MJ Lenderman - You Don't Know The Shape I'm In
Song Exploder

MJ Lenderman - You Don't Know The Shape I'm In

Apr 2, 2025 · 27 min

About this episode

<p>Jake Lenderman plays and records under the name MJ Lenderman. He put out his first album in 2019. In addition to his solo work, he’s been a member of the band Wednesday, and he’s also featured on the Waxahatchee hit song “Right Back to It." In September 2024, the fourth MJ Lenderman album came out. It’s called <em>Manning Fireworks</em>.<em> </em>The New Yorker named it the best album of the year, and Stereogum, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork all put it in their top ten. For this episode, I talked to Jake about one of the songs from that album, called “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In.” The song itself took shape in a few different ways. Coming up, you’ll hear the way the song started as a demo, and then how that got fleshed out, and then how it got rebuilt, and then how Jake completely reimagined the whole thing.</p><p>For more info, visit <a href="https://songexploder.net/mj-lenderman">songexploder.net/mj-lenderman</a>.</p>