It was a nice relief to be able to work on individual songs.

When I first started writing these kind of songs that would eventually become Decemberists songs, I was writing them because I knew that nobody was listening at the time and that it wouldn't hurt to challenge myself and get weirder and see if I could alienate more people

Music has been already devalued by the consumer. There's an expectation that it should be free so the race to the bottom has already been won.

No-one wants to hear anything spoken in earnest anymore, unless it happens to involve unrequited, teenage love.

And I am a writer, writer of fictions I am the heart that you call home And I've written pages upon pages Trying to rid you from my bones.

An old bandit adage: A bell is a cup until it is struck.

My mother was a Chinese trapeze artist in pre-war Paris Smuggling bombs for the underground. And she met my father at a fete in Aix-en-Provence; He was disguised as a Russian cadet in the employ of the Axis.