Design Matters with Debbie Millman · Design Matters Media

20th Anniversary celebration with iconic musicians Kaki King, David Lee Roth, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Michael Stipe, and the Indigo Girls

October 20, 2025·50 min·4 clips

David Lee Roth shares how a Holocaust survivor's warning to 'sing so you don't go up the chimneys' defined his career.

Twenty years is the frame here. The anniversary episode moves through Debbie Millman's past conversations with musicians, but it does not play like a victory lap. It keeps landing on the private parts of public work: a song, an instrument, a daily pull to keep going. The mood starts with the old bargain of making art. One voice talks about work that can be hard and still hold the promise of making someone feel great. The episode sounds celebratory, sure, but it is more interested in memory than applause. Sad music gets a small confession. Another guest admits to not knowing what a bass guitar was until a second album, which is funny and oddly sweet, the kind of detail that says more than a polished career summary would. Then Debbie narrows the lens. She asks about the 2013 album "There's a Last Time for Everything" and the cover of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend." The question has done its homework. She sets up the contrast between the original club anthem, the gymnasium video, and the guest's acoustic guitar, spare chords, and small choir. The answer begins on the road. The guest remembers driving with producer Jordan from Nashville to Atlanta to see Nico Case while the record was still coming together. Robyn's song came on. They both loved it, looked at each other, and wondered if they could pull it into a different kind of ache. Slowness did the trick. The guest says slowing songs down is what she naturally does, and this one opened up when the dance pulse was gone. Now some people think "Call Your Girlfriend" is hers, including someone who heard Robyn's original as a dance remix of her version. That mix-up is the point of the clip: tempo and voice can move a song from public brightness into something much more private. Debbie brings the setup, then gets out of the way.

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