If you're up on a stage, naked and solo and singing songs to people, there's not much place to hide, so you may as well confess what you want to confess and say what you want to say, whatever that is. Some songs just turn out as being more about me, and some are more through the eyes of other people, or third-person descriptions of people.
Richard ThompsonI'm glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.
Richard ThompsonIt's fun to sing sad songs. And it's fun to listen to sad songs. Enjoyable. Satisfying. Something.
Richard ThompsonThe thing I do, really, is a communication with audiences more than any achievement through records.
Richard ThompsonIf you're up there performing a song for the first time, it's as if you're hearing it through their ears. You become acutely self-conscious of the song in performance, so that's a good thing before recording. But I like to have some surprises for the audience; I don't want the audience to know everything that's going to be on the record, because these days, with the Internet, people become avid collectors of pre-knowledge.
Richard Thompson