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\n\t\u201cThis is a setlist that I have never done anywhere,\u201d Melissa Etheridge tells Billboard<\/em>\u2019s Behind the Setlist<\/em> podcast of the performance captured in her new live album, I\u2019m Not Broken: Live from Topeka Correction Facility<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cUnexpected Rain\u201d is \u201ca deep track on a deep album, The Awakening<\/em>,\u201d she says. \u201cI rarely do \u2018Unexpected Rain.\u2019 I rarely do \u2018The Shadow of a Black Crow,\u2019 which is about addiction. I rarely do \u2018Into the Dark.\u2019 I rarely do \u2018Love Will Live.\u2019 They were very, very specific to what I wanted to speak about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIt was a unique concert in more ways than one.<\/p>\n \n\tEtheridge\u2019s performance before 2,500 inmates at the women\u2019s prison in Topeka, Kan., was recorded for two-part docuseries I\u2019m Not Broken<\/em> for the streaming platform Paramount+<\/a>. The two-time Grammy winner says she had wanted to perform at a prison for decades. Etheridge grew up in Leavenworth, Kans., within eyeshot of the prison where country great Johnny Cash performed in 1970. The 7-year-old Etheridge couldn\u2019t hear the performance from outside the prison walls, but was struck by accounts of the show. \u201cWe just had the newspaper article, and at that point I read it, and was like, \u2018Wow, prisons must be a place of great entertainment, and someday I\u2019m gonna grow up and play a prison.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe idea came up again when she switched management a decade ago. About five years ago, her management team began reaching out to the penitentiary to see if a performance would be feasible. Once the idea was approved and Etheridge was given a green light by Paramount, she brought on board a production company, Shark Pig.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe Topeka concert included many deep cuts because the filmmakers asked Etheridge to choose songs based on themes \u2014 such as trauma, motherhood, hope, redemption and consequence \u2014 that the series would address. At the concert, Etheridge introduced each song by talking about the specific themes. \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe often racuous show included many of Etheridge\u2019s better known songs, too. The show opens with \u201cAmerican Girl,\u201d a non-single track from her 1993 album Yes, I Am<\/em>. The set closed with her biggest hits: \u201cCome to My Window\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m The Only One\u201d from Yes, I Am<\/em>, and \u201cBring Me Some Water\u201d and \u201cLike the Way I Do\u201d from her 1988 debut.<\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019m Not Broken<\/em> also captures Etheridge\u2019s process for writing a song specifically for the concert. \u201cA Burning Woman\u201d was informed by her correspondence and conversation with five of the inmates. The women opened up about their circumstances, how they ended up in prison and their lives during incarceration. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe sat down in the prison library, and we all spoke,\u201d Etheridge recalls, \u201cand just hearing their stories, laughing, talking, crying, whatever you know we did, was so powerful to me that it couldn\u2019t help but humanize them, because they are human.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tListen to the entire interview with Melissa Etheridge in the embedded Spotify player below, or go to Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Amazon Music<\/a>, iHeart<\/a> or Everand<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n