I've done my share of busking, and it's fun until it isn't. There are musicians in the subways that will make you cry, they're so good.

Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary.

It's not set in stone. I like to keep it rolling and changing, and so I am like, "Great, I get to remake my song."

Sometimes I just think we're not meant to fly halfway around the world in a day. That some kind of mutation is going to happen.

When I'm onstage, I'm completely comfortable, and I feel very vital and alive.

I don't get particularly precious about things like this, though. Like the record company said, "We need a radio edit that delivers the hook" - I don't even know what they consider the hook in that song ["Oh No"] - "that delivers the hook sooner." So I'm like, "Okay. I see that." And they were all walking on eggshells, like is this going to be sacrilegious to me or something, to mess with this art I've created? And I'm like, "Great. I get to tinker with it, I get to mess with my song some more."

Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.