My aim is for every song to have a purpose - for you to be able to say, 'This song is about this.' But love and heartbreak are some of the most abstract subjects.
When people don't know who you are, they're seeing your work for the first time. But if they've seen a lot, getting certain things across is a more difficult.
Don't write for who your reader is. Write for what your reader wants to be.
I believe in books that do not go to a ready-made public. I'm looking for readers I would like to make. To win them, to create readers rather than to give something that readers are expecting. That would bore me to death.
There's something about the idea of writing, and thinking about writing as a form of prayer - the way as a writer you call out into the world and throw your words into the world. You're not praying to a god, but you're almost conjuring a reader to arrive. That's what books do: they're an invitation to readers.
If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them.
Obviously, when you're working at things, you all hope that people will relate to it.
The art of the three-minute song is more like journalism than writing a big 400-page book. You want to be brief, you want to make sense right yen and there. And sometimes that takes a bit of work.
