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.

I'm a terrible sentence finisher. I think that's why I'm a songwriter. When you write a song, there are no rules, and I think that I talk as if there are no rules. But then I run this great risk of no one understanding me at all.

My identity is mostly as a songwriter and lyricist and singer. I also have a lot of production ideas but I have my own limitations in terms of what instruments I'm actually proficient at and what I can do myself, so I really love working with people on the production end; just really going for it with orchestration and instrumentation and production. That's where I see myself going: maintaining my integrity and abilities as a songwriter, but applying it to different contexts, to where I can put on a huge feathered costume and roll around in the ocean.

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.

I think that I have come at it backwards in a way because a lot of what I'm doing as a songwriter is not incredibly intentional. There's a moment that happens which creates the song or the actual idea for a song, and then I'm like, "Oh, it's this kind of song."

I do notice that my songs fit all over the map, even in terms of the colloquialisms in them. The songs come out with their references intact, almost unheeded by me. It's like they existed somehow before they met me with their relationship to the tradition, and then they just end up coming through me at that moment because of my relationship to some certain kind of music that I've listened to in my life. I know that sounds a little bit woooey.

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.