Josh Radnor

For his Guest DJ set, Actor Josh Radnor explores the soundtrack to his life – from the provocative folk favorite of his college days to the somber song that marked his “deep dark unemployment as an actor” in New York City and a new band whose optimism and operatic sound caught his ear. Josh plays Ted Mosby on the hit CBS show “How I Met Your Mother,” which will be celebrating its 100th episode soon. Also, his film “happythankyoumoreplease” is in competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

How I Met Your Mother

“happythankyoumoreplease”

Tracks

1.) All I Want - Joni Mitchell

2.) Abandoned Love - Bob Dylan

3.) Overcome by Happiness - Pernice Brothers

4.) At the Chime of a City Clock - Nick Drake

5.) Chemicals Collide - Cloud Cult

Transcript

Chris Douridas: Hi, I'm Chris Douridas and I'm here with actor Josh Radnor who is best known for playing the character Ted Mosby on the CBS show How I Met Your Mother. Hey Josh.

JR: Joni Mitchell's "All I Want," the first track on Blue. It was just one of those records that I suddenly couldn't stop listening to and it was all I wanted to listen to. My senior year of college, I actually carried Blue around with me in my bag and insisted that it be played on whatever stereo I was near. There was a kind of urgency to the way she was singing like, she would just work the lyrics in no matter what, just like a stream of wants and desires.

JR: This is a song from Biograph called "Abandoned Love," kind of a lesser known Dylan song -- this is another college tune. My friend Kip played this for me my sophomore year. You know you have those friends -- like, he turned me on to Leonard Cohen and Elvis Costello and Tom Waits. He was just this gateway music friend. *laughs* It's this great, tuneful Dylan song that I think is underplayed everywhere.

JR: Joe Pernice is a great American singer-songwriter. He has a few different kind of incarnations. Sometimes he records solo and the Pernice Brothers has also been something he's done a bunch of albums with. This is a track called "Overcome By Happiness." You know, sometimes I listen to music and I'm just responding viscerally to it and then a lyric will catch you and you'll be like, ‘oh, it’s about something totally different than I thought it was about,’ but it always puts me in a good mood. I mean, I think I'm drawn to happiness, how to find more of it, and music makes me happy

JR: This particular track, for some reason I associate it with fresh out of grad school -- deep, deep dark unemployment as an actor. There's something about this song that really haunted me because I was living in New York and I was actually sharing a studio apartment with a grad school friend, we were paying $400 a month. I mean, we were literally sharing this room. And I played nothing but Nick Drake for a few months which probably didn't help my mood, my general overall mood. *laughs*

JR: Well, I can pay you back for all the stuff you've turned me on to. This is a band called Cloud Cult, they're a Minnesota band. The reason you might not have heard of them is they've refused to sign with major labels apparently. They have their own label that is all green and sustainable. The lead singer is a guy named Craig Minowa and he and his wife lost their child, a baby, when the kid was about one or two and most of their records have been a response to this grief. But it's never maudlin, they have this incredible lyrical transcendent quality to their music that's really optimistic and really fantastic.