What was nice about the nineties is that it was an example of music that responded to a desire of the times. It spoke to the social conditions of the times. Women were making more money. Women were saying, "My voice counts. If we're going out on a Friday night, I don't want to see a Rambo movie. I want to go see a singer/songwriter who sings about my life".

But where do we come up with this notion of a woman in which the less space you take up, the more you're worth?

We all do the wrong thing. And then we have to wake up the next morning and live with the fact that we have done things that are wrong.

Now that I believe in God, I have an extra layer of saying I'll write about what I write about and assume that I'm being offered the opportunity to illuminate something important. But when you think you are too important, you become some sort of fascist.

The only I would say is a little different is when I know my parents are in the audience. That's never going to be the same as another concert.

Slavery doesn't have any positives.

Mortal City was really influenced by geography. [The song] "The Ocean" is the Pacific Northwest. Southern California and New York also figure into songs, and Iowa. "February" is very much about New England. "Mortal City" is Philadelphia. The whole album is this anthropomorphized landscape where the metaphors live in this geography.