, Gideon, Joseph, Nate), the process of getting men to be vulnerable, the permission structure concept, his first day at UC Berkeley journalism school, the cancer scare he hoped would get him out, the notepad as superpower, the Scotland trip with his dad, the impact of the book on his own friendships, Tom Wolfe, narrative journalism, the literary market and male readers, video games as time thief, Bowling Alone, male loneliness, the hardball league, and getting together in a room.

Tonight's the thing. 100 episodes of the Morse Code Podcast, celebrated at The 5 Spot in East Nashville. 6 p.m. Guests from the show - Bre Kennedy, Andi Marie Tillman, Tyler Merritt, Leah Blevins, Tim Easton, Ryan Rado, Jessica Willis Fisher, Paul McDonald, Packy Lundholm, Randa Newman, Joy Todd, and me - playing songs, an author interview, a film screening, live painting, more. Come join us. Tickets here.

Molly Tuttle was the first person I ever co-wrote with in Nashville. She’d just moved to town. I had a title. She had a guitar riff. We wrote “Friend and a Friend.” It made her debut album. Best-of nominations followed. A decade later she’s a 3x Grammy winner with a right hand that launched a thousand YouTube tutorials.

We talked about growing up in Palo Alto with a bluegrass-teaching dad who found the music through Hank Williams on a farm in Illinois, the kids-on-bluegrass festivals where she first met Sierra Hull and Sarah Jarosz and realized there were other kids in America who could already play, what it was like the first time she went to the Grammys (deer in headlights) and the second time (she handed Joni Mitchell a trophy and went through a goth phase inspired by Måneskin’s pyrotechnics), and the part that doesn’t go away no matter how famous you get — the work of keeping a band together, coordinating schedules, writing for the next release. Even at her level, its a sacrifice.

Then she played ”Friend and a Friend”. Solo in the room. Fantastic.

🎥 Watch the full conversation on YouTube

🎸 Watch Molly perform “Friend and a Friend”

AFTER THE CONVERSATION

After the Conversation is my Substack essay series where I keep thinking after the microphones are off. This week: the song we wrote on a swinging gate, cargo pants and homemade bread in the Bellingham woods, and an announcement about what’s next for the Morse Code Podcast.