Sometimes words are just music themselves. Like 'Chicago' is a very musical sounding name.

but it's so hard to dance that way when it's cold and there's no music.

You just write and you don't try to make sense of it. You just put it down the way you got it.

I don't go to church on Sunday, don't get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way

Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning, you throw on your suspenders, and you subvocalize and just think. They seem to form like calcium. I can't think of a story right off the bat that was that interesting. I write things on the back of my hand, usually, and sing into a tape recorder.

Don't plant your days they turn into weeds

I took a hundred dollars from a blindman's hand.