I've walked these streets, in a carnival of sights to see. All the cheap thrill seekers, the vendors & the dealers, they crowded around me. Have I been blind? Have I been lost, inside myself and my own mind? Hypnotized, mesmerized, by what my eyes have seen? I've walked these streets, in a spectacle of wealth & poverty. In the diamond market, the scarlet welcome carpet that they just rolled out for me.

I’ve always considered it a great privilege to be a musician, I’ve never lost sight of that.

It's funny, I remember doing the Johnny Carson show, and, uh, I couldn't afford my rent.

I feel we all have the obligation, myself. I want to live in a more humane, civilized society, and I feel like the only way we're going to achieve that is if we all take it upon ourselves. I just wish we could be a more caring society. I feel like we're social Darwinists who believe that everyone has to make it on their own. But the reality is that we all don't start out on the same footing.

When it came time to sequence the album, the new arrangements really demanded a different order. They were so different than they were before that the old sequence didn't work anymore.

I've walked these streets, in a carnival of sights to see. All the cheap thrill seekers, the vendors & the dealers, they crowded around me. Have I been blind? Have I been lost, inside myself and my own mind? Hypnotized, mesmerized, by what my eyes have seen? I've walked these streets, in a spectacle of wealth & poverty. In the diamond market, the scarlet welcome carpet that they just rolled out for me.

I've found out how overwhelming the media is and the way it drills things into your head, it's almost like a mind control. If I could control prople's minds, I'd like to put something useful in.