Gigi Perez is a singer and songwriter from Florida, and at 25 years old, she’s already had so many ups and downs in her music career. She started sharing her songs on TikTok, where they got enough attention that she got signed to a major label deal, but that ultimately didn’t pan out. Soon after that, as an independent artist again, she had her biggest breakout hit, with “Sailor Song.” She released it in July 2024, and it went viral on TikTok. Now, it has over a billion streams on Spotify alone, and it’s a part of her new album, which came out in April 2025. In this episode, you’ll hear how the song evolved, from her first voice memo to the final version, which she recorded in her childhood bedroom. I talked to Gigi about how “Sailor Song” came about, and about all the different parts of herself that she put into it—her faith, grief, desire, and more.

You can buy or stream “Sailor Song” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Noah Weinman – co-producer
Anne Hathaway, The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada
Splice Sounds

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Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, and by the time 1998 rolled around, they’d already had a pretty successful career. They’d released five albums, and one of their songs, “Name,” from 1995, had become a Top 10 hit. But things really changed for them when they made the song “Iris.” It originally came out on the soundtrack for the movie City of Angels, which came out in 1998 and starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan.

“Iris” spent a record-breaking 18 weeks at number one on the radio, and became one of the best selling songs of all time, with over 14 million copies sold, and over 4.5 billion streams. So for this episode, John Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls came over to my place and he told me about how he wrote the song. He told me how the Grammy-winning producer Rob Cavallo helped them expand their vision, and how the version of the song in the movie isn’t actually the version that everybody knows.

You can buy or stream “Iris” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Robby Takac – co-writer
Tim Pierce – mandolin and guitar
Jamie Muhoberac – keyboard
Producer Rob Cavallo is also interviewed in Green Day’s Song Exploder episode about the song “Basket Case”
David Campbell – string arranger
Jack Joseph Puig – recording engineer
Danny Bramson
Wings of Desire
Bob Dylan
Soul Asylum, The Replacements, and R.E.M.
Iris Dement
Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” – Smashing Pumpkins
U2, Peter Gabriel, and Alanis Morissette

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