Musician

What you want is for music to love you back. That's why you pay your dues. You want to feel like you belong and are part of this symbiosis, metamorphosis, whatever you want to call it.

I saw a crow building a nest, I was watching him very carefully, I was kind of stalking him and he was aware of it. And you know what they do when they become aware of someone stalking them when they build a nest, which is a very vulnerable place to be? They build a decoy nest. It's just for you.

For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

If you're a writer, you know that the stories don't come to you - you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were.

Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.

There's not much difference between what I appear to be on stage and what I am. I think people like that, that I'm not trying to pull a caper.

Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop.

My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.

You hope people are going to be listening to you after you're gone. And they like you better after you're gone.

The only thing worse than being in the Hall of Fame is not being in the Hall of Fame.

As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time.

My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.

Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.

Most people don't care if you're telling them the truth or if you're telling them a lie, as long as they're entertained by it. You find that out really fast.

I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page. Some people write for the page, and that's a whole other thing. I'm going for what it sounds like right away, so it may not even look good on the page.

You know when you throw a party, you think people will show up and no one will like each other. It's like that with music - parts of your musical psyche have never met other parts. You wonder if you should get them together.

I look for things that are left of center, something you've only seen your whole life, but never heard. Hit it! With a stick! I have a guitar made out of a 2x4 that I bought in Cleveland.

We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.

If you record the sound of bacon in a frying pan and play it back, it sounds like the pops and cracks on an old 33 1/3 recording. Almost exactly like that. You could substitute it for that sound.

The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.