Dec 25, 2025
I don’t know how [songwriting] works. I have thought about this a lot and I haven’t made any progress. It’s a mystery. Which is great, actually. I like that it’s a mystery. It’s not something I can unravel. It’s like trying to figure out how we got here. It’s involved...
Dec 25, 2025
I think, for me—because I haven’t been in a horrible marriage and I don’t have delinquent children that I’m trying to get through college—I haven’t had a lot of those bad experiences that really twist people’s minds. That’s when you stop writing about love, and you...
Dec 25, 2025
I have found that there’s just meant to be cycles to creativity. There are times when you’re going to be extremely creative and times when you’re not, and I think the times you’re not heeds the next part of the cycle. And that’s definitely happened with me over and...
Dec 25, 2025
I think it’s important to tell our stories – just to add it to the soup – because I think in the end it’s more flavorful than if there were only a few. Especially for people who can’t see their stories on TV or read them in history books and stand up for themselves....
Dec 25, 2025
When I got to Motown, I had an idea—I wanted to get rid of this stigma of “race music.” There were some nasty events that happened to me as a child, racial things. I figured that music could bring people together. It was that one common denominator that could get...
Dec 25, 2025
I remember the first day I ever recorded with Dylan. The assistant engineer ran a cassette of the session, and there’s a moment where Bob is standing at the piano trying to tell me what he wants to do next, and I’m arguing with him. I had a preconception about what...
Dec 25, 2025
I think that in music there’s a oneness, there’s a sweetness. Or there can be. What I call music, anyway … the music I like. I go to it for that oneness and that sweetness. If you look at the world, there’s so much separation. There are polarities and wars. But to...
Dec 25, 2025
You’ve got all kinds of different elements that make up country music. I mean when I think of country music it’s still to me Hank Williams and three chords—that sensibility more than hook lines and repeating the chorus and signatures for guitarists to play, you know...
Dec 25, 2025
I don’t think songwriter ever gets easier. It certainly doesn’t get any less interesting. It’s still fascinating and there’s still no easy solution with songwriting. It’s a vast skill or craft or art or whatever it may be. I never think I know how to do it, so I keep...
Dec 25, 2025
When something rocks, it’s because of the way it feels. It’s not necessarily because of the guitar sound. I have noticed—and I’m sometimes guilty as charged—that Pro Tools has made the process of recording bands much easier. You can take bands that aren’t particularly...
Dec 25, 2025
I started to learn somewhere between Heavier Things and Continuum that it wasn’t up to me when I was ready to write. I spent a lot of time sitting at the desk, or sitting with a guitar, with no songs coming. I’ve learned to know when a song is actually coming—how you...
Dec 25, 2025
Patience is definitely a virtue for writers. I think if you really do what we’ve been talking about — to try to keep your eyes open — then something will hit you without you even realizing it. While you’re flipping through the paper…or having a conversation with...
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