I'd done a drawing of the model using only peripheral vision, looking at a spot on the wall to the right of where she sat. It wasn't really a drawing of her I produced; it was a drawing of the cloud of lights and darks she dissolved into when I focused on the spot. You could look at my drawing of this cloud and read it as a nude female figure, though a little translation was required.

I remember Bob Dylan saying in an interview that at a certain point he'd had to learn to do consciously what he'd previously done unconsciously or automatically. That resonates.

Some songs seem to achieve the quality of a geometric object - a ball, box, or cone - and I don't mess with 'em.

I've written a lot of wordy, erudite, pretentious songs, but believe it or not, I'm usually doing my damnedest to resist the temptation to be overly "clever," and trying to keep things as accessible - and singable - as possible.

I'd done a drawing of the model using only peripheral vision, looking at a spot on the wall to the right of where she sat. It wasn't really a drawing of her I produced; it was a drawing of the cloud of lights and darks she dissolved into when I focused on the spot. You could look at my drawing of this cloud and read it as a nude female figure, though a little translation was required.

I wanted to be a poet and/or an artist, but I was very lazy (frightened of failure, I guess) and drank too much.

One of the beauties of working in radio is the way a whole setting can be richly evoked simply by the addition to the track of a little birdsong and a church bell in the distance.