tv Charlie Rose PBS August 10, 2016 12:00pm-1:01pm PDT
12:00 pm
haydock. >> rose: welcome to the program. we begin with david brooks, the columnist for the "new york times." >> as one psychiatrist said, compare donald trump's speech patterns to a robin williams comic monologue except put in insults where there would be jokes, and it's just, like, bing, bing, bing, bing. i felt a little queasy doing public psychoanalysis of this guy but that's in part because our language has become so demoralized, it's hard for me to do moral analysis of the guy. but it occurred to me after i'd done all the psychological dress-up that i really have a moral objection to the guy. >> rose: we conclude with bonnie raitt. >> when you pick a great torch song or ballad that turns the rock over and you're looking at all this stuff you don't want to look at, that's the reason to sing that song. you want to reach people on a
12:01 pm
deeper level, and that's what i mean. it's not just skipping a stone across the surface of the water. and then digging deep, you know, those grooves, when you love r&b and rock and roll as much as i do and you get that groove going, it's like digging a big trench and just sitting in it, you know. >> rose: brooks and raitt, when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the following: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.
12:02 pm
>> rose: david brooks is here, a columnist for the "new york times." his most recent book "the road to character" will be released in paperback in september. he has been writing extensively about the presidential election and the unprecedented candidacy of trump. 50 republican former national security officials signed an open letter warning trump would be the most reckless president in american history. republican senator susan collins announced she would not vote for trump. i am pleased to have him here to talk about that and many other things. welcome. >> good to be back at the table. >> rose: good to have you back at the the table i must say. you spend your time trying to make sense of the campaign. what sense have you made of it? >> donald trump has given me a reason to live. >> rose: challenged you, has he? >> dovetailing away from politics for a few years but he brings it right back. i spent the first half to have the year writing six columns on why he would not get the republican nomination.
12:03 pm
decided he'll be inaugurated, don't worry, this will not happen. then the last four or five months trying to figure out why i got it wrong. >> rose: why did you figure it out? >> there is dislocation. there is a loss of dignity. a lot of opiate use. >> rose: to relieve the pain of discontent and broken families? >> everything is indivisible from a loss of pride and, so, it used to be very possible to say, i may not be the richest guy on earth or the most famous person on earth, but people can count on me. i have dignity, i do my job, i'm the sort of person in this community who is upstanding. a lot of people have lost the dignity code, and that becomes the crisis of status and self-worth, and then there is a sense that everyone's giving me the shaft -- my employer gave me a shaft, i was in a job training
12:04 pm
program and they gave me the shaft -- it's just no trust. >> rose: everything i depended on let me down. >> some of it, to a larger degree than i anticipated, a lot of it is the reality tv consumer culture that's undermined the ethos. the ethos of working class dignity was almost anti-capital because you didn't have to be the richest or have the most, it was a code of responsibility. but the celebrity of honey boo boo and all the tv shows is to have dignity you must have the celebrity score fast. so the idea of working your way through and being a respectable member of society, that's ethos has gone away. we have a crisis of status mixed in with economics and family breakdown and social solidarity, and just so many people falling through the cracks. >> rose: if you're feeling all of that and that's happening to
12:05 pm
you, you're looking for what? >> first of all, you're looking for a sense of tribal identity. if anybody wants a good book on this subject, there is a book called hillbilly elogj and he describes intense tribalism. he describes it within the family, it might be totally screwed up, but if anybody outside the family attacks, death to them, violence. so that intense sense of tribal, we take care of our own. ad i mentioned a column a couple of weeks ago, the british have a song called "we take care of our own" and in the verses it sounds patriotic and prideful, you know, we take care of our own, but in the other part of the song it sounds almost racist, we take care of our own but we don't take care of people who are not like our own. so this crisis of solidarity,
12:06 pm
they're pulling in. >> rose: and they want to be with their own. >> the suspicion is of the outsiders who are not playing by the rules. the other thing we're saying within the communities is donald trump's voters are making more than $70,000 a year. they are not in the primaries, they are not poor. they're upper end, they're the richer people in poor places. a lot are saying, hey, i became an accountant, i played by the rules and paid my mortgage, all these people didn't do that and we're giving them benefits, so i'm going to find somebody who's going to fix that problem, that the responsible people are getting the shaft. at least that's the perception. >> rose: why donald trump? he appeals tomas clinety, the sense of closedness, the global hostile and he speaks in a different way. i ran into a woman in western
12:07 pm
pennsylvania, and she was going to a memorial service for her mom who died elderly and was relieved she was not going to speak. she said, i'm relieved, we're not word people. that resonated. in this modern society, information age economy, it really pays to be a word person. if you feel you're not one of those people, then society is sort of rigged against you, it's super tough. if you're the sort of person who finds dignity in working with your hands, the status system is rigged against you, and here comes donald trump who speaks in these short burst sentences, extremely strong, extremely masculine and has contempt for, you know, people like me who are word people, and, so, suddenly -- the other thing, the final thing to be said the they're not naive about who this guy is. they see that he shoots his mouth off, they see that he lies, but they say, all things considered, i'm still going to be for that guy because at least he's change, at least he's -- he
12:08 pm
understands nation and a lot of those people don't understand how much pride i get in my own life for being attached to the united states of america. >> rose: he also comes to them and says, i'm a winner, you know i'm a winner. >> when i see him, i see fear like that republican convention speech. but a lot of people see optimism, make america great again, success, i'm a winner. so the other thing that -- and this i find with republican operatives, i see all the candidates i've covered in my life haven't crossed the basic threshold, moral character, psychology threshold. i see trump as a unique figure who's morally outrageous and outside the threshold but most of the people who support him don't see that. they say clinton has pluses and minuses, trump has pluses and
12:09 pm
minuses, they're both in the same ballpark. >> rose: they're all politicians. >> yes. i see this unique figure who's unqualified to be president, that's not what they see, and frankly some republican members of congress think that way. it was so funny, the republicanle convention, you would be in the hallway and run into a senator, they would shuffle over with their embarrassed look and bodies doing contortions because they're doing the trump support thing and they have a defensive preemptive comment, aaah, i think it will work out okay, and please like me. so they have all these defense mechanisms. but you know, i think over the last few weeks, donald trump has hollowed out the ground from which they walk. from the paul ryan's who says i have disgust for what he does but i still like the person, that opinion is being destroyed by donald trump himself. his actions are so outrageous, at some point you have to say,
12:10 pm
no, it's the guy. >> rose: do you think there is a moral choice for voters? >> i've talked about the traits of narcissism but also looking at his speech patterns and there is a psychological concept called the flight of ideas and a person who suffers from this is related to a manic state. they hear a word then they have an association, another association and another association. as one psychiatrist says compare donald trump speech patterns to a robin williams monologue except put in insults where there would be jokes, and it's sort of bing, bing, bing, bing. i felt queasy doing public psychoanalysis of this guy, but that's in part because our language has become so demoralized, it's hard for me to do moral analysis of the guy. but it occurred to me after i had done the psychological dress-up that i have a moral objection to the guy. lying is wrong and lying that
12:11 pm
much is wrong. not having basic empathy for mrs. khan or a baby at a rally or for anybody is wrong. it's a moral wrong but we try not to use the moral categories because it seems self righteous. but to be honest my objections are more moral than psychological. >> rose: do you think for republicans, people who have written this, in fact michael morell said at this table last night that he had to speak out because he thought not to speak out in a sense was not to be as moral as you had to be at this time. >> i think this is -- it's sort of a joe mccarthy moment. >> rose: where are you and where were you. >> and you will be remembered. and the sentence i had is if you're not in revolt, you're in cahoots. so if you're for a political office holder, it's a tough call, but i think years hence this will be remembered and, when your grandkids think about
12:12 pm
you, they'll remember this moment. >> rose: does he remind you of anyone? >> you know, the burr los coney references are a bit germane. the putin references are a little less germane. but i would say in distinction of putin, putin has a plan and self discipline and strategy, i don't think trump has those things. >> rose: other than winning. yeah, but the berlusconi references are higher. the way, again, to go to the verb yag, it always comes back to himself. if he has to utter more than an eight-word sentence, it loops back to self. and my interpretation of that is they have this debate in the psychological community, narcissists are secretly insecure and are they promoting themselves or are they super secure, and a better distinction, are they fragile. you can be high self-esteem but
12:13 pm
also fragile. >> rose: and he's fragile? the need to lash out at every instance suggests fragility, not security. i watched your show a bunch of years ago and you had a bunch of iraq veterans. zach was one at the table. >> rose: about fallujah. yes, and their voices were so quiet because they had been through something and they didn't need to prove anything to anybody, and that's the opposite of donald trump. his voice doesn't have that self-assured quietness of i know who i am. >> rose: what are the moral failures? >> there is an hour or two of bigotry. >> rose: as someone said of the ten commandments, tell me your five favorite (laughter) >> bigotry is putting on to a group the sins of a couple. when he wants to ban all muslims, that's the dictionary definition of it. the lack of empathy -- >> rose: what if someone said
12:14 pm
to you, and this has been said to me, it's an opening bid by him. that is what he knows, a transactional life. so everything for him is i'll start here but i'll end up here and that's what i intended to do. don't make a moral judgment of me because of where i start, make a moral judgment of maybe where i end. >> what that argument is asking us to do is suspend morality and reduce everything to a cash nexus. >> rose: that's how he seases ss the world, don't you think. >> yeah, but do we give in -- >> rose: no, i'm asking for insight. that's the world that he's lived and that's what the art of the deal is about, whoever wrote it. >> how he got this way, i don't know. but one of the clinton -- the best clinton ad makes sheer is he pollutes the moral atmosphere where we raise our kids. >> rose: so two people in a
12:15 pm
powerful position with enormous influence not only about our lives but about our future, what does that say about that? >> it indicts a crisis of solidarity, as i said, and the important distinction, maybe contempt one might have for trump with the trump voters. to me he's the wrong answer to the right question. they're right to want something different but he's the only thing they've got, but that doesn't mean we have to have actual contempt -- >> rose: is he the only one that can fill the expectation? has reality television become so much a part of the reality of life for so many people? >> yeah. >> rose: i grew up in a small town in north carolina and i go back and i understand some of the frustration because it's an area where the economy has gone other places. it's gone to asia because of textiles and other places because of tobacco.
12:16 pm
they're looking for other places to have what their parents had. >> i think there could be another possibility. one of the debates is between globalists who want to add multi-lateral institutions and free trade. >> rose: this is the open-closed debate. >> right. america solved this problem. we had a strong nationalist, ardently patriotic, but based on the idea we're a universal country and anybody could come here as long as they assimilate and become part of america, and theodore roosevelt was very patriotic. there is much pride in north carolina and virginia. you can't go very far without talking about sports, dignity you get from the pittsburgh
12:17 pm
pirates, et cetera, but there is also the national pride. that had to be played upon but it has not been. coming up with a new better form of nationalism better than trump nationalism which goes back to theodore roosevelt, aired rnt nationalism, he was very patriotic with a strong sense of masculinity where men appeal. >> rose: where is that candidate? >> i have been waiting all my life for that candidate. he seems a breath away. john mccain was going to be
12:18 pm
that candidate. rudy giuliani was going to b. but then they get in the clutches of the republican orthodoxy and decide they can't let government do anything. my shorthand for american politics is we have one liberal movement that believes in using government to enhance equality. we have a conservative movement -- using government to create more equality. then using government to enhance more freedom. in american history, there is been hamilton, up to t.r., enhancing social mobility to give poor boys and girls the chance to rise and succeed. >> rose: that's the party you want to see. >> there are six of us who still believe that. (laughter) the wig party. but for republicans to embrace it, they would have to say we're going to use government and create early childhood programs, summer jobs, infrastructure
12:19 pm
programs and use government to help people become better capitalists, but we're not going to interfere as much as some of the progressives want us to. that's a big hole waiting to be filled. >> rose: in one column you said the debate of the size and role of government is not as important as the open-close nature of it. >> how do you feel to trade, people, ideas. american nationalism unlike european nationalism is our nationalism was open. we believed america was the last best hope of earth precisely because everyone could come as long as they sign on to our culture and civilization but we've lost that sort of unifying civilization. >> rose: open to both ideas, people and opportunity. >> yeah, and it was a certain mentality that first they came from europe and saw flocks of geese that took 45 minutes to
12:20 pm
take off, saw oysters and clams bigger than they'd seen and had two thoughts, one was that god's plans for humanity would be completed here and they would get rich in the process. so that created moral materialism and energy. they noticed asset leers were moving west through ohio and north carolina they would find a perfectly good valley but keep going because they assumed there was something better over the next ridge. when people around the world look at america, that's what they looked at, that sense of future orientation seeing the present from the vantage point of the future. >> rose: are we more that way than any other country on the earth? >> i still think so. even for all the doom and gloom, i would still want to be us. politics and leadership became a profession rather than a vocation. >> rose: what you did for life.
12:21 pm
>> lincoln had general mcclellan and he wanted him to be more aggressive. he goes to mcclellan's house and waits in the living room. you can imagine that. the butler says, well, general mcclellan will be down in a few minutes. they wait, and the butler comes down and says general mccullen has retired. he will see you later. and the man with lincoln said, you must be outraged! and not to be ego and status above everything, whatever i have to do to get this guy to be a better general, i lo do it. i have been thinking about what this says about the whole culture and those of us in the elite media, i think we've become overindividualized and not as community oriented as we
12:22 pm
should be. we've become too utilitarian and not as moral as we should be. we've become not as spiritual as we should be. so the culture has sort of shifted away from certain things that really undergirded it. >> rose: if one of the two candidates talked about those values, do you think they would hit a resonance? >> totally. i wrote a book that came out about 18 months ago about morality and love and all these mushy things. >> rose: is it the one in which you talk about how -- >> i talk about the value of suffering and i talk a lot about love. the book tour, sometimes on a tour you're brought into a conference center and there is a bunch of -- we may fall into this category -- but a bunch of middle-aged white guys in suits, and they have been talking about money, and i'm wanting to talk
12:23 pm
about georgia elliott and her deep emotional trauma and tears. and i walk into a room of emotionally void audience on the face of the earth and thought this won't go well. but when you start talking about a life deeply led the way george elliott or dorothy day lived it, they lock in, and there is a quality of silence there that i had never heard in my speaking career, and that's because people are so hungry to at least have a forum to think about the things that matter most to them, and they know what's important, they don't have the words and no one's talking to them in those terms, the way martin luther king used to. so there is just this void in the public space. i think obama did as well as could be expected, but if our politicians could talk to that, i think there would just be a resonance. people are so hungry, especially after this year, for uplift, for
12:24 pm
somebody to name something that inspires and uplift. clinton is closed and walled off and trump is his own beast. >> rose: that's part of the reason michelle obama's speech was the one most well received. >> i thought it was the best speech of the two conventions. >> rose: because it was about family and someone who will protect my children and that kind of thing. >> and also about the moral nature of the universe, the arc of history bends toward justice, evil contains the seeds of its own destruction. this comes from martin luther king, there is a profound optimism that the universe is structured toward the good, and whether it's religious faith or whatever you want to put it, there is a profound and eloquent optimism undergirding her speech which is uplifting and you had a reason to look at a public figure involved in political life and feel good about where things were going. i thought ther there were a lotf
12:25 pm
good speeches in the democratic convention. cory booker, joe biden and barack obama. >> rose: so who meets your test? how does hillary clinton measure against all the values we have been talking about at this table? >> she's just all her life been secretive and insular and sometimes in self-destructive ways, and there is never an opening of trust. when you cover enough political campaigns, you see some speakers -- bill clinton -- they fall on to the audience and they're willing to do that, and if you fall on the audience, they'll hold you up. it's like a great rock concert where the artist falls into the audience and they hold him up. but if they pull back, they feel it and want to know why, you know, we want to help you here. >> rose: i think that's true in life.
12:26 pm
there is a recognition and resonance with people who in a sense are saying i'm naked. >> and you and i have messed up, let's be in this together. just an opening of a shell. the convention speech was such an occasion to do that. everyone on earth was saying do this, and still the decision was just to be closed and boring and, i mean, fine, professional. >> rose: better than usual. yeah, but you just compared it to what it could have been, and mitt romney could not do it either. he couldn't fall on the audience. but ann rah romney, his wife, c. >> rose: but there is something about her life experience, illness and other things that made her more open and maybe even fragile. >> for some people that humbling experience does create empathy and hue multi. franklin roosevelt is the classic example. it creates a bond and they
12:27 pm
connect their suffering to a story of larger transcendence and go with an open heart expecting the best in people. for some reason, when they think their suffering is illegitimate or don't turn into a longer redemption narrative then they close up a little. >> rose: there was an nbc-"wall street journal" poll where they did not attach donald trump's name to it but talked about the reasons in part, removing a lot of the negative things we've talked about, but just saying these are the kinds of things he is suggesting, and the message went through the roof. it wasn't identified with the candidate but it was a direct connection. so my question is how large is that, because that is large enough -- if that is large enough, he could win. >> or some future version. >> rose: exactly. your point is somebody has to come along who's better equipped both morally and otherwise to
12:28 pm
lead that, but this is not the -- >> or if you go back to the tension between open politics and the closed, if you took the closed, progressive version bernie sanders was associated with and took donald trump and took donald trump's comments about women and bigotry awftd table, you could see a lot of the sanders and trump people on the same side. as a coalition, that makes more sense than a lot of others we see in american politics. and that could be a majority coalition. the other thing involved in that is the hatred of politics. we have a big, diverse country. two ways to govern, one is authoritarian, someone saying this is what we're going to do, and the other is politics. politics is messy, compromise, dirty, ugly, but it's bert than the authoritarian. but we have now bred a lot of people who are so disgusted by politics. >> rose: we've seen from "hamilton" the musical that this is not knew, in every aspect,
12:29 pm
it's not knew. >> if i had to compare trump to a figure in american history it might be aaron burr, attend of his life had a big ego, tried to create an empire and was driven by pride and ego. >> rose: what you saw was thomas jefferson, the tactics done in his name. the sanders peopler you say had 90% of the democratic party's passion and 95% of the ideas, though joe biden used to say to me and others, bernie sanders has been saying the same thing for 30 years. >> that's his integrity. if you look where the democratic party shifted, against trade, for the much higher minimum wage, these are all -- the free college tuition -- >> rose: healthcare. -- healthcare, and the party is moving in that direction. one of the revelations of the democratic convention for me was how enpleasant a lot of the
12:30 pm
sanders people were. not most of them. after our "newshour" broadcast, we would hang out and i ended up talking to a lot of sanders people and most of them had been occupied. but on the floor there was a certain small percentage, seemed to be younger, frankly, who were so self-righteous and so unforegiving of opposing views. arrogant, moral preening. i had seen a little on the campaign trail but that's an absolutist idea in the democratic party. >> rose: my way tore the highway. >> and another version of this hostility to politics they're talking about. >> rose: so come november, if hillary clinton wins, what kind
12:31 pm
of government do we have and will it be a continuation of the kinds of qualities that she has exhibited so far? termin terms of not being open e would like to see her. not being able to explain something as simple as the e-mails. i mean, doing contortions to try to explain. >> if you remember back long ago, she had a crisis or a scandal involving the rose law firm records. >> rose: they showed up in the hallway -- >> a coffee table somewhere. >> rose: yeah. and that, i can't imagine is, not going to be a feature of her white house if she has one because it's been marking her career all along. >> rose: nobody changes at 69 or 70. you have the character you have. >> one wouldn't bet on it. hope is eternal, redemption is possible, at any point in life. she could change. >> rose: i live my life on
12:32 pm
that. (laughter) what's the calculus of your change? >> it's just -- well, i think -- you know, we think of, at 20, life is open, you make all these commitments. >> rose: right. but, you know, i'm mid '50s, but suddenly i have financial security, i actually have a plan, a career that's stable and now's the time i can take the biggest risk in my life and now's the time where i have a little more knowledge, i hope, of who i am and what i have been called to do. >> rose: and you can be true to yourself. >> you can be true. so i'm weirdly open to anything, which i think is the right posture for this agent. >> rose: what's interesting about what you just said is once you became strong enough to be more open, truthful, risk taking, it's when you became strong enough to be able to handle it, you think. it wasn't some spiritual growth
12:33 pm
over here, it was when you got strong enough, you think, to be able to -- >> this will seem boasty, but when you get strong enough you get strong enough to be emotionally vulnerable and spiritually open and strong enough to feel greater pain and joy. when that starts happening you lose control and say, okay, where am i going? take me. so somebody will take you. so you're off on a different ride. and then they think, well, whatever happens will happen. >> rose: thank you for coming. thank you. >> rose: back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: bonnie raitt is here, the rock and roll hall of famer and ten-time grammy winner sold more than 16 million records in a 45-year career. b.b. king called her the best damn slide player working today. she was named one to have rolling stone's greatest singers and guitar players of all time. her latest album "dig in deep"
12:34 pm
illustrates the balance of consistency and risk taking that defines her career. the "new york times" called it a digest of her proven strength and s.a.t., for every bittersweet ball -- ballad, there's a steam rolling groove. "gypsy in me." ♪ i don't know why but i'm just like the wind and it must be the gypsy in me ♪ ♪ gypsy in me ♪ ooh... ♪ ♪ ♪
12:35 pm
♪ somewhere off the bus ♪ hello, goodbye, honey ♪ it's been good and i must be going ♪ ♪ this is how i get when i'm in one place too long ♪ ♪ i don't know why but i'm like the wind and i just keep going ♪ ♪ free ♪ must be the gypsy in me, yeah ♪ >> rose: i'm pleased to have bonnie raitt back at this table. you know what? 20 years, 1995. >> i know. incredible. >> rose: but how are you? i'm great. just getting ready to start the second leg of our couple of year-long tour, and we're doing our summer outdoor tour starting friday night. i'm excited. >> rose: you have been doing
12:36 pm
this 45 years. >> yeah, started in 1970, so even a little bit more. >> rose: is it just -- you used the word -- and you have talked about it -- gratitude, but it's also the passion for music. >> oh, man, that's what makes being home and the breaks between the tour, you know, after about a week, you start going, i miss that. it's not the fan adulation, it's mostly just the playing and the songs and the feeling with the audience, there is nothing like it. it's what keeps us on the road. >> rose: keeps you young, keeps you everything. >> yeah, you can't beat it. >> rose: keeps you alive. you can't beat it! ♪ oh the nuggets of gold ♪ the pearls of wisdom ♪ how cruel is it that fate has to find me all alone with something to say ♪
12:37 pm
♪ all alone ♪ with something to say >> rose: how did you find the bhus? >> you know, since i was a little girl, when i first heard blueberry hill by fats domino and chuck berry, rhythm and blues, sometimes people separate it, but to me soulful, funky music is something i always just loved. even elvis was funky. i tended to like the motown, otis redding, aretha franklin, i just loved the r&b and most of america loves it. it has that beat and that side-to-side thing. it puts the roll in rock, you know what i mean? >> rose: i do know what you
12:38 pm
mean. you once said that your sound, your guitar sounds like bacon smells. >> well, i was trying to think of something on the spot that is just undeniably -- >> rose: good. yeah, you know, in a way that's somewhat on the edge of guilty. i mean, there is nothing like the way to play and feel the sound come out of your amplifier or just play an acoustic guitar. but the slide guitar is so expressive. it never stops giving. >> rose: b.b. says the best. i can't believe he would repeat that to journalists. i thanked him for it. if i never got anything else, i would be able to have that. >> rose: to live on that. yeah. >> rose: but you're on the road, too. >> on the road is the fun part. the coming up with the album after album of songs -- when you find a great song, i don't write my own stuff that much, but when
12:39 pm
i find a song that suits me and i have a good arrangement in my head and work with a great band, it's the finding and coming up with the record that's the work that i do and the promotion that's not my favorite part, but it's important to let the word be out, but the touring part is where the payoff is, that's the fun part. >> rose: because of the crowds and the connection to the audience. >> the thing that happens when you're playing is just indescribable. it's like an anointed exaltation. you forget all of the boris and aches and -- worries and aches and pains and you get out there and i watched it with my dad and feel the same way. >> rose: your dad used to watch my show. >> we used to watch it together. we talked to each other from two different cities and i said, are you watching charlie? he said, of course, having cereal and watching charlie. >> rose: you have been sober for 30 years? >> yes. >> rose: was that hard?
12:40 pm
on the first day i thought it would be easier to do it than imagine how much and when. and there are others things you can get addicted to if you're an addictive person, work too much, co-dependent relationships you should have been out of, food -- >> rose: do you have some of those? >> part of sobrietity is being aware of your tendencies to use things to numb out, to mood shift or feed that big gaping thing you're missing whether it's love, sex, working, email, exercise. so i try to keep an eye on it. be the sobriety part, i work at it but it's been really blessedly easy. >> rose: because i've never bought this and i've had arguments and i know people say, well, when i was drinking, i was a better writer. >> look at the worth keith did
12:41 pm
when he was high. most of the people i worked and studied with in high school were raging alcoholics. >> rose: you believed this? it came out when i was an an adult. hemingway and those guys were -- that's alcoholic thinking to be self-aggrandizing and think you're worth so much but still feel worthless. that drives people to great art, they feel wounded, more sensitive or they're picking up channels other people don't get. i don't thing anybody regrets the work they did. >> rose: obviously you said most of the music you do is written by someone else, but i'm surprised by that because you live life, because you are a woman of feeling and a woman of -- you've lived life and you feel life -- >> but you don't have to have written a song to --
12:42 pm
>> rose: i know that but you would think the capacity to feel as well as you do means you can write those feelings. >> well, i have written 30 or so songs and i'm really proud of them and i've got more on this latest record than i've written in a while. >> rose: on this one? yeah. there were specific reasons i wanted to because i wanted to custom write songs that went with certain fields of music. there is a kick-butt political song on there because i just had enough of money, hijacking democracy. there are songs about regret and sadness saying goodbye to love relationships in my family and i'm sorry for the one i couldn't be for you, i'm sorry for who you couldn't be for me. it's sad when you look back. so there were things i wanted to say, but i couldn't make you love me, angel from montgomery. >> rose: you have to sing those. >> it didn't matter i didn't write them. >> rose: you owned them.
12:43 pm
every song i picked because it resonates with something in me that's just as real as -- >> rose: but "i can't make you love me," you have to sing it. >> it's a great gift that they sent that song to me first. >> rose: yeah, they did. yeah. >> rose: said this is for you. yes. a lot of people covered it, including adele, and prince did a version of it. >> rose: they sent it to you first. >> i cut a song on nick of time called "too soon to tell" by co-writers of "i can't make you love me" and he loved the way i sang it, so that's the song people will remember me for the most. >> rose: i do, too. i'm very proud to have it. >> rose: i like "need you tonight." >> pretty sexy. ♪ because i'm not sleepin' ♪ there is something about you,
12:44 pm
baby ♪ ♪ at th -- ♪ ♪ that makes me sweat. how do you feel ♪ ♪ i'm lonely ♪ what do you think ♪ i can't think at all ♪ what you gonna do ♪ i'm gonna live my life ♪ . >> nice to know you don't have to hang up your spurs just because you're getting on, right, charlie? >> rose: that's what they say. (laughter) but you did say the closest thing to religion is desperate 'tude. >> to me, being aware of how blessed i am and not focusing on
12:45 pm
what's wrong all the time or complaining or whining, but just to look around and see how blessed we all are, and certainly you and i have incredibly blessed careers and lives. but even people scuffling and trying to just put food on the table still feel, when you think of your life of how grateful it is knowing there are people worse off and fighting illness and heart break, and we are just so grateful to be able to take this breath. >> rose: i know you said i hate whining, but at the same time you know a lot of lives in which people have every right to say this is unfair. >> exactly, exactly. so because i'm around so much injustice and suffering and loss, i'm so grateful that i'm not in that situation and we're put on this earth to do something to help those that aren't as lucky. >> rose: there is a series of
12:46 pm
years in 2004, 2005, 2009, you lost father, mother and brother. did it take a toll? >> i knew it was coming. i didn't expect it to be back-to-back like that. i tried to prayer for it. but to watch somebody suffer and to see somebody lose who they are like alzheimer that my mom had, and my dad had a fall when he was so vital in his '80s, some kind of accident where he broke his ankle, aspirated in the hospital and got chemical pneumonia and that began a cycle of not being able to recuperate and lose muscle tone and all that and he didn't get to be john raitt anymore. heart breaking to watch him. >> rose: what was it to be the daughter of john raitt? >> the greatest. that guy was -- everything i am i owe my parents. i mean, they were full of gratitude, full of curiosity,
12:47 pm
had youthful spirits and avid, acute minds and loved all kinds of music and arts and they were political and quaker and active. my dad, in particular, had just such a love of life and never said a bad thing about anybody. >> rose: did you get some of this ego-friendliness from him? >> i would say my mom was more active involved with the groups and my dad would do a lot of benefits and write checks and talk about it and people didn't ask in interviews about what do you care about as much, but they put me on the road to being a safe energy environmentalist and justice and civil rights, they took me to the march on washington, they took me to the ban a bomb rallies, they educated -- >> rose: ban the bomb. they educated my brother and i on how to be of service, and that was basically the quaker tenet. >> rose: what price do you
12:48 pm
pay. >> for being on the road? >> rose: for being committed to working the way you are. >> running a record company with a great team and being the captain of your own ship and producing yourself, that kind of stuff can be taxing, but, you know, ultimately, since the beginning, i mean, i have to answer for every single note on the record and every mix and choice of song and everything i wear and every interview i do. you know, i like to have an understanding between me and whoever's talking to me that, you know, it's going to reach a certain level. there is a price to pay for being in control which means i don't get to have someone delegate it and then spend time thinking about my next songs. i think because i write my own music and are head of my own business, which is something my dad didn't have control over, he had to wait for somebody to give him a new show. >> rose: you want the control. i want to be able to pick the
12:49 pm
ticket prices and the show, but as a woman i didn't think i could do wife and mother. >> rose: if you don't look after yourself, no one will. >> and wife and mother, angelina jolie, meryl streep, people who have raised healthy, balanced children are in long-term relationships which are successful and still are working at a huge level and doing all the press and promo and pull it off, i don't know how they can do it. >> rose: but you have to manage that. >> yeah, but i don't have to take care of kids or be a wife, which that's a big piece. well, you know, we're married to our careers. >> rose: i just haven't been in a place where -- i have been so engaged by living. >> yeah. >> rose: both work and play. yeah. i hear you. i mean, i have had a lot of research in the wrong kinds of
12:50 pm
relationships. >> rose: if you had a bad relationship, why? >> it started out great, but like relationships that don't work, whether with colleagues at work or romantic relationships, they start out and then you grow apart or for whatever reason the person wasn't who you thought they were or they weren't even the person they thought they were. >> rose: you thought you had something you really didn't want. >> or just lost trust. each person i had been with for long, consecutive relationships were right for the time. my life is more settled and i have a great team of people who are my friends. >> rose: have you changed musically? >> i hope i've deepened as a person and it's reflected in my choices but a lot of choices musically have to do with not repeating something i've already done. i want to keep layering and stretching. but i called my last record slipstream because i'm not reinventing the wheel.
12:51 pm
all of us do music that -- you know, there is not that many new songs out there. just when you think there is nobody else new that could come up you get the alabama shakes or somebody that will just blow your mind with somebody completely new. so i like to keep my ears open and just keep stretching. i'd like to think i'm still growing as a musician. i hope so. >> rose: you are. you did say once your music is not for sissies. >> i mean, the topics that i choose in my ballads, that's what soul music to me is, whether country music or r&b or whatever, when you pick a great torch song or a great ballad that really turns the rock over, i mean, you're looking at all the stuff you don't want to look at, that's the reason to sing that song, that's why you want to reach people on a deeper level. that's what i mean, it's not just skipping a stone across the surface of the water, and then digging deep, you know, those grooves, when you love r&b and
12:52 pm
rock and roll as much as i do and you get that groove going, it's like digging a big trench and just sitting in it. it's fantastic. >> rose: anybody you want to play with that you haven't really for whatever reason? >> well, there is a host of african musicians i've gotten a little taste, and celtic musicians like paul brady, there's more world musicians. i would love to do something with keith richards. we've opened for the stones and wie done duets, but i think it would be fun to make music with him. i have a lot of admiration for him. >> rose: so do i. the thing i like about him among other things, i've always been intrigued by their relationship with mick. >> yeah. >> rose: whatever the conflict or joy, whatever it is, it's there and real. >> and what a gift his
12:53 pm
forthrightness in writing that book so eloquently and bob dylan's book, elvis costello, these guys are, they're incredible to get inside the meek nations, not just the history about how the songs came about, but they're open about relationships in a way i wouldn't have the guts to do that. >> rose: why not? what do you have to fear? >> i wouldn't spend time going over my past. i've spent so much time doing interviews about other people in my past for documentaries and books. after you get through press with the 20th album, it's like, that's enough of the past. we need to talk about the future. >> rose: what about the future. >> in the future, i've got another year of touring with this record, and then it will be
12:54 pm
really fun to be -- the ebb and flow of being home and on the road has a nice balance and groove after all these years, so i hope one day to be able to travel not professionally but just go and visit the places in the world. musically, there is a lot of people, there is a lot of jazz and blues left. a lot of great musical. >> rose: a lot of music to play and listen. >> i listen to paul simon and jackson brown and so many people who are just growing. >> rose: how about new people? whitney howard from alabama shakes. a group called lake street dive i think is great. lori mavoola, a british artist. there is just so much great new music. >> rose: this album called digging deep, bonnie raitt, if you want to see her, she's on tour somewhere. >> oh, yeah, we are. >> rose: you can find her somewhere. >> i hope you can come to a
12:55 pm
show. i'll come to your house and do a private concert. >> rose: i would love that. you will do it! >> i will do it! >> rose: i know you will. i'll just bring my guitar. >> rose: that's all you have to bring. >> we'll walk on the beach with your dogs. >> rose: we'll do that together. >> great to see you. >> rose: thanks for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
12:56 pm
1:00 pm
kacyra: it kind of was, like, the bang that set off the night. rogers: that is the funkiest restaurant. thomas: the honey-walnut prawns will make your insides smile. [ laughter ] klugman: more tortillas, please! khazar: what is comfort food if it isn't gluten and grease? braff: i love crème brûlée. sobel: the octopus should have been, like, quadripus, because it was really small. sbrocco: and you know that when you split something, all the calories evaporate, and then there's none. whalen: that's right.
78 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
KQED (PBS) Television Archive The Chin Grimes TV News Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on