Suzanne Vega: It's hard. I find myself, when listening, that I'm a terrible listener. You make up your own words. You can't understand what [Elvis Costello's] singing sometimes, so you'll sing along, and you'll sing "in public" and it turns out he's singing "in Clubland." [Laughter] So I find that as a listener, I'm as eager for the romantic stuff as anybody else and tend to say, "What's he talking about?" But then as a songwriter, of course, I really admire him.
Basically, I think we're all children where that's concerned. We want to hear the chorus. We want to sing along. So you have to address that, too. As a listener, you're still basically in your child mind. That's where you learn songs.
So you're not the type of listener who sits there with the lyric sheet--
Oh, I do that as well. But I'm surprised by how much of my listening is done when I'm cooking or when I'm dancing around the apartment and I'm listening to R.E.M. And of course R.E.M. is classic because you can put in your own words, practically. [Laughter] They're still great songs.
So I'm not that surprised.
Another person I like is Natalie Merchant, who has that ability to really take an unusual angle and make it work as a song as well.
Latly I'm thinking more about melody, because I never used to. I used to think, well, the rhythm's there, the words are there, so it's fine. Rap, for example, makes a lot of sense to me because that was the way I had always thought of music also. It's rhythmic, and you spend a lot of time on the words and the sophistication of the idea. But the melody is like, who cares? But working with my band I realized that they liked melodies. They'd like to have a few more notes. They don't want three chords, they'd like some more. They'd like to have a bridge. So I try to oblige them.
It does seem that your songs are written more to rhythm than to a melody. "Cracking" is just that; it's really a rap song.
[Laughter] Yeah, or "Neighborhood Girls." Which is why it makes me laugh that "Tom's Diner" took the direction that it did, cause it makes sense. That's the way I used the language. So I feel this kind of strange affinity for rap music and the way that they use the language: short words with lots of consonants, and it's hard and it's fast and it's rhythmic.
Is rap satisfying to you as a listener?
Up to a point. It depends who it is, of course. Some are great and some are terrible.
With "Tom's Diner," they took it and overdubbed the rhythm track without your consent?
Right. And the record company wanted to know if we should sue them or if we should release it as a single. And I said, "Let's release it," because I thought it was funny and well done. I thought it was a good idea.
So the first time you heard it--
It made me laugh.
Actually, there's a little project I've been putting together. There's been tons of bootlegs since then; all different versions of "Tom's Diner." In all different languages and all parts of the world. Jamaica... So I've put together twelve different versions of "Tom's Diner" and we're gonna put that out to show what happened to the song. A little statement, because it seemed so weird that this one song ended up being sung in Swedish and German and that black people covered it and white people covered it. It just seemed to take on its own life. People changed the lyrics, they put themselves into the song, they made the song about something else entirely, there's one version about the Gulf War. People just took it and went crazy with it.
So my little thing, my little song about a diner that I wrote ten years ago had this weird spin-off and everybody started sending me these covers. It's like a sociological experiment, you know, to put it together and put it out.
Was that song written about the Tom's Diner on 112th in New York?
Yeah.
You said that "Men In A War" came to you like a bulletin. Do you have any idea what the source of those kind of ideas is?
It's like I hear a voice. Yeah. It sounds a little spooky: "Oh, she hears voices." But the best songs are just like that. I'd say it comes from your subconscious. A mystic might say it comes from God, but I don't want to say God because I'm a Buddhist and I don't believe in that, necessarily. It's when you are connected with something outside of yourself. It's when you are connected with something happening in life. It relates back to paying attention to the situation that's outside of yourself. Does that make sense to you? In other words, it's not enough to just invent it. It has to be connected to something real outside of yourself. In life. I don't know how else to describe it.
When receiving it, do you think it's a bulletin you are sending to yourself?
It doesn't feel that way. "The Queen and The Soldier" was one where, again, I had been circling for months. At first it was an "Alice In Wonderland" kind of song with a red queen and a white queen, and they were living in the same castle and they were going to have a fight, and I thought, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I will not tolerate this scene anymore."
So then I got rid of one of the queens and had the queen by herself in the castle. Again, this takes months of circling. Then when I had the soldier come to the door, the whole thing seemed to happen in front of my face as though I had nothing to do with it. And all the details were right there and you know you've really got it when everything starts to rhyme of its own accord. And the rhythms and the rhymes just seem to be right there. And it seems inevitable. And you're kind of held in the grip of this for a few hours. For two or three hours you're just held by this and you have to finish it. You can't just leave it. You're completely absorbed by this thing. And it seems to be taking place in front of you as though you're watching it. It's a very peculiar thing. And it's wonderful when you feel it. And later you look back and think, "How did I do that?" And it's almost as though you didn't do it. And it's very scary, because you're sure it's never going to happen again.
I was watching a special on JFK. And I noticed that people, when they are very moved by grief, that their language became very condensed and would start to rhyme. And they weren't being poetic. They were trying to express something that meant a lot to them. And I noticed that the quality of their language changed. Suddenly they started to speak in that way that you speak when you're writing songs, if you're close to something truthful. It was very eerie to watch and see that.
Also, a lot of religious writings are in verse. It makes me feel that there's something about rhythm and rhyme that gets close to the truth of things. I think it's connected.
You mentioned people in grief. Do your songs come at times of grief and other emotional turmoil?
Usually there is some feeling of fighting my way through something very hard. I keep hoping that I can write happy, joyful songs, too. I'd like to write something like Stevie Wonder. He has such pure, joyous feelings that it hurts. I'd love to write something like that.
Writing truly happy songs, the way Stevie has done, is pretty rare in songwriting.
Yeah, although there are other things that might be close. Like They Might Be Giants, for example. I love listening to them because their sense of playfulness, it kills me, it floors me. I love it. And it's not just pure cleverness, because there is a certain poetic core to a lot of their songs, too. It's not the joyful thing that Stevie Wonder has but it is a playfulness.
Is writing for you a playful experience?
At its best. There's a feeling of relief when it's finished. It's like doing a puzzle. At its best. That's when no one's pressuring me, or looking at me, or trying to get me to finish writing, or trying to get me to face some deadline. That's a really big drag.
You get a lot of that?
I've gotten some of it, just because we're all still learning how to balance the artistic thing and the business thing.
After the success of "Luka," was there pressure for you to write another song like that one?
No, I think everyone around me realized it wasn't going to happen like that again, that there was no way that you could recreate it. No one ever said to me, "Let's do another song like that."
You mentioned that phenomenon when things start to rhyme of their own accord. Does that make you feel that these songs are already written, in a sense, and that what we have to do is uncover them?
It used to feel that way to me. Now I feel, maybe with just this last batch of songs, [that] they feel more contrived. I can see where the cracks are and where the seams are and where I've pasted things together to make them whole.
At its best, I feel that it's like you described. "The Queen and The Soldier" seemed that way to me. "Luka" was kind of like that, although I was aware I was doing something I hadn't been doing before in quite that way. It's kind of dangerous to fall into that because then you lose control. You feel like, "Well, it came that way," so I have no control over it. Whereas I'm trying to teach myself more about melody and crafting a song, so you have to know when to step in and manipulate it a little. If you just give up to it and say, "Well, that's the way it arrived," then it's kind of absolving yourself of responsibility. [Laughs]
Sometimes it seems it can arrive wrong, if you've got a faulty connection, and you have to keep digging to get it right.
[Laughs] Right. Or people will go, "Why did you kill the soldier?" [Shrugs.] That's just the way the message came. I didn't kill him. It just had to be done. [Laughs]
You've mentioned working on melodies. Are you trying to write melodies that have bigger ranges?
I'm trying to think about it a little bit more. Just trying to filter in information about what a melody is and how to develop it. And that takes some thought, to really see what makes a good melody, how does it develop. And you can do that by covering other people's songs. Covering Elvis Costello's songs is a huge challenge for me because he's really musical.
Yeah. They're hard to play.
And they're hard to sing. And his phrasing sounds so effortless that you think, I can do this, no problem. And then you start to do it and you get completely floored.
So I'm just thinking about it. I find I tend to write in the same intervals. "Tom's Diner" has a very limited but a specific melody, which a lot of the songs don't. "Predictions" doesn't, even "Book Of Dreams" doesn't. I used to think "Marlene On The Wall" had a great melody until I tried to sing it without the chord. [Quickly hums melody, emphasizing the repetition] And then you find outit's all two notes, and you think, well, I thought it was a good melody, I didn't know it has no melody at all. [Laughs] So it's a question of being more graphic. Getting a clear shape in your head. What does it look like? And taking it from there. And stretch a little more.
What makes a melody great? Is it the use of large melodic skips?
No, I think it's more the line of it. Not so much that it has big jumps or little jumps. For me, I tend to write two, maybe three notes. So for me it's just being aware of where things go. Like "Institution Green" for me was a step. [Sings: "Institution green..."] Because it has a very definite melody. But it doesn't develop. If you're thinking about it consciously, about the development, you can listen to people like Julie London or Cole Porter, or those people, to get really great melodies, and classic melodies. The Beatles.
Do you write all of your music on guitar?
With the last album I started to experiment with keyboards, but I find that it's harder. There's something that happens about holding a guitar that I love. I'm more moved when holding a guitar, and it tends to put me in that weird, trancy state better than... a Fairlight. [Laughs]
On guitar, do you find yourself going to the same patterns over and over?
Yeah, and that's why it's good to do it with the band, or to listen to other people, and analyzeit, and say, "What rhythm is that? What chords is he using that you like? What do you like about that?" And then get somebody to teach it to you.
Do melodies ever come apart from the guitar?
Sometimes the melody will come apart from the guitar. "Institution Green" did. And "Tom's Diner," I heard that one for piano. I heard it as like a Truffaut film score, 1962, like a honky tonk almost, or like a lilting French thing. And I didn't play piano, so I just thought we'd sing it without any accompaniment. But that popped into my mind whole. And sometimes a melody will do that. Other times it will come because of the chords I'm playing on guitar.
I realized if I started the show with "Tom's Diner," it really drew people in instantly. And I was in this very minimalistic state where I was wearing my black tuxedo, and I'd stand there and just start by snapping my fingers and singing, "I am standing..." And everyone would stop wiggling and drinking their drinks.
The productions of your albums, from the beginning, have always been so sensitive. It always seemed as if it was completely based on your guitar parts and fleshed out from there, as opposed to a producer imposing something onto the song.
They were careful. Sometimes I think they were too careful, because at that time I wanted to have something that was rougher sounding. I was kind of surprised when I heard it back after it was mixed and mastered and realized how ethereal it was. It made me depressed. A lot of people like that sound, but it was not what I had intended. What I had intended was something that was much more along the lines of R.E.M. Something much more roots-like, instead of this ethereal, almost New-Age sound. Some people seem to think that I was deliberately moving in a New-Age direction. Which I'm not. It was never my intention.
I remember complaining to Lenny [Kaye, the producer], and going, "Lenny, it doesn't sound like a band," and he said, "Well, Suzanne, it's because you don't have a band. That's why it doesn't sound like a band. It's not a band. Get a band." So I did, for the second record, and it's lasted through until the last one we made.
And does that second album have more of the sound you wanted?
Not really. [Laughter]
It sounds like a continuation--
Yeah, it sounds like a continuation. It doesn't have the band feeling. I think to some degree, people do what's natural for the songs. The songs dictate what will be done to them. So even though you may have the best of intentions, you can't coerce them. They won't be shoved.
I'm not really complaining. I just think that when we perform live, there's an immediacy that a lot of people seem surprised by. I think also that in real life I'm a lot more directed and flesh and blood than I seem to be. It relates to what you said when I came in. Everyone thinks I'm going to be off in a corner. Today, I feel a little frail. But normally I seem to have a much more direct presence than what has come through on the records.
Did you normally record voice and guitar and then add the other parts?
No, the other way. It was done the conventional way, the click track and drums, bass.
Was "Tired Of Sleeping" written for your mother? The verses start with "Oh, Mom..."
Not really. In fact, I wondered what she thought of it. We never really talked about it. That's kind of a strange song. I started writing it about eight years ago. It was something I found in one of my notebooks. "Oh Mom, the dreams are not so bad..." And I couldn't figure out what the rest of it should be, so I just left it there. And eight years later I had this thing of "there's so much to do and I'm tired of sleeping." And suddenly all of the dream images came out. It all gelled, all of a sudden. It's kind of to my mom, but not really. If she asked what it was about, I couldn't tell her.
The image in my mind is that of a child is sleeping. She's having a bad dream. She's probably said something in her sleep, or shouted, and the mother comes. The child wakes up and says, "I'm fine, you can go back to bed." The child is comforting the mother. I'm tired of sleeping anyway, I was thinking of getting up, don't worry, go back to bed. But then, of course, the dream images that the child is having are terrifying. The bird on the string. But there's this constant need to comfort the mother. It's weird. It relates to my life. All the characters in the song relate to my life in some way. I think the kids of the church steps are my brothers and sisters. But that gets terribly Psych 103. But it almost doesn't matter. What matters more is the feeling of the song.
The images have their own context. If you sing that song in Czechoslo- vakia, where they just had a revolution, it has a whole different resonance than if you sing it in San Fransisco, or in a college town. The college kids will feel it's a psychedelic song and people in Czechoslovakia feel that you're talking about rising out of sleep and releasing yourself from oppression. Both readings are true.
I love the verse, "The kids are playing in pennies, they're up to their knees in money in the dirt of the churchyard steps." It's like an image from a Bergman film, where you see something but you're not sure what it means, or if it's real.
That's an image I saw in a dream. For a long time when I sang that song, I would feel like crying. It took about a year to be able to sing it and not want to cry.
All of these are actual dream images. And some people say, "That's cheating! You can't take images from your dreams and just put them in your songs." They forget that having a dream is different from writing a song. You can have all the dreams you want to make the song out of it, you still have to craft it, you still have to make sure if it rhymes and scans and does all of that stuff.
What does that image of kids playing in money mean to you?
I think the line in the dream was "the children are begging for God." And there's a double meaning to that. One is that they're begging for money for God. Like alms for the church. And I'm not Catholic or Christian. I don't go to church. So I don't understand why I would have that dream. But on the other hand "the children are begging for God" is asking for salvation.
It seemed to me that it was me and my brothers and sisters playing on the steps of this church. My stepfather's father was a minister, and that might have something to do with it. It's all very dense, personal stuff.
I can't give you a better answer than that.
Is it necessary for a songwriter to have a complete grasp of the meaning of a song?
You can't possibly. I don't think you can ever really know. And if you think you do, I think you're mistaken. Some people go, "If she doesn't know what it's about, who's supposed to know?" But the fact is that it will make sense in a certain way. It might not make logical sense and at this point in time, but it makes sense... in a sense. [Laughs]
Leonard Cohen's songs are like that to me. A lot of the songs, I don't know what he means, but you get a sense of what he's talking about, pieces of his life, but you don't know what the whole story is. But it's okay, to me. I still feel that I know this man from the pieces that he's given me. And when I met him, it was confirmed. I felt I knew him as though he were a friend of mine. Which is not always the case.
I understand to a point, but there seems to be something bigger about it. I love the line, "All feelings fall into the big space / swept up like garbage on the weekend."
[Laughter] I think a lot about feelings, which is unusual. Most people feel their feelings and I think about them. I'm constantly trying to become more articulate with them. And to feel them as well. I think for a long time I did not feel them. As a way of protecting myself. You learn to disassociate yourself, so that your feelings seem to be out there somewhere. As I get older and more comfortable with myself, they're coming back into me as opposed to being out there. As opposed to "Small Blue Thing" where it's something abstract that can float around.
And that seems like the real challenge, to translate abstract feelings into language people can understand.
That is the challenge. How do you make it accessible to people? That's why I'm always pleased when kids like my songs. They like "The Queen and The Soldier," they like "Luka," or "Tom's Diner." They'll send me pictures of the diner, or the queen sitting in the diner. They mix it all up. It makes me feel that I've done a good job if I can reach people from all different levels. That's why I was pleased that "Tom's Diner" did what it did, cause suddenly all these black kids in the neighborhood where I grew up in New York were listening to my songs. So it had this impact, and I'm happy when I feel that the songs can go into all different levels of society. That's what I'm aiming for.
When writing, do you ever feel that something is too abstract, and that people won't get it?
Sometimes I feel that way, but then I think if I censored myself everytime I did that... I used to go on a long, rambling apology that nobody will understand what this song is about, but, oh well. They are kind of code- like. A lot of them are kind of knitted-up, crocheted, and bundled up. "Knight Moves" was stolen from bits of conversations. But some people love that song. They love the chorus. They don't quite know what the verses are about, but it means something to them. It resonates. So I just throw it out there. If they like it, they like it, and if they hate it, they hate it.
Your singing style draws attention to your words. It draws people in, and makes them want to listen.
Yeah. I'd like to expand more with my singing. I can sing much more emotionally than I do.
I assumed that was very consciously directed--
Well, it was, too. I'm singing words and I want people to hear the words.
And you said once that you sing the way kids sing when they are making up songs.
To me it was unaffected. As I child, I liked Astrid Gilberto's voice, because there was no vibrato, she wasn't making a big, huge deal, she wasn't making a statement, she was just singing. And to me that was very beautiful. I still like that, although lately I've found a little bit of vibrato creeping in. Just a little bit. Sometimes I even sing out more, so my style is probably changing.
Is there any set of chord changes that you would consider a signature for you?
I once had a big argument with my band because they got tired of hearing me play A minor, I think it was. Was it A minor or E minor?
Are you using three fingers or two?
[Laughs] Three fingers.
That would probably be A minor.
A minor. Yeah. They got sick of hearing that one chord. They said, "Every single song has that chord. Can't we have some other chord other than that?" And I got mad. I said, "I think all the mysteries of life come in A minor." As far as I was concerned, that was it. All the roads end here. But I don't want to antagonize my band, so I try to put in more chords. It's good to mix them up. I try to use more major chords. I tend towards those sad chords and mysterious chords.
Dylan has written so many songs in A minor--
And Leonard Cohen, too. So many waltzes, too. They're all 3/4 A minor, and that's it. Songs of doom. [Laughs] I just respond to them. That's the thing that gets me going.
I use a capo, and go up and down and change keys. I know how to put a show together. I don't want to put the audience to sleep. But I find emotionally that's what really resonates for me.
Is it harder for you to write songs in major keys?
Yeah, because they can sound corny. Although "Tired Of Sleeping" was major, and I feel really satisfied when I sing it.
"Book Of Dreams" is major.
Yeah, that was deliberately major. I'm gonna write a happy song if it kills me!
Your song "Fancy Poultry" is great, and it was brilliant the way you use the image of chicken parts to relate to people.
Yeah. It was about the women in Ironbound. Obviously, if it was just about chicken parts, you could put in words like liver or gizzards, and it would never work. But the breasts and thighs and hearts, that's a whole side of life. Some people don't get that thing. There's the words, and the thing behind the words.
It's one of those areas, like "Men In A War," where no one has been before in a song.
That's where I'm most comfortable. If I feel no one else is around doing it, then I feel happy. I feel like I must be in my own spot. Occa- sionally I think people will really hate this, because they'll just think I'm being morbid or grizzly. But I do have a tendency to want to bring things down to the facts of life, and the physical. Which kind of goes counter to the whole idea of being ethereal and poetic. I really am interested in the world as it is.
Some of your images are extremely physical, like the line in "A Room Off The Street," "...her dress is so tight you can see every breath that she takes." It's like a Raymond Chandler line.
It was one of those things, like "The Queen and The Soldier," where you feel like you're seeing the whole thing. The dark atmosphere, the color red, the red tapestry, the red dress, something's gonna happen but you don't know what exactly. I never thought of the similarity between those two songs until now, but there is a similar feeling. You feel as if you're watching it.
I was originally going to call it "Cuba" because that seemed to be what Cuba might be like. But then I thought, well, my last name's Vega, everyone's gonna think that I'm Cuban, and then I'll really get into trouble.
Any advice as to how to best get in touch with the source of creativity?
Be attentive. Don't listen to people who try to make you do things. Don't listen to advice. [Laughs] Don't listen to advice, and pay attention to your moods and your visions and your weird ideas and the things that seem too weird for other people to understand. There's usually something in there that's good if you listen to it and let it come out.
I guess it's really a question of how you want to spend your time. I realized also that for a long time I was spending my time on how I wanted to look, and shopping for clothes and whatever. And you can still go shopping for clothes and all that stuff, but just be attentive to the little voice that comes into your mind saying, "Men in a war..." You might have to stop everything and go, "What? Why should I pay attention to this?" But there's something in there.
Are those voices coming all the time, or--
You get on a roll. Sometimes it seems as if they're there all the time. Other times you're just as dry as can be and you can't hear anything. And that's when you need to fill yourself up with people that you love. For me, it's Lou Reed and John Cale, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Rickie Lee Jones, Natalie Merchant, R.E.M. All of these people have something vital for me.
I was wondering if you liked Rickie Lee.
I really admire her a lot. She really moved me, especially with the Pirates album. I would just listen to that like crazy. I also feel that I know where she's from, with her background and her family history. When-ever I read an interview with her, I'm very interested in her as a personality. I empathize with her a lot. I feel a connection with her. I have no idea if she feels any connection with me. I met her last year, but I just sort of feel that I know something basic about her from her music.
It used to be Laura Nyro that I used to get that from. So you go back to those people and fill yourself up. And you get yourself excited about writing again.
Is that excitement harder to connect with now that you are an established artist in the industry?
No, I find it doesn't have anything to do with it. When I met Rickie Lee Jones, my mouth was completely dry. It has nothing to do with being in the industry at all. [Laughs] It's very basic. You sit in your room like you did when you were a kid, and play the records. Maybe now you can be a little more analytical and other times you can be more business-like and think of marketing schemes. But that shouldn't have anything to do with how you feel when you're sitting alone in your room the way you did when you were a kid and it meant the world to you.
Those records, to me, were my lifeline into the world. Even when I was a receptionist, I would go and look at records, and figure out how much money I could save to buy whichever record I could get, because I could only get one. See, then you get the Berlin album and take it home, and you can't listen to it all day everyday, but you listen to it twice a year and that's enough.
Being known can create its own pressure. But I really believe it's in my blood. I think if I were not famous I would still be writing. I've written songs since I was fourteen. I got my record contract when I was 24, so I had ten years to figure out what I wanted to do. I would still write.
I love the artwork on your newest album. It reminds me of those great boxes by Jospeh Cornell.
Yeah. I wanted it to look like that. The whole idea of context and putting things into boxes and different contexts was interesting to me.
Do you have a favorite song that you've written?
Lately I think it's "Tired Of Sleeping." It has that mystery for me. I feel satisfied when I sing it.
Are you always working on songs?
I'm always writing something and working on something. People think I have writer's block, but I don't really have writer's block. It's just that my filtering process is really long. It takes months to work on something until it's right. I still have songs that I was working on for the last album that never came out. Some things will lurk around for eight years. So I'm always working on something.
Songs, as opposed to other artforms, are not physical. Unless you record them, they don't exist outside of yourself--
It's temporal. Which is why they have to be truthful. If it's not truthful, you'll forget it and it will disappear. You have to call it up and tell the story again, which means that you have to have the need to tell it. And that's the nature of songs. The chorus keeps coming back. It's a part of life. You have breakfast every morning. You wouldn't say, "I don't want breakfast today because I had it yesterday." Most of life is cyclical.
I think that's why songwriting is so primitive, and why children understand songs. They say that people with brain-damage, for example, can remember song lyrics even when they can't remember how to speak. They can't put together linear information but they'll remember the lyrics to something.
Pete Seeger recently said that he'd rather put songs on people's lips than in people's ears.
That's Pete. That's been his lifework. I listened to him as a child. That's what he does. It's visceral. Whereas with me, I always wanted to put songs in people's ears. [Laughs] I'd try to get people to stop singing along, stop clapping. It's like, I'm singing now, you be quiet. Which is not exactly the spirit of folk music. People ask me if I think I'm a folksinger, and most folksingers tend to bring people together and I tend to make people feel alienated. So I don't know how much of a folksinger I am. I do like to think that people are listening.
Is there a song that you didn't write that is a favorite?
There are a lot of them. "Famous Blue Raincoat" (by Leonard Cohen), Lou Reed's song "Caroline Says, Part II," there's a Natalie Merchant song about Jack Kerouac....there's a Rickie Lee Jones song "Western Slopes." Songs I wished I'd written myself, like some of Sting's songs.
Do you feel that there are new things to be done in songs, and that the song itself will continue to evolve?
Yeah, absolutely. The songs come from the time, and every time has its own form of folk song. Like the "Bonneville Dam" by Woody Guthrie, that's nostalgic now. But there are songs that will speak now and new songs to be written about now, and stylistic experiments to be made. Because it's not just the information. It's not just "I love you" or "we must all be brothers" but the style and the way that you sing it.
Dylan told us that the world needs no more new songs, that there are already more than enough.
There's probably an aspect of that as well. But you can't just sit around and sing all the old songs all the time. You can't. That's like saying that we have all the food we need. But if there's any reason for living, why not press forward?
There are a lot of songs that will fall by the wayside. But to get up every morning, you have to have faith. You might as well stay in bed. If I had felt all the songs spoke for me, why write? They've already done it for me. Every time I write a song I feel that I have to write it.