You have to remember that writing those sorta songs is not reality, it's more like trance, dream, y'know, like dreamwork. The mythical thing can enter the creating but there's the mythical place and the real place. And there's both...I get it between waking and sleeping. Or, when I'm doing something else. I don't sit down and think I'm gonna write about subject X or subject Y. I could be doing something and an impression comes in from outside and the song emerges out of that. It's never thought about or contrived.

I just can't stand it [jazz/rock]. It just doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't hit me...it doesn't get me...it just doesn't grab me.

I'd been performing in bands since I was 12 which represented, at that point, about 16 years of playing music.

I was just getting tired of the image bullshit...that man of mystery trip and what have you. What's that all about?

You come into my dreams from a whisper to a scream.

That song [You Got To Make It Through The World] came from a vibe I picked up from an old blues singer named Bo Carter. My lady was making a film as a thesis for U.C.L.A. and she wanted me to write a song to depict this character. The movie had something to do with bootlegging and stuff like that. I found this Bo Carter record and he was just saying something about making it to the woods or something like that.

Let your soul and spirit fly.