I just write about what comes up. Sometimes you're thinking about Palestine, and sometimes you're thinking about sex. People have a lot going on.

The center for me is my heart, actually, and my emotional connection with the work. That's where authenticity comes from. It's also the first thing that hits me about other people's work, or watching other people perform, "Do I believe the person?" Even if I don't like what someone is doing or if I don't like the sound, if I believe them, I do like them. I am able to appreciate them as an artist.

What I try to communicate is that there's a lot of crossover between that feeling of romantic heartbreak and this devastating feeling of knowing that we've punched a hole in the planet and it's spilling out oil and destroying the Gulf of Mexico and the ecosystem and seabirds and every creature.

Sex is fun to sing about.

You're born and then you're on your own, you start having relationships, you're developing relationships to the world and your wider community, and then disappointing things happen.

Writing a song is almost like cheating-writing because you don't have to finish your sentences, you don't have to use any punctuation, no one's going to edit your work. It's so wide open. People just grunt and that's a song. You can kind of do anything.

The music goes into people in a totally different way than words. There's air, there's the sound of words, there's touch, there's music. All of those things have a really distinct way of meeting and entering people's bodies and souls. It's the most beautiful part about humans; that we make music.