The Morse Code Podcast

The Morse Code Podcast A weekly pod from Music City featuring conversations with super talents in music, film and writing. New episode every Thursday.

04/29/2026

Korby's godmother has a line that's become famous in his family: "Our greatest assets taken too far become liabilities." The impulse to shoulder the burden, to provide, to make life easier for the people around you by taking it all on yourself — that's actually a good thing. But to do it constantly at the expense of yourself is probably a good way to die young.

Jordan Ritter Conn, author of American Men, takes it further: men have to treat their friendships, their looser community ties, their emotional well-being like they matter. Not as luxuries. Not as rewards for being productive. As things that impact the way you show up in every other part of your life.

The full conversation covers Jordan's five-year process of interviewing 50+ men about the things they don't talk about, the permission structures men need before they'll be vulnerable, and what changed in his own friendships after writing the book.

Link in comments below to watch or listen to the complete episode 📺 🎧 👇

04/24/2026

Jordan Ritter Conn spent years interviewing men about the parts of their lives they don't talk about for his new book American Men. One thing that changed in his own life afterward: he started reaching out to friends without a reason. Not to watch a game. Not to share something. Just to say, I'd like to see you.

The full conversation covers the five-year process behind the book, getting men to be vulnerable, and why we seem to need a permission structure before we'll say the thing we've been carrying.

Link in comments below to watch or listen to the complete episode 📺 🎧 👇

Jordan and I have hung out several times and never once had a conversation like this one. That's the whole point, actual...
04/23/2026

Jordan and I have hung out several times and never once had a conversation like this one. That's the whole point, actually — his and mine. We both discovered that setting up a purpose for a conversation makes it possible to go places you'd never go just hanging out over drinks.

Jordan RItter Conn is a journalist at The Ringer and the author of American Men, a new book that follows four men through the things men supposedly don't talk about. He interviewed more than 50 guys before landing on the four. The book covers violence, sexuality, suppressed trauma, identity collapse, loneliness, and what happens when the ideal you inherited stops fitting. This conversation covers the process behind it — including the journalism school story where Jordan briefly hoped a cancer scare would give him an excuse to drop out rather than talk to more strangers.

American Men is out now. Jordan's at Parnassus tonight for his Nashville book release.

Link in comments below to watch or listen to the full episode

04/22/2026

There's a moment in this conversation where Korby mentions he wore out the new Gillian Welch and David Rawlings record Woodland — and Molly Tuttle 's eyes light up. Turns out they both saw the Ryman show. Molly called it the best show of all time. Korby said the same thing. What makes it crazy is how simple the formula is: great songs, great harmony, guitar solo breaks. That's it.

It's a small moment from a longer conversation about flatpicking, songwriting, a couple trips to the Grammys, and the song Korby and Molly wrote together ten years ago. Korby's Substack essay, After the Conversation, picks up the thread from there.

Link in comments below to watch or listen to the complete episode 📺 🎧 👇

04/20/2026

Ten years ago Molly Tuttle had just moved to Nashville. She had a guitar riff. Korby had a title. They wrote "Friend and a Friend" together — her first Nashville co-write. It made her debut album. A decade and three Grammys later, she still plays it live and people still request it. Here she is playing it solo in the Morse Code Podcast studio.

The full conversation covers her path from Palo Alto to the Grammys, flatpicking technique, songwriting over FaceTime, and the cost of the life at every level. Link in comments below to watch or listen to the complete episode 📺 🎧 👇

04/17/2026

Molly Tuttle grew up playing bluegrass in California, pretty far from center of the scene. She was feeling good about her playing — she'll admit to something like an ego — until age 11 or 12, when she went to a Kids on Bluegrass event in Nashville and met Sierra Hull , Sarah Jarosz Jared walker , and a whole crew of kids from the Southeast who were fully formed musicians at the same age.

At first she was intimidated. Then she was inspired. She wanted to get to that level. She wanted to play with those people. A decade and three Grammys later, those same kids are her closest friends in music.

The full conversation covers the whole arc — from Palo Alto to the Grammys — plus a performance of "Friend and a Friend," the song she co-wrote with Korby ten years ago.

Link in comments below to watch or listen to the complete episode 📺 🎧👇

Tonight we celebrate 100 episodes of The Morse Code Podcast at The 5 Spot in East Nashville. Doors at 5:30, music at ...
04/16/2026

Tonight we celebrate 100 episodes of The Morse Code Podcast at The 5 Spot in East Nashville. Doors at 5:30, music at 6. Songs from guests, an author interview, a film screening, live painting. Ticket link in comments below — come get in a room with us.

Today's episode has some weight to it. Ten years ago, Molly Tuttle had just moved to Nashville. I had a title for a song. She had a guitar riff. We sat together and wrote "Friend and a Friend." It made her debut album. A decade later she's a 3x Grammy winner with one of the most distinctive right hands in American acoustic music, and today she came over to play it and to talk about the long road between then and now.

We covered her West Coast bluegrass roots, the kids-on-bluegrass festivals where she first met Sierra Hull and Sarah Jarosz , two trips to the Grammys (one of which involved a goth tease), and the constant tension between touring at the highest level and staying rooted in a neighborhood. Then she played Friend. It was a moment.

Link in comments below to watch or listen to the full episode 📺 🎧 👇

04/11/2026

The last song on Tabitha Meeks ' album is called "The House of My Dreams." The concept: she lives in a a funky house, but because of that, she gets to follow her dreams.

It's the most honest thing anyone's said about the economics of being an indie musician — you need incredibly low overhead, and that's fine, that's the reality. Out of the crucible of hardship comes some of the best art.

The full conversation covers her path from West Palm Beach to Nashville, getting fired as a backup singer, 30 sync placements, and building a retro pop career one live video at a time.

Link in comments below to watch or listen to the complete episode.

I first saw Tabitha Meeks at a songwriting round three years ago when she had nothing going on. There was a pin-drop qu...
04/09/2026

I first saw Tabitha Meeks at a songwriting round three years ago when she had nothing going on. There was a pin-drop quality to her performance that night — the room just stopped. Something about the way music comes out of certain people. You can't manufacture it.

Since then she's built a retro pop career from scratch: released dozens of songs to find what resonated, landed over 30 sync placements, co-founded the Pitch Meeting show with her now-husband Eric Fortaleza Music , and cracked a social media strategy that's just live performance videos — no content creation, no talking to camera. People watch the videos and say they want to see her live. That's the whole funnel.

We talked about getting fired as a backup singer 30 minutes into rehearsal, the two voices in every artist's head, living in a sh*tty house to follow her dreams, and the three H's of a good marriage. Then she played "Waiting For My Day" on piano — a song about patiently trusting the process — fantastic.

Link in comments below to watch or listen to the full episode 📺 🎧 👇
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04/08/2026

We're celebrating 100 episodes of the Morse Code Podcast next Thursday, April 16th at the 5 Spot in East Nashville. Doors at 5:30, music at 6.

Guests from the show playing songs. An author interview. A film screening. Live painting. It's going to be a celebration less of entertainment for its own sake and more the truer purpose of the artistic effort — which to me is to make a connection to the divine and to our fellow human beings by taking a chance and making something beautiful.

I'm on a mission. The antidote to this blue-faced plague we're all somehow participants in is to get together in a room like people used to do.

Come next Thursday. Let's see what happens. Ticket link in comments below 👇

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