I Think Sometimes A Narrative

For Me, A Song Doesn't Really Take Flight Until It Has A Lyric On It. ...without A Lyric That I'm Happy With, It Could Be The Greatest Song Ever Melodically Or Arrangement-wise, But It Doesn't Have Any Resonance.

If There Is One Thing I Think I Have Accomplished, It's That I Always Thought Of Myself As A Very Literal Songwriter, And As I Look At Some Of Those Older Records, I Don't Hear It Now The Way I Did When I Was 20. I Think It Is Undeniable That The Songs Have Become More Instantaneously Descriptive And Literal. I'd Like The Songs To Be More Storytelling, But Also Have The Turns Of Phrase Within Them That Would Hopefully Distance My Writing From The Pack. I Feel Like On Those Older Records There Are A Lot Of Attempts At Clever Turns Of Phrase.

The Story Of Our Band Is That We Were This Relentless Touring Band In Those Early Years. We Were Leaving Day Jobs And Going Off On The Road And Having Fun And Seeing The Country For The First Time. We Were Playing Chinese Restaurants And Basements And Record Stores And Houses. We Were Crashing On Floors And It Was All New And Exciting. It Was Like A Vacation. It Didn't Feel Like Work. I Couldn't Wait To Go On Tour Back Then. I Would Be Sitting At My Day Job Or My Apartment, Just Itching To Go. There Were So Many Adventures That Were About To Happen.

Because Of My Age And What I Do For A Living And The Amount Of Time That I've Spent Away From My Family And Loved Ones, I'm Starting To Relate More To The Late-period Kerouac Stuff In The Way That I Once Related To The Fun And Excitement Of The Early Material. There's A Darkness Inside Of Me That I'm Only Now Starting To Come To Grips With And Accept. And It's Starting To Scare Me.

The Photo Album Is The Weakest Record. For The First Time In Our Careers, We Found Ourselves With An Economic Incentive To Be On The Road And To Be Making Albums. We Had Cut Ourselves Free From The Security Of Day-job Life. The Goals Became Primarily Financial, At Least For A While. That Was The Roughest Time We Had Ever Had As A Band, Because That Was The First Moment We Realized That This Was For Real. We Were Not Goofing Around Anymore. We All Threw Everything We Had Into This In A Way Where We All Found Ourselves Really Far From Home, And We Were Stuck With Each Other.