# Ep. 252: Lizzo | Rock Bottom, #1, and the Game Nobody Explains

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Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/and-the-writer-is-with-ross-golan-221813/ep-252-lizzo-rock-bottom-1-and-the-game-nobody-explains.md
Podcast: [And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan](https://stenobird.com/podcast/and-the-writer-is-with-ross-golan-221813)
Published: 2026-06-09T16:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/andthewriteris/episodes/ep-252-lizzo-rock-bottom-1-and-the-game-nobody-explains
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/acast/s/andthewriteris/e/6a2763d8ec7c103dca73724e/media.mp3
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Duration seconds: 5351

## Resource

Today's guest is a Grammy winner, a two-time Billboard #1 artist, and one of the defining pop voices of the last decade. But her real story isn't the anthems or the awards. It's the part that plays like a rollercoaster and teaches like a masterclass: how she almost quit, what going #1 actually felt like, and everything about the music business nobody explains until you've survived it. The press version skips the touring deficits, the depression at the top, and the moment in an Echo Park apartment when she nearly took a job at Smoothie King. The question underneath everything she says: once you stop chasing the metric and the moment — who do you become? And The Writer Is... Lizzo! In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on: • Why she wanted to quit music the day "Truth Hurts" went #1 — and the 2017 low point that was actually worse • The touring economics no one explains: how you gross $1M and still finish the year in the red • Why the indie grind that built her, in her view, no longer leads to the mainstream • "She stopped giving a fuck about what we wanted" — Beyoncé's self-titled as a blueprint for artistic autonomy • Why she only talks to people who buy her music — and what comment sections do to her nervous system • The bumper-sticker hook theory — why "Truth Hurts" works when it breaks every rule • Writing "About Damn Time": 83 versions of the chorus, and how the simplest line won • Robert Glasper's lesson: there's no such thing as a wrong note • Why good songs don't sound great at first — watching "Good as Hell" go from silly to gospel • "I make whatever the f*** I want" — and why arriving at that sentence took everything before it And much more... 🔓 Want in the room? We just launched our Patreon — monthly Zoom hangs where we listen to your demos and giv…

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