With women, you always have to make an educated decision to figure out what they're thinking. It's not one that's necessarily sympathetic, always. Of course, we're all human beings, but the gender thing is big thing. And a great thing.

I do an opening in 'The Glory of the World' play at BAM, and then I go up to the high balcony in the back and watch the bulk of the play, but then I have to leave my seat about seven to 10 minutes before the end of that final big scene...and it's a bummer.

I think everybody works from a defensive position, for the most part, in the film industry.

To sing with other people and for other people, that's when you can really learn something about your voice. You can only learn so much if you create your own boundaries all the time. But then, other people can really teach you something. You know, if you're trying to sing with them, or if someone brings a style.

Writing songs is a profession; so it's not an attempt to take things from my interactions with other people and for some reason give them to a total stranger to listen to. I find it offensive to hear other people do that.

The less people present in an urgent situation that a moderately high stakes recording session can create - the less people there are in the room - the more openness there can be. These songs share that as well, in addition to just the obvious, basic starkness.

I valued the experience of making the recordings, and I value the performances contained therein, and I value so much of what they can represent. I also think they're a terrific listening experience. Putting them out this way was a way of trying to maintain and nurture the relationship with the audience and also shine a light on the recent past, because we are so apt to be forgetful as human beings that there was such a thing as a recent past. These are some of the reasons for making this record.