I was looking for some way to put my music to some service on a nightly basis. You go into a town, you play a little music, you leave something behind. That idea connected us to the local community. It was a very simple idea, but it really resonated with me.

There's an opera out on the turnpike, there's a ballet being fought out in the alley.

I think that, when you're writing your songs, there's always a debate about whether, is that you in the song? Is it not you in the song?

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my soul.

We said we'd walk together baby come what may.That come the twilight should we lose our way.If as we're walkin a hand should slip free,I'll wait for you And should I fall behind,Wait for me.

It took quite a bit of work and time and mistakes to begin to feel - to understand the strength that comes along with building a home life.That was very mysterious to me. I was very skeptical of it for a long time, and didn't understand it fully until Patti [ Scialfa] and I got together.

If you're up there [on stage] thinking about what you're doing, you're just not there and it's not going to happen.So trying to learn how to overcome those - which is a normal thing to do. You're in front of a lot of people. People are going to get very self-conscious. So you have to learn to sort of overcome that tendency towards self-consciousness and just blow it wide open. And you jump in and join all those people that are out there enjoying what you're doing together.