When you're traveling on a body of songs that you have played for many, many years, for most nights of your life - I'm sure you've experienced this yourself - it's not that every night is not it's own thing. It is.
Ted LeoSomeone once said that "The Waste Land" was a scum of poetry floating on a sea of footnotes. That resonated with me, because that's kind of what I was doing lyrically for a while. I was being very referential in a way. I would drop in these little phrases or ideas that were sort of portholes into a whole bigger realm of thought or whatever, that would work within the song, but that you could also poke through into a bigger discussion.
Ted LeoThere's a lot of discussion about whether you should be a good live band or a good studio band. I think you can use the studio to make a great "studio record" and not necessarily have to reproduce exactly that on stage, but still be a great "live band." Having said that, if what you're going for is just the raw capture of your live sound, then that's cool, too - go for it! I enjoy working in the studio, though, and while I try to get near to an approximation of what's going on onstage, it's not my first priority usually.
Ted LeoMost of the time I wind up with a sleepily mumbled melodic line, sometimes with words, sometimes not. But then with my waking brain I have to decide whether it's worth...I mean, sometimes it's not worth it.
Ted LeoWhen I started playing solo 10 years ago, I had some ham-fisted idea about trying to subvert the "singer-songwriter" tag/genre, and I tried to obscure my identity into the identity of a collective or band or whatever. That's part of the reason that I used to play with backing tapes and why so much of my early stuff was so awash in tape hiss and echo noise.
Ted Leo