I spent a fair amount of time editing the lyrics and allowing the song to kind of evolve. ... anytime there's anything worthwhile, it certainly 'feels' like it happened on the spur of the moment, but it's a composite of lots of spurs of the moment, hopefully. And over time, you catch up with those, and then you have a full set of lyrics you've thought of and you feel comfortable singing.

I think I always thought of the guitar as the vehicle to be able to make some musical idea up. The only appeal to learning more chords was having more chords to put into songs. I never got too wrapped up in becoming technically good. So writing songs happened pretty simultaneously with learning how to play the guitar.

I really enjoy playing solo acoustic. I think it's good for me as a songwriter to stay in touch with what it takes to make a song work by yourself.

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

I don't think there is anything hard at all about having a lot of songs. It makes it easier to be less precious about them, and know that everybody's going to want to work on some of them.

With some bands, there's a fear that if people do other things, the band is going to change and not hold it together. That's kind of sad; if you love someone, set them free, right?

I don't know where people get the idea that every Wilco record is supposed to have drama. OK, I guess historically speaking we've had our fair share of ups and downs.