7 Lessons You Can Learn from a Podcast Evaluation of a Gordon Lightfoot Podcast

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Thursday, December 11th, 2025, and today our Indie podcast evaluation series digs into intros, emotional setups, SEO clarity and interview flow, spotlighting Carefree Highway Revisited as a case study you can learn from. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast chatter, YouTube, Facebook, please share this with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds. We'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. Good.

1:21 Good morning again, podcasting, morning chat. Sorry, I thought my mic wasn't working there. I am your host Mark Ronick and currently on stage with me. Another full house This morning we have Nick Nallback, producer Ashley Feller, Dr. Faye, Ralph Estep, BC Babbles, Phil better is back, Jonathan Howard, Sid Meadows. Thank you all for being here this morning to evaluate today's indie podcast. And a good morning to Dave Campbell in the audience as well. Dave, thank you. I don't know if you heard yesterday 'cause I don't think you were here live. I don't know if you heard yesterday, but we read some, we read a letter from somebody who sent us that note through our pod page and they had said how much they love this show.

2:07 And you were, I believe, one of the people that turned him on to it. So thank you for spreading the word. Appreciate you. And also good morning to soda in the chat this morning. I've been so does an old friend of this community and hasn't been in this room a lot lately, but she and I have kept in touch pretty closely and she's been killing it over on TikTok trying to really crack that code. And she's been doing all the things over there and has been helping me a little bit as I've been just experimenting a little more with TikTok, doing some lives. I did one last week and feel better had joined me in there as well. So yeah, thanks to you, Soda. OK, I'm going to try to do this rapid fire so we can get right to it because these episodes tend to take the full hour. A quick note that we didn't get to yesterday in our news, we talked about the Podcast Hall of Fame inductees and mentioned a few of them.

3:07 There were two that actually we didn't mention that I feel awful about because I have personal ties to two of them. First, Pat Flynn, he is going to be inducted to the Podcasting Hall or Podcast Hall of Fame and also the keynote speaker at Pod Fest, conveniently, because that's where the Hall of Fame awards ceremony is happening. But then the other thing that this really gets under my skin, the other person that we forgot because it was Newsday yesterday, Yeah. Do you have like applause, the sound applause or congratulations or? Anything I do, but I don't know where it is. OK. I don't know where it is. I'm not going to scramble.

3:49 Good idea. You know what, Ashley maybe can put that in post. OK. But this is the funny, the ironic part, if you will. It was Newsday we announced the Hall of Farmers that are the inductees and failed to mention Mr. Podcast News himself, James Cridlin from podnews.net. So congratulations to James. Oh, thank you, Jonathan. Jonathan always reminds me by doing that. I forget that we can do that right here on Clubhouse. We can add the cheering and applause, forget that there isn't a little feature that does that. So congratulations to James. If anyone deserves it, holy cow. I'm surprised that he wasn't in it long before now. Agreed, agreed And also Nick, as as quickly as you can, but worth sharing because we didn't have this story yesterday, but a story worth sharing regarding AI and creating content. Nick, take it away a couple weeks ago, maybe it was a month or two ago, we talked about how ChatGPT was incorporating apps into the chatbot.

4:54 So Mark used an example of Spotify. He went and created a playlist. He looked at Canva a little bit, actually connecting the app to chat, DPD itself. And just yesterday they announced that they are releasing apps for three Adobe products. One is Adobe Photoshop 2 Adobe Express and three Adobe Acrobat. So now if you turn on and connect those apps, you can actually upload images and I think possibly video. You might have to Fact Check me on that one, but you can upload your content and actually have the app edit your content for you. You upload a photo and you say, hey, I want to add some background blur to this.

5:38 I want to increase the contrast, brighten the image up a little bit, and it actually reaches out to Photoshop to make those corrections for you. And as far as I can tell, this is totally free to use. But if you want to continue editing the photo or whatever you're creating inside the application, that's when you would ultimately need to use an Adobe subscription or have it connected or bring it over into the actual Adobe app itself. But they are integrating these apps directly inside ChatGPT. So while you're talking, you can just say, hey, Adobe Photoshop, make this image look better for me and boom, so cool in theory. Thank you, Nick.

6:19 Thanks for bringing that this morning. And yeah, I encourage people to check that out. That sounds like that could be a very convenient, what do we call it, integration between those two tools. So thank you, Nick. Appreciate that. And let's get into today's podcast evaluation, indie podcast evaluation. We've been doing this every Thursday. If you're new to the show and if you want to submit your podcast for an evaluation, we keep a link in the show notes for you. So feel free to check that out. Click that link and apply today. No cost to you unless you want a private evaluation. That's another discussion.

7:01 But yes, the today's podcast Carefree Highway revisited the host, Michael Messner, who again, I, I think I've said this earlier this week, Mike is a member of the Empowered Podcasting conference community. He attended the for the first time this past September. Got to know him better. I know that Phil better. Got to know him better. How many times can I say better at that conference as well? I think they've done a little work together since. And this show, the focus is on the songs and the musician that wrote the songs, Gordon Lightfoot, who is a Canadian singer-songwriter who little behind the scenes for you in our private DMS among the group, Phil is really promoting or hyping, I should say, hyping Gordon Lightfoot.

7:52 He's a legend. A legend, I tell you. So is his fro. Huh? You hadn't even mentioned that too. It's legendary. It's the legendary FRO of Canada. Suiting for 1970s and I will quickly read a description of this podcast for our audience. It starts hello folk. Hello folk music fans. Gordon Lightfoot is one of the greatest folk rock artists of all time. And now there's a podcast celebrating and discussing his work song by song. It's called Carefree Highway Revisited and every episode your and every episode your host, that's me, Mike Messner. We'll examine one of Gordon's songs with the help of a special guest. So if that's your cup of tea, give us a listen and give us a follow.

8:38 We'll see you on the Carefree Highway. I do appreciate kind of that casual chat, that tone that he's using here. I think that, you know, I'm saying it's called Carefree Highway Revisited. Not sure you need that, right? But that's OK. I it's short and sweet, which I like. It speaks directly to who this is for, right. Hello, folk music fans. I feel like that works for this. And then immediately following saying Gordon Lightfoot. So that goes even deeper into the niche, which I think is a good thing. Oh, and by the way, hello to Matt Bliss, who has joined us as well this morning with the episode we're going to discuss today is called Does Your Mother Know? And in parentheses after that follows season 5 episode 3. It's about it's a little over 1/2 hour. As I said, it's a Co hosted discussion because he brings on a special guest every week and this episode happened earlier in the fall of this year.

9:37 We will play some clips here in just a second to get people familiar with that episode. What are let's just quickly go over our overall thoughts, first impressions, if I think this is a good place to also, you know, just in general, if you want to kind of give us your overall vibe from listening to the episode. And let's also talk briefly about the cover art and Full disclosure to our audience. I've we've also been talking behind the scenes. I want to try to tighten just the cover art section of this up because I recognize we're talking about something visually and we have in the past tended to talk too much. I think about a visual element of a podcast and I feel like we can tighten that up a little bit.

10:20 So we will do that. Did I see somebody want to chime in? Yeah, Ralph, go ahead. It was smooth as silk like I thought it was just an excellent production. I thought the audio quality was fantastic. It's not my cup of tea. Like I got to be honest with you, front end of this is the one that someone I will listen to. But it was beautiful man. Like I thought the whole thing was extremely professional. I give it a double thumbs up. OK, there you go. That's nice. And Dr. you wanted to. Chime in crystal clear on the sound, that's for sure. You know, I moved to Nashville Music City because I was a musician and I really wanted to become a songwriter. This episode really spoke to my heart a lot. If you are, you don't even have to be a Lightfoot fan. If you are a fan of poetry, if you are a songwriting fan, if you are a, you know, a Lightfoot fan, this hits all the notes for you.

11:18 When it comes to the cover art, the font of the actual title is a little too thin for me. It's that real super narrow kind of font. I think it needs to be a little bit more chunky to be, to catch that ECO, that eye-catching optimization. I'm with you there. There's some room for improvement on that cover art. And listen, it's the same kind of stuff that we've been suggesting during this series so far, right? That we want, we want to see the font bigger, more legible. And by the way, we'll show some before and after, thanks to Matt Bliss. And as a matter of fact, let me just go to Matt Bliss. I see Sid, I see BC we're going to come to you guys in a moment. Let me go to Matt Bliss cause Matt took the liberty again. And so grateful he did to show an improved version of the cover art.

12:11 So Matt, why don't we just go to you and share maybe where you feel he could improve? The way I see cover art journeys usually if someone doesn't start with Canva, is that they start with bringing too much detail in, but you kind of want it, especially in a case like this where it's about somebody. You want something that's representative of the person that shows everything. So you put them front and center and then you have to tell them what the podcast is. So how do you fit the? Right. You got to squeeze that in, yeah. And there's another big problem with having large words that make it difficult to squeeze those words in appropriately and then fill out what is essentially empty space at the end of it. But as Jonathan mentioned in the chat when I was revising the cover out yesterday, old man eyes can't see that. So you kind of have to play around with it a little bit and then zoom out and zoom in to try and get the optimized kind of thing going.

13:10 So there's a few iterations that I made. The biggest task that occupied the most amount of time, all 20 minutes of what I spent on this, was trying to find a font that kind of represents it. Because I think font style and font type is one of the more interesting parts of trying to make something representative of what it tells. Now I should just add a disclaimer here too. I'm not a very good designer so. You say that, but you do a great job, at least for these different podcasts we're evaluating. I'm a bit of a scattergun, I'll just aim around the room and I'll see what I fire around and if I hit something good then it's good. I got to tell you that the font that you used, especially with the ones with him cross legged sitting, I think it's he's sitting around a or something, I'm not sure.

13:55 But it's so perfect for the era it felt like it was back in the 70s. I had a bunch a look at a bunch of album art that he had and he has a lot of albums and there's a lot of different types of fonts that are available that are very similar. A lot of the most famous ones are only, there's only a paid option for it. So that kind of restricted me a bit. I think if it reminds you of an album that you saw back in the 70s or 80s or whatever, and you go, oh, hang on, Gordon Lightfoot. Oh, wait, this is a podcast about him. Let's have a listen. I think that it goes a long way to doing the work in that first impression that you get to to try and give it a good look.

14:39 So that font style was present. I think not mentioning Mike would be a good thing. Mike Messner, right? The original, yeah, the original art had says with Mike Messner, and there's some other text as well that I agree he could eliminate from the cover art specifically. You are a legend. I don't think they're coming here for you, though. I think when they get to the episode and they start listening, they'll go, oh, this mic guy sounds really good. Like the production quality is excellent. I think I could think I might stick with this. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate you taking the time to revise the artwork. So we will try to get everyone linked so they can see what we're discussing there. And Sid, did you want to chime in? Good morning, everybody.

15:23 I just had a question. I mean, I'm on Team Ralph. This is not my type of music. I didn't really know who Gordon Lightfoot was. Sorry, Phil, but I enjoyed the episode. It was really easy to listen to. My question is, I have a question more than a comment is about the network that he's part of FM something and then the strategy behind the paywall because you don't get the full episode. You have to go join the network in order to hear the full episode. I mean, I understand that it's a monetization play and I get the desire for that. But you know, that's a, it's a really big play for an independent podcaster. So when I heard FMI think it's FM network, it was I was curious about that and then his strategy around the paywall.

16:04 Let me see, Phil, do you know, can you answer any of those questions being somebody connected to Mike? Unfortunately, no, I don't know anything about the paywall at all. OK, no problem. We'll have to find out. Go ahead, dear. I'm thinking that This is why we had such a hard time finding it. I mean, I know you gave us a link to it, but without that, you know, I'm trying to go a little bit beyond and I tried to find it in several different spots and I couldn't find it. Like in Spotify, it only went up to Season 4. In my pocket cast, which is kind of big, it only went up to Season 3. This particular song was in Season 5. And as soon as I brought it up in hot news, you know, there's a little place so you can find out about stuff. It said a cast on it.

16:51 And I know a cast is kind of famous for private podcasts. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but I think it is important just to call out for Mike and any podcaster, really. Make sure you're checking up on your RSS feed, checking up on various platforms to make sure that all of your content is available there. Because, yeah, a lot of us experienced that issue. We couldn't couldn't find all of the episodes when we searched for it. And a big thing that I'll just jump to right now is I appreciate Mike sharing and we can get to the mid roll stuff that he does. But he promotes his Patreon and I think that's a great idea. But one thing he didn't do that I think some of you also noticed he never shared his actual website. You know, I think it's Lightfoot podcast.com and I think that's super important, right?

17:42 Like forget at the end, we'll get to that too. At the end, he lists all the different places you can find his podcast. All you got to do is say go to my website, give the URL and say go there to find out where you can catch more episodes of this podcast and leave it right there because that's where we ultimately want people to go is into our ecosystem. That was definitely something I noticed BC. Did you want to say something else real quick before I play the beginning of this show and we can talk about the episode itself? Oh yeah, just like chiming into the original or the kind of initial sentiments about the episode which you're about to play anyway. I love the immediate opening about playing the clip from the past.

18:24 It kind of really sets the tone for we're talking about something from an era before. It sets a kind of a deeper tone. And having the guests. What was the guest thing Jerry Candice and talking about? The moment he learned about Lightwood's passing I think really added a cool depth in addition to just how smooth and casual the overall conversation was. I think I really liked that about the show. Awesome. Yeah, Thank you for that. And I agree. My overall impression, I will say I found that Mike's voice really shines in in on this podcast. I find it soothing with an inviting tone. Jonathan, did you want to say something?

19:04 I want to be the different person here and just say that I loved his voice. I thought it was an interesting podcast, but it needed the podcast as a whole, to me, Needed a little bit more musicality or something that brought it up a notch because it felt very flat to me. OK, throughout the episode. OK, so when you say musicality, what's an example? Maybe a change in the pace at certain times or a segment or something? It felt like everything was very much the same. We definitely have some clips so we can at least maybe get a little taste of what Jonathan's saying. We'll at least see if others agree or not. I appreciate that feedback. Ashley, did you want to say something? I just kind of wanted to agree with Jonathan on that, where I understand they may not have licensing to play, you know, more than what they did of Goran Lightfoot songs. They maybe they could have incorporated some acoustic guitar.

20:01 What's the right word, copyright free music and during those transitions and it would have been just fine. But maybe they did that and I just forgot. No, I don't think I noticed that either, although that he did use music for transitions, but not specifically. Maybe that genre. Dr. Go ahead. This is about one of the most prolific acoustic guitarists that we have, and to play anyone else's guitar during the discussion would be kind of weird for me. But then to play Gordon's stuff would be immensely expensive, really expensive, almost untouchable.

20:42 It would be great to have some kind of something like a little musical bed on some of these stories. But again, if it's not Gordon's, then you know. Yeah, that makes sense. And by the way, that also reminds me something I wanted to share when we were talking about the the cover art or cover image, whatever you want to call it. We're talking about using images of this man, right? And and in some cases talk about using his album covers. And that's something that I just want to say out loud for Mike. That's something you want to really think about before you use because technically if you don't have the rights to use them, that could be you could have some trouble with that down the road.

21:23 So that's really. So maybe you want to if. You do like an illustration of it would that could be? Yeah, you could do that. Maybe use AI to recreate and maybe do an illustration version. OK, Yeah. Yeah, interesting. OK. Let me have a question about this real quick. Mark sure. In using the music. So I know there are rules around it like you can't play more than 10 seconds. Is that right? Is that 10 SEC? Is it? Is that 10? Seconds. It's a loose rule. It's not an official rule. OK, so if he decided to play because he analyzed the the lyrics, right? So if he decided to play the phrase that's the lyric and he played it from the original album and he did that each phrase, is that a violation of copyright?

22:06 Would that get him in trouble? Because I, I heard him read it and then they talked about it. But I thought, well, it would be so much better if he actually played the clip of it. So when I was ATV producer before I started this business, I that was one of the things I was in charge of for the TV show that we worked on. I was in charge of that kind of stuff, licensing and making sure we're using content appropriately. And yeah, we used that rule of of thumb as far as around 10 seconds. But one of the things that the legal team would always tell me is as long as we are providing commentary, we are talking about the content. And even if we are word for word sharing some of the lyrics, as long as we are analyzing, discussing them, then it's free use.

22:52 At that point. That was what my the legal team told me and I'm not a lawyer. Matthew's agreeing with me. I saw Nick was agreeing with me earlier. So with that statement, he could play a clip if he wanted to, at least one clip from each song that he's analyzing. Is that what I am understanding you say? Because I think that would make it so much more. Powerful. That's where it still gets risky because it's the Gray area. And technically that would be the the the leg that Mike would stand on if he was going to get sued is that, you know, he's using it for commentary. It is free use and he's not playing large portions of the, of the music. That would be the argument. But I can't say that it would just instantly hold in court.

23:35 Matt, I'll give you a a moment and let's keep it brief to everybody here because I really want to play some clips. I'd be less worried about the legal action, more worried about automatic DMCA takedowns through Spotify and stuff. It's less about them getting sued, more about having to deal with Spotify and YouTube taking down your content or copywriting it without AI picking it up and just doing stuff with it. Yeah, you need to talk to someone who has indeed been sued for it because one of my mentors, David Hooper, has a Horror Story that he lost in court. It's pretty horrific what they put you through. And at that point when you think about, because there's like a rule that says, you know, if you if you're doing it for parity or for educational purposes, that maybe you can use it.

24:19 It's just so great. But you have to ask yourself, man, is it really worth it? How much money does the opponent have compared to how much money do I have? How long could they string this along? You know, I that's the big question that David Hooper kept asking is is it really worth it? So tread lightly, be careful. And that is really not just to Mike, that's to anybody using any kind of content that you don't technically have the rights for. It is dangerous. Let's play the opening of this podcast and a couple of you have already talked about or at least BC had mentioned how he really liked the way that the show opened.

25:00 I agree. I did too this. Let's just play it and we'll talk about it on the other side. The 1st guest of the evening is truly a poet. He's an artist. He is a a friend and an inspiration to anyone who I think who has ever played the guitar or tried to write poetry. Would you please welcome Gordon Lightfoot? Does your mother know you have to go someday? Does your mother know that you would grow so fast anyway? That's all you think about. This is Carefree Highway Revisited, the show that celebrates the work of Gordon Lightfoot, song by song.

25:41 I'm your host, Mike Messner, And with me today is a fellow Lightfoot fan from Montreal, QC, making his second appearance on the show, Jerry Candiceon. Jerry, welcome back. Thank you, it's nice to be back. I appreciated this intro. I love the retro show open, it's perfect for his audience. I liked the short and sweet intro. The one thing I'll say is, well, there are two things that come to mind immediately. 1 is that that music was a little too long in between when the retro clip ended and he came in. I, and I think Nick, you might have in your notes shared that as well, that he could have come in as that guitar was playing.

26:22 Give it a beat, give it a second or two between the retro clip. Although you may not even have to but play with that, but you can come in a lot sooner after that retro clip plays. And the second thing is, is that I would have just liked a little bit more about the guest. I am not a fan of going on and on about a guest to set up your show, but I would like a little more context. I appreciate that he's a repeat guest. That means that tells me that you as a host value this guest, but just a little something more. And it it's not that I'm necessarily even looking for this any expertise. I just want to know why did you choose this guy? So giving me a little something more would have been helpful.

27:06 But we'll talk a little bit more in a moment about where this goes. This intro goes from here because I do like a lot what Mike did, but does anyone have anything they want to chime in on just as far as what I just played? OK, then I will keep it going with the next part of the intro. Now, the last time we had you on the show was actually before Gord passed away. You were with us in January of 2023. Are there any big headlines in your life apart from the loss of our musical North Star? Well, let's go back to the death of Gordon. I was. Out at a. Dinner with clients and got into my car and looked at my phone and I had texts from three of my friends wishing me condolences on the passing of Gordon.

27:59 I put on the radio and they were playing all his songs and I drove home for about 20 minutes with tears coming down my eyes. And he goes on and tells a little bit more of that, and I found the emotional story compelling. The one problem I had is that it delays. Why did we pick this song today? We talk about this right in our intros. How valuable it is to your audience to immediately tell them what or why they're here or what they're going to get. As Gordon Lightfoot fans, they see the title. They probably have a strong idea of that. We're going to be talking about that song. However, I still think a little bit more of a setup for the episode and then ask this that first question. I thought that was a great way to kick off who this guest is and help me get a little more attached to this guest. I got something emotional right out of the gate, and if I'm a fan of this music and a fan of Gordon's music, I'm in at this point.

29:03 I think the same can be said about the description. I know I'm kind of jumping back to to that a little bit, but when I listen to content or if I watch content on YouTube or whatever, it is about like music that I enjoy. Like as an example, I'm a huge fan of Eminem. If I'm going to spend time listening or watching this video about a specific song or something I'm, I'm looking for like what is something new that I'm going to learn or what is something new that I'm going to uncover tuning into this. And that was something that I didn't get from the description of the episode. Like there was nothing kind of hooking me in to like, oh, Dang, I need to check that out. I'm really interested to hear what they got to say about this.

29:43 I've never heard that before. Like something like that. It can be very powerful and go a long way into really sucking someone into this and be like, I got to figure out what this is. I'm a huge fan. I got to know I am right there with you, Nick. And that is what I was getting at with the intro as well. Yeah, let's let's tell these fans a little bit more about what this song, why we've chosen this song. Especially think about it. If you've got new listeners that are coming to your show for the first time and they're hearing this, we've got to sell them a little bit, right? We got to tell them, OK, great. You guys are talking about does your mother know? But what about it? I think that will go a long way. And I agree with you, Nick, in the description as well.

30:23 I think that exactly what you're saying, but also you can put in there some of the questions that you asked, like, you know, hear his answers. When I asked about where were you at when you heard about Gordon's death, where were you? Tell me about the first time you ever saw Gordon on stage. Something like that could go well in the episode description. Thank you, Dr. I felt like it was a little dragged out before we really got to the song itself. Not terribly. I didn't. I don't feel like he was going on and on and on. It wasn't droning, but I do feel like we could have gotten to the main topic a little bit quicker. And I think some of you had agreed with that as well in our evaluations that we provided for to one another. If you think about something like that, here's my note is that the team found that the intro was heartfelt and engaging, though some mentioned that grounding the purpose earlier would help newcomers.

31:22 As I just said, and everyone agreed, Jerry's story strengthens the emotional tone of the episode. So let's then talk a little bit about the quality, the content quality and the storytelling itself, right? I found that overall the structure felt rich and comprehensive. And I thought Jerry had great personal stories, Mike teaching anecdotes, and it really adds depth and authority. And by the way, he is a professor and he does teach music. I forget. Maybe Phil may know, I'm not sure but I forget it. Specifically what he teaches in music. He teaches history.

32:02 Perfect. Well suited. We're doing a show on this particular musician's history. OK, I will play a clip. In this one, Mike is explaining how Gordon Lightfoot's songwriting extends beyond the music world and into real cultural history. And to give you more context, they've been discussing, as we're leaning into this clip, Black Day in July, Lightfoot's song about the Detroit riots. And here Mike shares how he actually uses this uses the song in his ethics study classes. And that is clip three. Let me play it. I'll make a quick side trip here.

32:43 You talked at some length about Black Day in July, and I've done that on my show. The thing about it is that it's turned out to be such a perfect encapsulation of the Detroit race riots that I use it in my ethnic studies classes even today as background music for the pictures that came out of those riots. And I don't know that there's a better depiction of a specific 20th century event in the States as that one. So I liked this because I think that it demonstrates his authority, his expertise in a very natural, organic way. So kudos to Mike for doing that and taking that time because I know there are some podcasters that shy away from inserting something personal of theirs and they just want to keep the spotlight on the guest.

33:39 And as much as the guest probably appreciates that, I think it loses something for the audience. So I love that Mike took that moment to share. How about I keep it going then? And I will play this next clip, which I think it's honestly a master class. And it says it's might appear simple, but it's a master class in opening emotional space. He doesn't ask a closed question. Or in any case, I didn't find him asking closed questions. What do I mean by that? Do you like this song? He's asking for a story, often, something that naturally leads to vivid detail, nostalgia, genuine connection. And I also like how he goes right into that question after the guest finishes his first and last question here, I'll play it for you and I think it'll make some sense. He captures it so beautifully, just like he always does when he nails it.

34:33 And he nails it on this song. You can just see the portrait. You can picture this girl. When when he says does your mother know you walked all day in the rain? You can picture her depressingly walking in the rain. Just a great song. Do you have any personal stories about the song, or maybe an event where it really hit home for you? Something like that. Yes, in 1968 I was an aspiring high school student. So this is what I'm talking about. He goes right into that next question after the guest provides their answer to the previous one. In other words, a lot of us, including me, feel like we have to always acknowledge what our guests said.

35:21 For example, after the guest finishes an answer, the a host might say things like and again, yours truly included. I love that, great point. I agree, but I feel that's really just filler between an answer and the next question. And who knows, maybe he in in the actual recording, maybe he did say something like that. Oh, I love that, great point. But he had what he did then if that's the case, he edited it out. So one way or another he recognized. Sometimes it's just best go right into that next question. It's OK, we don't have to acknowledge people every time, as I tell myself that too. Dr. Was it you that had something?

36:01 I think he edited out or maybe his guest actually did it this way. I'm going to think that he probably edited out the guest saying, hey, that's a good question. Great question. I mean, that's usually what everybody said and me include. I've been on shows and I've said that and I cringe every time it comes out of my mouth. Would you agree that not every time, but a lot of times when people say, oh, that's a great question, it's because we're not really sure yet what the answer is like we're still searching. For it, they're they're thinking about how do I get into this answer or but yeah, I cut it as an editor, I cut all that out. OK, that's cool. I think sometimes it works when a guest says, oh, that's a really great question. And I think when it works, it depends on their answer. If they come right out of the gate with a really confident answer after saying that to me, I like leaving it there because it's almost like they're excited to answer the question. The only time that I don't get it out is if they say that's a great question because.

37:03 Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at too. There's when, when you can, there is a difference. You can tell when a guest is using that as a tactic to stall versus versus just pure excitement or confidence in their upcoming answer. For me, I can just tell the difference and if you can't, that's OK. And maybe take, maybe try D Rs advice and eliminate those moments. Let's talk a little bit about the mid roll because you had some notes on that. But first, Ralph, go ahead. I was just going to say his interview style was very, you know, calm and you felt like you could sit alongside of them, like you were in front of a fireplace and everybody's just kind of relaxing. And I thought it was very engaging. Agreed, yes, and Ashley has something to go ahead.

37:45 Ashley. I loved how analytical it was. And I also love how homey it was. You know, being a folk musician myself, I felt like I was sitting around, you know, some older folks who knew a lot about Gordon Lightfoot and had many experiences and were very, you know, down to earth about how they ingested his material and what instruments were on the songs. And that the fact that it was a deep cut, I think was great. Awesome. Thank you. And Ashley, as a musician, did you know who Gordon Lightfoot was? Oh absolutely. I have a deep connection to Gordon Lightfoot. I listened to him on cassette as a child. I remember going to bed at night and watching The Shadows on the Wall and listening to Did She Mention My Name and many of his songs. Awesome.

38:32 Yeah. So look at that. We have a few people that say, you know, this isn't we're not the the target audience for this, but we it's cool that we do have a couple people here that this does resonate with. I think that's good to have this variety. All right, let me then Dr. you wanted to talk a little bit about the mid role. So did that. That's where he plays a few promotional spots for his audience. What did you want to talk about it? And I have both the beginning of the mid roles and the end of the mid roles to discuss. What's your overall thought? He does too, and the first one, the transition, is done beautifully. I loved the transition going into that first one.

39:14 You know, the words calming, fireplace, all of those words, exactly what I felt. And when I heard that first mid role transition, I kind of got a Casey Kasem vibe a little bit. Not so much the voice, but there is. He modulates his voice just like Casey does and his pacing is very reminiscent of Casey and it just made me so comfortable now so. Comfortable now I know we have our audience skews between like 30 and mid 50s and so I think it's OK, but I just in case because we do have some younger people as well. If you didn't know, Casey Kasem is a very well known. DJ, radio personality and then some. And yeah, and he's got one of the most classic voices. And here's another way you may know him. Although even scooby-doo these days probably not, doesn't resonate as much with younger people. But he was Shaggy.

40:17 He was the original voice of Shaggy. OK, let's play the lead in to the mid role. God rest his soul. And I've heard a lot of people have the same kind of reaction. They walk away from saying this could be my next door neighbor, this could be a guy I meet at church. This could be the guy who delivers my milk in the morning. You're listening to Carefree Highway revisited. We'll be right back after a word from a podcast partner or two. 250 and Counting is the podcast that walks you through American history one day at a time. I'm Mike Messner. I'm Claude Call.

40:58 Join us as we spend just a couple of minutes. So there you go. That's I think that I agree Dr. great job. He did a great job and I liked the music changed with the with the new the first spot like I thought he did a really nice job with that. Yeah, very much. Looks like Ashley is agreeing as well and I'm going to play the back end of it. So let me do that and we'll talk about it. Greatest decade. Don't miss the greatest 80s podcast in the world, back to the 80s radio. Well, let's start looking into the lyrics here. Jerry, does your mother know you had to go someday? I like that he didn't say anything like welcome back. He just. Got into. It with his first question. It was very legit.

41:40 I mean that pause, it was just enough. Oh, OK, you like the pause. And and this is, I think honestly taste. This isn't a critique, right? Because for me, I would almost rather have that music be fading out. And then he says that first question before the music ends. But I would have worked well too. Yeah. But I think, and you're right too, right like that, that what he did there just creates a little bit of separation between the, the mid rolls and the end and and the beginning of his first question. I like that too. What other clips do I have for everyone today? No, I is that, Oh, I guess let's we could talk a little bit about the the outro as well. I know some people had some thoughts on that. So let me go ahead and play that one for you. Always a pleasure, Mike.

42:27 And thanks for listening, everybody. If you like this well enough to listen to the whole thing, tell somebody about it. Carefree Highway Revisited is on Apple, Spotify, a cast, or wherever you get your listening matter. I'd like to make a special request for you to visit my Patreon page. I love this show so much and I want to keep it going and you're in a position to help. Please head over to www.patreon.com/carefree Highway Revisited. A dollar or two a month is all I ask. You can reach me, Mike Messner, at teachermike72@gmail.com. Well, our next episode will feature Jerry and.

43:07 Then he goes into a tease for the next episode, which I appreciate greatly. I would almost start with the tease and then go into what you want them to do only because again, I've shared this before. If you're giving your whole spiel, your call to action, and if you're giving a lot of different things for them to do you, they may tune out before they get to that tease for the next episode. So either shorten that up with your different calls to action and then get into the tease or go with the tease. First. Let's go to Ashley and then Ralph. Go ahead, Ashley. You know that whole Cth spiel was great, but it would have been even better and more effective if they'd been closer to the top of the show maybe 1/4 of the way through.

43:52 Because even the greatest podcast people just don't listen all the way to the end. Yeah, I agree with you on that one, Ralph. Go for it. Here's where I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream branding, branding. This is your opportunity to brand this. Don't send me to Patreon dot XYZ upside down and don't send me to a Gmail. Please brand me. This is the time when you can just bring it home and bring the brand right center, right in the middle of this. OK. So Ralph, thank you for that. And what would you suggest instead? Like? Specific, I think he could have his own domain and then he can have short links, for example, whatever his domain is slash support or domain contact or listen.

44:34 I'm a pod page guy, have 4 site, 4 sites on pod page. It makes it so simple. That's not an affiliate or anything like that. Don't get me wrong, but just build that branding because man, you got the you got the opportunity time you're in your niche. People are loving this now. Just bring them home and bring them into your your area. Yeah, thank you, Ralph. And by the way, we will put a link to pod page if you want to have your podcast website made easily for you and that will be an affiliate link. And by the way, Dave, in the chat, he says I would never remember that e-mail, send me to your website. I agree wholeheartedly.

45:14 So does Ashley. Yeah, let's just instead say if you want to get in touch with me, go to lightfootpodcast.com. I've been doing that this week. I haven't been even intentionally necessarily doing it, but I've been talking about how you can get in touch with us through our website. And I gave an example of that by reading somebody's, I'll call it fan mail on the air yesterday. And that encourages people to do that. I would agree with that. Don't give the e-mail address. And if you're going to, I guess it would be preferred to be branded, I think to Dave's point, just send them right to your website. I think that'll that'll do you well.

45:54 And I feel like there was just too many calls to action in general there at the end. Let's pick one and have them do that. Dr. Go ahead. I think there's a little sticky wicket here because he mentioned all these places that you can find this show. But as we said at the top of the show, it only goes to Season 3 on Pocket Cast. It only goes to Season 4 on Spotify. So and now this particular song is in season 5. So you know, have the have is the show that this the free version? Is it done or are you directing them to go find some stuff that is Evergreen or I'm not quite sure what the case is, but I knew that after a while, I realized, you know what this is?

46:44 He's this is his Patreon stuff. That's why we couldn't find it. I'm with you. I think that, again, that's another good reason to send people to lightfootpodcast.com, because all of his episodes, as far as I can tell, are there. Very recent episodes are all listed here. So that would save people a lot of confusion. And you can add a Patreon link to this page, right? So instead of again, giving that long URL like Ralph was saying, just put a link to your Patreon at the very top where there are other links are that you have here. And then you can just say you can still plug, hey, you know, please support me. You can do that on my Patreon page. And you can find that@lightfootpodcast.com. Anyone else want to chime in?

47:27 Any final thoughts? So I know we're not on show notes, but this has to do with being found. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was looking at the show notes and it's just a description of what the show is about. I don't recall seeing any links, but that would be a great place to link a website, Patreon, and anything else that you might want people to see to support your show. I agree. I I wrote down here for his show notes a more well, this first I wrote a more descriptive title and then in the description itself, a hook and I should talk about the title too. So I will a hook in the description that tells listeners why they should care.

48:08 And I think that was something that Nick had also brought up earlier. Make and then take advantage and make sure you're using relevant keywords, the artist's name, song analysis, music history, etcetera, to improve the search visibility, A clearer, a more clear sense of what insights or discussions the episode contains. And I think you can do a lot of that if you consider adding chapter markers and titles. So the one thing I wanted to say about the episode title itself, in general, it's not bad, right? Like a Gordon Lightfoot fan is going to knows this has to do with the song. Does your mother know?

48:49 Because that's in the title. But there could be some like me, some 70s music fans, singer-songwriter music that doesn't know this catalog from of Gordon. And we don't know that that song is associated with him. And when I first saw it, I didn't know that that was a title of of one of his songs. So I didn't know what that meant. I thought we were honestly going to be talking about something to do with Gordon Lightfoot and his mom. That's really honestly what I thought. So I would just add a little more. You can still start with if you want, does your mother know? But then maybe put a little dash or something and then say a deep dive into this 1968 classic.

49:30 Or you can say revisiting, does your mother know what this song still gets right? You know, just giving it a little bit of a touch more that can make it more clear. I would maybe go with the description, an example of something. This one I would consider more of a clean, descriptive, SEO friendly version. I would say something like, I wrote this down. In this episode, I sit down with my guest to take a closer look at the 1968 track Does Your Mother Know? We breakdown the song's themes, the album it came from, and why it still resonates today. If you enjoy song analysis, storytelling, and the history behind classic tracks, this one's for you. That, to me, helps me as a listener know exactly what I'm getting into.

50:16 I hope that this has helped. MM We love you. Thank you for being a part of this community. I hope that this was really helpful to you. And of course, I hope. I hope that this was helpful to our audience as well. We do it every Thursday. If you want your podcast evaluated, by all means bring it, use that link in the show notes and apply today and keep coming back. Otherwise, if you don't want your podcast evaluated, I believe you will learn at least one thing by participating, by attending these Thursday podcast evaluations. So thank you all and thank you to the team for taking the time again to listen to another podcast. We'll let you know very soon what the next one is. And until tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern, make it a great day everybody.

51:02 Take care.