Sara Bareilles On: Songs That Write Themselves, Grief That Doesn't Destroy You, and Why There's Nothing To Fix

Sara Bareilles joins Dan to discuss her new album Good Grief, a record she made after losing three close friends — Chad Joseph, Gavin Creel, and poet Andrea Gibson. The conversation covers grief as a transformative force, medication and mental health, fertility struggles and miscarriage, the creative process as spiritual transmission, aging without intervention, and patriotism as grief.

In this episode we talk about:

• Grief is a shortcut to the truth — it strips away distraction and forces presence

• “Name it to tame it” — putting feelings into words reduces their power

• Sara’s fear that medication would suppress her artistry turned out to be the opposite: Lexapro felt like “a return to herself”

• The creative process as clearing a channel rather than owning the output — music arrives, it isn’t manufactured

• “Nothing to fix” — acceptance as a countercultural act in an era of optimization

• Acceptance isn’t resignation — you can surrender to what is and still take compassionate action

• Grief of country: loving America and mourning what it’s becoming aren’t mutually exclusive

• Social media distorts your experience of reality — have your experience of the world in the world

Sara Bareilles is a two-time Grammy winner and Tony-nominated composer whose music and lyrics powered the Broadway hit Waitress — a role she later performed herself, both on Broadway and in London’s West End. On screen, she earned an Emmy nomination for Girls5eva and for her performance as Mary Magdalene in NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live! She has sold over three million albums and 3.5 billion streams worldwide.

Related Episodes:

• Sara Bareilles: Anxiety, Anger and Art (2021)

• How To Find Joy In an Anxious World (Sara Bareilles and Dacher Keltner, 2025)