You have to write a song around this specific character or to enhance a specific scene. A lot of other craft goes on.

I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you've experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run.

You have to write a song around this specific character or to enhance a specific scene. A lot of other craft goes on.

Drug use makes you snappy, and you get very bad-tempered and have terrible hangovers.

I used to play Saturday night shows with different little groups. If I could get a show, I would do it. I used to do mad things - I used to go and do these shows and go on my knees and roll on the ground - when I was 15,16 years old. And my parents were extremely disapproving of it all. Because it was just not done. This was for very low-class people, remember. Rock & roll singers weren't educated people

There's hundreds of different ways of writing songs.

I wasn't understanding enough about drug addition. No one seemed to know much about drug addiction. Things like LSD were all new. No one knew the harm. People thought cocaine was good for you.