My dad is from Ironwood and the last time I was in Marquette was in 1995 when my dad was still alive. Dad would have loved this. Even though my family is long gone from this area it still feels like home.

If you make the same mistake 3 times, that becomes ‘your arrangement’

My dad was president of the Finlandia Foundation for a number of years and there was a period of time when he tried to get me in. I'm glad I finally got in.

We were on a tour, and there were some chord formations that were tough for me to play when I was a kid...it had become apparent that there was some stuff I wanted to do that [would require me] to learn how to do that. So I wrote the song and used some of these chord formations so I would have to play them. I thought it would be a great teaching vehicle for a while, and it was, but it ended up as a performance song.

With the bass it's another thing. I don't need to use alternate thumb-picking as much. Even though Jack says he loves it. My thought is that it might irritate him somewhat.

I was writing a lot of true love songs-true love almost gone wrong but saved at the last moment...Many of the best songs get written in a state of abject misery. I prefer to write fewer songs and have less cataclysmic events in my life...Some hit songs are really stupid, and who knows why they're hits. But a lot of hit songs are really good.

I'm not sure I ever pleased Ian [Buchanan] with my progress, but he continued to tolerate me. I had to work at everything that I did. Well, it wasn't work; it was fun actually.