I've written songs about things that nobody else has ever written about.
If the lyrics are something new, then maybe I want to give it a more traditional form, or the other way around, but not have all one or the other.
I woke up early this mornin' with a new state of mind/ A creative way to rhyme without usin' knives and guns
As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.
As a songwriter, you always want to search for something that's right in front of you that you can twist into something new.
Songwriters are expanding time rather than compressing time. My short stories tend to be old fashioned, with a beginning, middle and end.
The '80s was an interesting, confining time for songwriters, so we were just sort of riffing in our own language, off to the side.
I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we've all heard about before.
