If a voice is just too nice, without an edge, it kinda all flows by. You forget it. You don't listen to the lyrics.

George Oppen wasn't a larger than life personality, but I'm not either. And he lived a long time, so he was happy. Going down in flames is fine, too.

That's why you go to a nice studio. You can get a magic take. You don't really have to do anything to it.

With some songs, I have written narratives or I've tried to carry it through, but generally the things that were more genius, as far as I was concerned, were not that.

I'm thinking, I'm singing like Ozzy Osbourne, but I don't sound like him enough, ever.

We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.

It's sort of irritating now - people always ask me, "You're a dad, and how's fatherhood?" If Bob Dylan or Neil Young had a kid, it didn't seem like it made them a different person. It didn't make you old right away.