Mary Louise Kelly: NPR host, war reporter, mother … spy novelist?

This transcript was generated by AI and lightly edited by our team. Please excuse any typos or errors.

Mary Louise Kelly  00:02

I remember that night — lying in a trailer behind one of Saddam Hussein's abandoned palaces, as one does — and lying there and thinking it might be time for Career Plan B.

Sophie Bearman  00:25

From The San Francisco Standard, I'm Sophie Bearman, and this is another special episode of Life in Seven Songs. In June of 2025, we took our show live to the Aspen Ideas Festival, which brings brilliant minds from around the world together to discuss the ideas that will shape tomorrow and help us understand today. And this week, you'll hear a conversation from that stage with someone whose voice many of you already know. Mary Louise Kelly is a veteran journalist and co-host of NPR's All Things Considered, covering everything from the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan to the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the presidencies of Trump and Biden. She's also the author of two spy fiction novels and a memoir called It. Goes. So. Fast., and it's about the balance between doing all that work while also making time to be present at home with her kids for the moments that matter most. And for this live taping, we had a little fun. I played Mary Louise a walk-on song as she came on stage, a nod to her deep love for a certain '80s pop icon, and I'll just leave it at that. Enjoy.

Sophie Bearman  01:37

Please join me in welcoming Mary Louise Kelly to the stage.

Mary Louise Kelly  01:49

Oh, my God, thank you.

Sophie Bearman  01:56

Okay.

Mary Louise Kelly  01:56

Okay.

Sophie Bearman  01:57

This is a wild card that I've just thrown at you. This is not one of your seven songs. 

Mary Louise Kelly  02:01

This is not one of my seven songs.

Sophie Bearman  02:02

But that was Debbie Gibson, Only in My Dreams, and you write about this song in your memoir. So I thought, 'Let's just start with Debbie Gibson.'

Mary Louise Kelly  02:10

If you had told me that all of my life had been pointing me toward a moment when I would bop up onto a stage in the summer of 2025 to a Debbie Gibson song, I would have wondered what major plot twist in that life I had missed. But here we are. The story behind the Debbie Gibson song is that I am deaf, or very close to it. I have severe to profound hearing loss in both ears. I don't know how many years it took me to figure that out. I thought my hearing was normal and that everyone mumbled all the time, and that no one could hear the words to pop songs. I know that sounds strange, but when I was diagnosed, finally, about a dozen years ago, I had just turned 40. And to get hearing aids and suddenly be able to hear your footsteps walking upstairs, which I had missed for years, but also to be able to hear that pop songs have words, which I had kind of forgotten. Because I could hear the music. I could dance, I could hear the beat. But I had just, at some point along the way, forgotten that they were saying something. And so right after I got hearing aids, I was home one morning, and I was just puttering about, and I put on an 80s dance mix, and Debbie Gibson came on. And I was like, 'This is great. I forgot how great this was.' So I was...

Sophie Bearman  03:27

Lyrical genius!  

Mary Louise Kelly  03:29

I posted on Facebook something to that effect: 'Debbie Gibson: genius ahead of her time, like, fight me on this.' And so, of course, the comments came flooding in, fighting me on this. And one of them gave the inevitable comment, 'You need to get your hearing checked.' And I thought, 'Oh, honey, we're there.'

Sophie Bearman  03:50

So okay, we'll go to your first real song. 

Mary Louise Kelly  03:52

Okay.

Sophie Bearman  03:53

This is Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. This is a 1946 Disney song that came out for the movie Song of the South. So why did you choose this one?

Mary Louise Kelly  04:01

So I grew up in Georgia, and my first house that I really remember we moved to when I was four. And it had high ceilings and sun that came in very strong from the front of the house, and so big, heavy curtains. And the morning ritual when I was 4, 5, 6 years old was: my mom would come into my bedroom and open the curtains, and that meant it was time to wake up and get dressed for school or camp or breakfast or whatever it was. And she always sang this song. And my mother has a beautiful voice, and I have such strong memories of her walking in and saying, 'Good morning sunshine,' and then breaking into Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. 

Sophie Bearman  04:41

Let's take a listen to it.

Music  04:49

[Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah by James Baskett plays]

Sophie Bearman  05:01

I love the birds that come in. 

Mary Louise Kelly  05:03

Yeah, it stays with me because I can see the way the sun was coming in. I can remember what that was like to wake up as a child and feel safe. My mother was, and is, a good and kind person. And she, I'm sure, was a grown up dealing with all of the problems that grown ups are dealing with in any given day, but all she projected to me was how happy she was to see me in the morning. It's a gift to give to someone. If you believe from early childhood, the people you live with are good and kind, it builds a trust that maybe everyone else will be too. Because why not? That's what you've known, and it has informed the way that I move through the world. I walk into a room like this, and my assumption is people are going to be good and kind, because that's what I grew up with. Not all of you. I'm sure some of you are reprobates, but what a gift to give a child.

Sophie Bearman  05:55

That's beautiful. And you know, in reading your memoir, it sounds like your mom has played an outsized role in your life, your whole life, but when you became a mother, that relationship even changed, right?

Mary Louise Kelly  06:07

I don't think you know what's involved with what your own mother did, until maybe you have that experience yourself and realize, as I say, all of the things she must have been grappling with that I never knew. She understood things that mattered to me as a mother that I don't know that anybody who didn't love me the way a mother could. I mean, I remember one relatively recent moment when there was a — was a soccer game of one of my sons, my oldest son, and it was a big one. It was, like, for the state championship, and I had missed so many of his games because I was always getting on a plane somewhere. And I made that one mostly because it was a Sunday afternoon, so I was not on air. They won, by the way. Go Bulldogs. It was a great game to be there for. My son scored. It was perfect, and I got to be there. And it meant so much to me. So I called my mom from the car home and told her, you know, 'They won and James scored.' And she was so happy for him and for the team, but her first words were, 'Oh sunshine,' which is what she calls me when she's happy. 'I'm so happy for you. You made it. You got to be there.' She understood.

Sophie Bearman  07:17

That's so sweet. 

Mary Louise Kelly  07:18

Yeah. 

Sophie Bearman  07:18

So your second song, you chose Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion. So tell us — Yes, tell us the story behind this song. 

Mary Louise Kelly  07:27

Okay, so I need you to picture 1988. I am 16 years old, so we're in '87, '88. Teresa and Beth were my high school besties. We all got our licenses sophomore, junior year. And this is suburban Atlanta. We lived on a cul-de-sac, like on the edge of Atlanta. And you cannot get around, then or now, without a car. You had been utterly reliant up to then, age 16, on your parents driving you somewhere and convincing your parents that, 'Yes, you really did need to go to the mall and go to the movie theater' and all the rest. We got our licenses. And I remember the first moment of the three of us peeling out of my driveway. And there's no parent at the wheel, and we're looking around like 'Really?' And this is before cell phones, so they couldn't track us. They didn't know where we were going. We were just out. And this song came on. And, um, is there a sweeter freedom than that? Than being 16 years old and rolling out with your high school best friends? And you don't know where you're gonna go, but it's gonna be great.

Sophie Bearman  08:32

Gonna be good. All right, let's take a listen.

Music  08:33

[Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith plays]

Mary Louise Kelly  08:42

Oh, y'all know this, come on. It holds up.

Sophie Bearman  08:54

It does.

Mary Louise Kelly  08:54

It's so good. 

Sophie Bearman  08:55

When I listen to this, I really think about rebellion, right? Like, what kind of trouble were you getting up to?

Mary Louise Kelly  09:01

I mean, I was grounded quite a few times. I was a good, sweet girl, but like you could only see so many movies at the mall before it was time to branch out and have a little bit of trouble. So we cruised. The other element yet that you have to have in your mind, Teresa's car — this is the car that we were bopping to Aerosmith in — was a Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and it was ancient by the late 80s. This was one of the original ones. It was bright yellow. It was as cool as that sounds, except it did not work. You could only turn the car on if the car was already in motion, i.e. rolling down a hill, which presented its challenges. 

Sophie Bearman  09:39

Oh my god.

Mary Louise Kelly  09:41

So my, my specific memory of this song is my sweet father pushing the bumper behind this car. And, you know, Teresa was good at — she would time it, and hit the ignition, and we were off.

Sophie Bearman  09:52

Okay, so that's like the first taste of freedom. And then you have more freedom. You go to college, you go to Harvard. You write for the student paper there. Afterwards, you do more journalism. You land your first gig — first big gig, I should say — at the BBC.

Mary Louise Kelly  10:05

My first gig was for my hometown paper. I started in print and worked at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. And then I went to grad school because I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. 

Sophie Bearman  10:14

Okay.

Mary Louise Kelly  10:15

I wanted to see the world and the BBC — I mean, what better place...

Sophie Bearman  10:18

I mean, amazing. 

Mary Louise Kelly  10:19

... to do it? Yeah.

Sophie Bearman  10:20

And that brought you to London.

Mary Louise Kelly  10:21

Brought me to London.

Sophie Bearman  10:22

And you chose a song for this, too. Oasis' Champagne Supernova. 

Mary Louise Kelly  10:26

Yeah. 

Sophie Bearman  10:26

So where was this playing on that whole trip there?

Mary Louise Kelly  10:30

I moved to London in the late '90s. I was in my 20s. I did have like, the first real job that felt like, 'This isn't a stepping stone. This is, like, exactly where I want to be.' And late '90s? Cast your mind back. Tony Blair had just been elected. The Tories were out of office for the first time in forever. David Beckham was everywhere. He started dating Posh Spice. So it was — the music scene was huge. It was the Spice Girls. It was Blur. It was Oasis. That was the soundtrack, for me, to those years. 

Sophie Bearman  11:05

Let's listen to Champagne Supernova.

Music  11:10

[Champagne Supernova by Oasis plays]

Mary Louise Kelly  11:17

I think that feeling of being overseas in a job that I was so excited to do, so young. I was excited about everything that being a grown up meant. I had eight matching dinner plates, and forks, and wine glasses. I could throw a dinner party and you could all come, and I had plates. That felt so grown up and exciting. I remember registering for the National Health Service and to pay taxes, and that felt fun, because you have to have an income, which means you have to have a job to pay taxes. So how fun is that? It was great. That wore off pretty quickly. But it was the feeling, again, of still just: everything was out there, and everything felt like it could all happen. 

Sophie Bearman  12:13

Possibility. 

Mary Louise Kelly  12:14

Everything was still to come. I was young. I was invincible. And this song speaks to that. We all felt that. I think the whole country in that moment, the Cool Britannia moment, was real. 

Sophie Bearman  12:24

When you were a kid, did you think you'd become a journalist? Did that seem like a possibility?

Mary Louise Kelly  12:30

Oh, yeah. I started a newspaper on the cul-de-sac that was called Lemons Ridge because the farmer who'd lived there before was Farmer Lemon. I founded the Lemons Ridge Bugle in about fourth or fifth grade. We profiled neighbors moving in and neighbors moving out, and had a yard of the month competition where, if you won, you got a flamingo planted in your front yard — which you were absolutely not allowed to move. So, yeah. I think I knew I wanted to do that. And then I edited my high school paper. And I remember a moment. I went to a school that had uniforms —and this was the late 80s, so we're all wearing, you know, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper bangles and earrings that came to our waists — and they changed the dress code. And said, 'Your earring could not hang longer than — if you pulled it up, it couldn't come past the top of your ear.' How cruel and arbitrary is that? It was such an injustice, and I felt it because I had all these rubber hoops that I wanted to wear. So anyway, I decided to do a story about it. And I had to go interview our assistant principal, who was also the guy you got sent to if you got detention. And I was terrified of him. And, as I say, I was a good girl, and had never had to go see him before. But I went, and I asked him all these questions, and we ran a story about it. And then people wrote a lot of letters to the editor and support for the next edition, and they changed the policy.

Sophie Bearman  13:56

Okay.

Mary Louise Kelly  13:57

And — thank you. It was the first moment where I — I was shy and kind of scared, and I was scared to ask him questions. And I realized, 'He's not taking my questions.' Like, he doesn't care that Mary Louise doesn't like the earring policy. But he will take questions from the Lovett Linotype. And it was the first feeling of, 'I can ask questions on behalf of someone else. I can correct a travesty of justice in the school.' And the newspaper gave me an outlet to do something I would never have been able to do, and I felt that deeply. And, I mean — I'm laughing, it's funny, but I feel that still, when I'm doing hard interviews, today, about hard things. There is no head of state or cabinet secretary who has to take my questions, but they'll take them because of the millions of people who will hear the answers on NPR. It gives us a platform to ask questions that I would never otherwise be able to ask. And that has stuck with me and still feels really powerful today.

Sophie Bearman  15:03

So from the BBC, you move to NPR, and a couple years after that, you become a parent. To this day, your website introduces you as a mother, a daughter, a journalist and a novelist, in that order. So because it lists that — and because your memoir is about that tension between work and being a parent — is there a moment, early on, where you really felt those two worlds were at war?

Mary Louise Kelly  15:27

I mean, so many times. Like, even before I became a mom, this was becoming challenging to do my work and be pregnant. I remember interviewing — showing up at the White House for an interview with Condoleezza Rice when she was National Security Advisor. And I was so pregnant at that point that I couldn't wear shoes. Like, not just my shoes, but any shoes like. Like, size 11 men's flip flops would not go onto my feet. I was literally hobbling into the White House. And she was so nice. And I put my feet up, and we did the interview. And it was just like, 'Okay, like, you make it work.' Anyway, when I had graduated from editing All Things Considered — which is a great job, it's like a job you would kill for, it's just not what I wanted to do, I wanted to be out in the world reporting — I had weaseled my way into being Pentagon correspondent. And part of that job was traveling with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the Secretary of Defense when they traveled. And on one particular trip — because the SecDef had gone to Baghdad, I was part of the press corps on the plane. We flew into Baghdad, and this is — like, the war was in full gear. You could not drive an American cabinet secretary through the streets. They were moving him around in helicopters, which meant the press corps trailing him was also moving around in helicopters. So I remember we — we'd come up from southern Iraq. We had a thing at a base near Basra, and we landed in the green zone. But even within the green zone, there was incoming fire often enough that they had us all in body armor. And the way they do these things then, at least, is: he gets to go first, being the Secretary of Defense. So he's in the Black Hawk, and he's up for whatever meetings. And then the next Black Hawk lands, and it's, like, the generals and admirals traveling with him. The next — they work their way down. As the reporters, we're the sitting ducks, you know, waiting for the last chopper. So as we're waiting, my cell phone rang. And it was the school nurse back in Washington. And she wanted to tell me that my four-year-old was sick. And where was I? And how quickly could I get there? And I, I think I probably laughed. I think I was like, 'Lady, if you could see me, like, I'm literally pushing my helmet back to take this call.' So I started trying to explain, and then she started yelling, and she said, 'I don't mean 'to come get him to bring him home.' I mean, 'he's really sick. He's struggling to breathe.' We need to get him to a doctor or a hospital. Now.' And I was trying to do the time zone calculation and figure out where his father was or where the nanny was, and I lost the line, cell phone connection in Iraq. And then the Black Hawk landed, and I had to get in it. They're not waiting for ya. And I remember being up in the air and looking down. And I could just see the traffic of Baghdad, and I was crying and I didn't know if my son was okay, and thinking, 'What am I doing? I love this job, and I worked really hard to get this job, and I'm good at this job. And I don't know if my son is breathing, and I'm however many 1000 miles away. What am I doing?' My son is fine. He's now 19. His father was there and got him to the doctor, and all was well. But it took about four hours for me to get a cell phone connection back and find that out. And I remember that night lying in a triple bunk bed in a trailer behind one of Saddam Hussein's abandoned palaces, as one does, and lying there and thinking, 'I think it might be time for Career Plan B. This is not working.' And I stepped away for, for a few years.

Sophie Bearman  19:08

Wow. Well, that is a good transition to your next song. It's that heady moment in your life. You're still at NPR. You're covering these wars, and like you said, you're considering, like, 'Do I need a break?' And you said in an email to me that Unwritten came on the radio and it helped you make that decision. So tell us that story.

Mary Louise Kelly  19:29

Well, because, as you're probably gathering, I love being a journalist. I really didn't want to step away. And I also — you have a moment like that one in Baghdad, and it clarifies there are some bright lines in life. And I just thought, 'At this particular moment, somebody else could travel with the Defense Secretary. Somebody else could get on that plane. But nobody else can be a mom to this boy.' And so I was thinking more and more about it, and the idea of — I'd covered the CIA for years before the Pentagon, and was still doing a lot of intelligence work. And I just — I had so many stories that would make their way into my reporter's notebook but never onto air in a four minute deadline piece. And I thought, 'I wonder if I could do something with that. Like, could I write a spy novel? That sounds way more fun than grinding away on deadline every night. Could I do it? What would that look like?' I was driving home through Dupont Circle. Anyone who knows Washington knows Dupont Circle at rush hour is to be avoided at all costs, and so you have quite a while to contemplate the state of your life as you're sitting there. And Natasha Bedingfield's song Unwritten came on the radio. Let's hear it, because you'll understand why. This is the song that sticks.

Music  21:01

[Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield plays]

Mary Louise Kelly  21:03

'Today is where your book begins. The rest is still unwritten.' 

Sophie Bearman  21:06

Yep. 

Mary Louise Kelly  21:06

I mean, you couldn't make it up. I am not a superstitious person, but I just thought, 'I'm gonna take this as a sign. Today is the day. Your book is still unwritten. Maybe you should go write it.' And I think it was about seven months after that helicopter ride in Baghdad that I told NPR, 'I'm done.'

Sophie Bearman  21:30

Coming up after the break, Mary Louise Kelly makes a turn from journalist to spy fiction writer. Stay with us.

Sophie Bearman  21:58

There are a lot of cool things about you but I don't want to gloss over the fact that you write spy fiction. Like, that is very cool. What are these books?

Mary Louise Kelly  22:07

So that first book was a spy thriller called Anonymous Sources. I took to heart that you should write what you know and so the protagonist is a reporter who is out there trying to break stories in Washington. Where on earth did I get that idea? I named her Alexandra James. My sons are Alexander and James. I like the names, obviously. It's what I named my children. But I also wanted to have in my head, 'This is why you're doing it. Like when you don't feel like sitting down and writing the chapter, this is why you're doing it. Show up for Alexandra James.' And then it's, you know, my instincts are a reporter. So I wanted to figure out — I had this whole nuclear terrorism plot unfolding. So I did a lot of reporting, and I really cared about getting the details right. I wanted it to be a fun read, but I wanted it to ring true, and I had some of my old sources at the CIA read it, and they would make little cuts — including people who had never taken my call, or if they did, they'd been like, 'No comment.' I'm like, 'I asked you what's for lunch.' 'No comment.' 'Can neither confirm nor deny.' Click. They would call back — you know, if it's, 'I need your help making this fictional scene realistic'? They were happy to talk. And a couple of them, once they saw I got those details right in the book, when I returned to covering the intelligence beat, years later, took my call. 

Sophie Bearman  23:26

They came around. There you go. Tip for all journalists. Write a couple spy novels.

Mary Louise Kelly  23:32

Keep working your sources. It may take a decade, but it will pay off.

Sophie Bearman  23:36

So you chose another song from this time when you were away from journalism, and this takes us to 2013. So you're writing spy fiction. You're living in Italy. Where in Italy? 

Mary Louise Kelly  23:45

Florence. 

Sophie Bearman  23:47

Amazing. So you're living in Florence with your husband and boys. and the next song that comes out literally takes over YouTube. I actually didn't know this song, and I'm really upset that I do now.

Mary Louise Kelly  23:58

You didn't recognize it when you heard it?

Sophie Bearman  24:00

No. And it's now perpetually stuck in my head. So it's called, 'What Does The Fox Say?' [Audience cheers] Okay, okay. By Ylvis. It's just really catchy, you will hear, in the sense that once you hear it, it will not leave your head. 

Mary Louise Kelly  24:16

Sorry.

Sophie Bearman  24:17

Yeah. So why did you choose this?

Mary Louise Kelly  24:19

So we're in the chapter of my life where I've stepped away from NPR. I'm on deadline with my second book so I had a publisher. I had an actual deadline from Simon and Schuster. I actually had to write something. I was working but it didn't matter where I was, and the boys were young enough that we kind of thought, 'Well, maybe we should have an adventure.' And so we pulled them out of school and put them in International School. It was every bit as phenomenal as it sounds to pack up your life and move to Italy. It was wonderful. So I want to say with gratitude how wonderful it was, and it was also utterly exhausting and overwhelming. I did not speak Italian. I also was, I think, fairly far along in losing my hearing, and I didn't know it, so I really — I was like, 'I know I need to work on my Italian, but this is ridiculous. I can't communicate with anyone.' And if any of you have had the experience of living in a foreign country, it's wonderful. You're learning everything, and yet the most minute things, you don't know how to do them. I remember the day — it nearly ended me, Sophie. I needed coffee, and we were out of coffee filters, and I couldn't figure out how the hell you buy a coffee filter in Italy. You could see all the coffee. It was on the shelf. There's no coffee filter. I finally learned, should you ever find yourselves in Italy in need of a coffee filter, they sell them at the tabac. The tobacco store. That's also where you buy bus tickets. That was another whole day's odyssey to figure that out. Also, I think Italians aren't using Mr. Coffee and coffee filters. They're making nice espresso. That was another issue. But I say all that by way of saying that was a whole day of my life, Sophie, just like driving around crying and needing the coffee filters. Every day was magical and wonderful in its way, but I would come back and you still had to cook dinner. There was no Uber Eats. Maybe there is now, but there was not at the time. So it was a cooking dinner every night for, at the time, second and fourth grade boys, who would come in ravenous from soccer practice, and I would be so just overwhelmed. And they would come in and put this song on, and I would soon be laughing so hard that I'd forgotten the coffee filters and everything else. They — well, let's hear it, and then I will show you.

Sophie Bearman  27:00

What Does The Fox Say?

Music  27:02

[The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) by Ylvis plays]

Mary Louise Kelly  27:07

This is the point my boys are like break dancing, and they're doing Sprockets moves, and I am just falling over laughing. 

Sophie Bearman  27:12

Guys, go look up that video, and you will thank us or hate us. Either way, just do it.

Mary Louise Kelly  27:18

I had to look up when I chose the song. I had no idea who sang it, and I still don't know how to pronounce it. They're Norwegian. That's all I can tell you. Great song if you're ever in a bad mood. Put it in. You will laugh.

Sophie Bearman  27:19

Join the billions. Exactly. So you go back to NPR. Can you bridge why you decide to go back and stop writing spy fiction?

Mary Louise Kelly  27:42

I never stopped missing it. I think I was away for six years, give or take, and I would occasionally come back and fill in host Morning Edition or All Things Considered. But I guess it was — it was sometime in 2015, it must have been — the terror attacks in Paris. I speak French. I can report in France, and I have done so many times, and I just felt this incredible, 'Put me in coach.' Like, 'I want to be on that plane. I want to be on that plane.' And the boys, by that point, were 11, 12, 13, somewhere in that range. And they were healthy and they seemed to be thriving. And I thought, 'I wonder if I could go back.' And so I started back at NPR, back on the national security beat in January of 2016, which I thought was going to be a really quiet news year. And then the Russia story broke, and there's never been a quiet news cycle since Donald Trump came down that golden escalator, and here we are. It was not an easy transition back in. 

Sophie Bearman  28:48

But you did it. 

Mary Louise Kelly  28:49

I did it. I thought it was going to be fine. I remember, if anybody's ever taken a spell off work and then gone back, you get everything ready. So everybody had their hair cut. Everybody had a current dental appointment. The freezer was stocked with meals. The house was spotless, like everything was done. And the first month, two months, three months, I was like, 'I got this. I can totally work a demanding beat and hold it all together.' And then suddenly, like, it was time to go to the dentist again, and there was no food, and, like, the car needed servicing. I'm like, 'How does this work? How did I used to do this?' But you make it work. 

Sophie Bearman  29:23

You make it work. 

Mary Louise Kelly  29:24

You make it work. 

Sophie Bearman  29:25

So your next song, you're back at NPR, but at home, your marriage is starting to strain. What was happening?

Mary Louise Kelly  29:34

I will just say that after many long and happy years, we decided it was time to move to a new chapter, and that my ex had moved to a new chapter, and I wish him much joy. And he was and remains in my life, and a friend and a wonderful father to my kids. But it was a new — was definitely a new chapter, and figuring out, 'Okay, life's about to pivot.'

Sophie Bearman  29:56

Well, and this has a happy ending, because the song that you chose has to do with meeting someone new, who is here in the audience. This is Let Your Love Flow by The Bellamy Brothers. So there must be a story here between you two. 

Mary Louise Kelly  30:11

There is. I met the man who I'm going to spend the rest of my life with when I was 52. And I would like to say it's every bit as wonderful to meet someone and fall in love at 52. Who knew? You get a flutter when they walk in the room. So he's here tonight, and he changed his flight so he could be here tonight, and just landed from Denver moments ago. [Audience cheers] I will also say that if you have lived a rich, full, big life, that you don't make it to your 50s without some scar tissue. And in my case, I think I was probably scared about the risk of opening my heart again. I didn't need any more heartbreak in my life. And there were moments where I thought maybe I should just go join a convent. That might be the best decision for all parties. So we were working our way through that, and he came to pick me up one night in his car, and we were driving, and we're having a date, which is wonderful. He put his hand on my knee, and we're just driving, and The Bellamy Brothers came on.

Music  31:24

[Let Your Love Flow by The Bellamy Brothers plays]

Mary Louise Kelly  31:40

That song came on — thank you, Yacht Rock satellite Sirius station, which is what you listen to when you go on a date in the 50s. And it just suddenly felt easy. I felt lightness, and I hadn't felt that for a long time, and I mean that in the simplest, happiest way. I just felt lightness. And thought, ‘I wonder if it can actually just be easy. If it can be this easy and feel like I'm with the right person in the right place.' And I was.

Sophie Bearman  32:23

How did you guys meet? I have to ask.

Mary Louise Kelly  32:28

There's a music cue to this, which is not one of my seven songs. So we — we were at college together many moons ago. We were not in the same year. I'm a year older. We have many friends in common, and he remembers me. I don't remember you. [Audience laughs] I was busy. Fast forward 30 years, and we have both lived big lives in different cities and done what we came to do with work. And I was not looking to meet someone. Nor was he. And a mutual friend who we had both gone to college with saw that Duran Duran was having a reunion tour and coming to DC. And she thought, 'This is fun, like, I'm going to get a bunch of friends together, we're going to make a night.' So she booked a suite at the Capital One Arena for Duran Duran. I was wearing — I hadn't thought this all comes full circle. We were supposed to be dressed like for a Duran Duran concert in the '80s. So I'm wearing giant neon lightning bolts that would have been totally outlawed by my high school principal. And I would have had to revolt, but I was dressed like a Duran Duran groupie, and he liked me anyway, and we started talking, and we haven't stopped.

Sophie Bearman  33:44

Tips for dating in your 50s, then? 

Mary Louise Kelly  33:46

Oh my god. Oh my god. The nice thing — and this is different from dating in your 20s — is it's like, 'This is who I am. This is what we're dealing with. It's not going to get any skinnier or less wrinkled. It's not — I'm gonna — the crow's feet are not going away. So you seem to like me. Let's just, let's just have fun.' It's a very come as you are experience. And yacht rock. That's my major tip. Yacht rock. 

Sophie Bearman  34:11

Of course. So your very last song is Tracy Chapman's Give Me One Reason. Love Tracy Chapman.

Mary Louise Kelly  34:20

Love Tracy Chapman. 

Sophie Bearman  34:21

What does it say about you and where you are today?

Mary Louise Kelly  34:25

I chose Give Me One Reason but I could have chosen any Tracy Chapman song. All of them. I have them all. It occurs to me, as we're talking actually, Sophie, that I think every other song I chose has to do with my relationship with someone else. My mom and my kids, my partner, my friends driving off in the Volkswagen Beetle. This song is just for me.

Music  34:53

[Give Me One Reason by Tracy Chapman plays]

Music  35:06

Beautiful. 

Sophie Bearman  35:08

So beautiful. 

Mary Louise Kelly  35:13

The way she rocks that — rocks her voice. And it speaks, I guess, to having a little bit of time in my 50s to keep doing a job that I love and be finding new people who give meaning and love to my life. But also, 'What do I want to do?' This is the looking ahead song. It's the, 'What comes next? I have no idea.

Sophie Bearman  35:36

I was about to say, what is next for you?

Mary Louise Kelly  35:40

I have an idea for another book.

Sophie Bearman  35:41

Okay.

Mary Louise Kelly  35:42

It keeps feeling very beside the point with everything going on in the world and in our country and in my day job. I was trying to write some this past weekend, and then got a call late on Saturday night, 'Can you do live breaking news coverage? The U.S. has just bombed Iran.' And you're like, 'Yes. Why am I writing — why am I making things up when we have more than enough that we can grapple with in real life?' So I keep setting it aside and keep trying. I would like to write — I think the next book will come. And then I don't know. I don't know. The boys who I spent so many years wrestling with, 'How can I be there for their soccer game and also be on the plane to Iraq?' Answer is, 'You can't.' But they're off at college. They're both out in the world this summer. So for the first time in 21 years, when the call comes, it's, 'Can you get on the plane?' Like, 'Yeah. I could get on the plane.' Let's get on the plane. And you — can I share? You are a new mom.

Sophie Bearman  36:42

I am. 

Mary Louise Kelly  36:42

Eight months?

Sophie Bearman  36:43

An eight-month-old. [Audience claps] Thank you.

Mary Louise Kelly  36:47

And this is your first work trip away?

Sophie Bearman  36:49

It is, it is. [Audience cheers]

Mary Louise Kelly  36:50

How's it going? 

Sophie Bearman  36:53

It's great. You know, you write in your memoir, 'Did I want to go,' — I'm paraphrasing — 'Yes. Did I want to leave? No,' That's exactly how I feel. Did I shed some tears? Yes. But is it really special to be here? Yeah. It is hard. And actually I wanted to ask you, what advice do you have?

Mary Louise Kelly  37:09

I wrestle with it every single time. I remember leaving on a work trip to North Korea — a little different from Aspen. This would have been like 2018. That moment, no matter how old your kids are, the taxi pulls up to the curb to take you away on a work trip, and you just want to close the door again and go back inside and build a pillow fort. I don't know what the answer is, other than to say that every single one of us who's a parent — and I have to think every single person who's not a parent — we've all had that feeling of, 'I absolutely need to be in two places at the same time, and I absolutely can't.' It's the solidarity of knowing none of us figured it out. We are all hanging on by our toenails. Not all of us are getting on a plane to North Korea. But if you're not there, you're not there. And that can feel, as you just put it, it can break your heart and it can also be exactly where you're supposed to be in the world.

Sophie Bearman  38:05

Thank you. Mary Louise Kelly, thank you so much for sharing your seven songs.

Mary Louise Kelly  38:33

Thank you.

Sophie Bearman  38:33

This was amazing. Thank you so much.

Sophie Bearman  38:38

Life in Seven Songs is a production from The San Francisco Standard. And I just want to give special thanks to the Aspen Ideas Festival for having us out. If you liked hearing our show before a live audience, make sure to check out the conversation I had with the celebrated biographer Walter Isaacson. And if you haven't already, please subscribe and like the show. It makes a huge difference for us. Our senior producer is Jasmyn Morris. Our producers are Michelle Lanz, who also mixed the show, Tessa Kramer, and Frank Zhou. Our theme music is by Kate Davis and Zubin Hensler. And Clark Miller created our show art. Our music consultant is Sarah Tembeckjian. Executive Producers are Griffin Gaffney, Jon Steinberg, and me. As always, you can find this guest's full playlist at sf.news/spotify. I'm Sophie Bearman, thanks for listening and see you next time.