You can't just explain a joke. Either it isn't funny, or the person just totally missed the punchline.

It's the stupidest thing of all time, going on tour. It deteriorates the soul, but it's fun.

I've always littered my songs with jokes. You might need to dig a little deeper to find the humor, but I would totally object to being some kind of distraught personality. I've never tried to attach myself to that.

The writing of the record didn't take long, because I just have a huge stack of papers and I just pluck from the stack. It took a long time because it's very expensive to make records; in fact, I think it's a complete rip-off.

I've always thought about myself as somewhat of a folk musician. I just write words.

Thank god we don't know a lot about William Shakespeare or Moses or Homer or Lautréamont. These are the best guys we got, and their art is powerful because they're mysterious. Once biographical information contaminates your consciousness, it's impossible to erase it and look at someone's work the same way again.

I grew up in the suburbs and was raised on rap radio, so it took me a long time to stumble upon the acoustic guitar as a resource for anything.