ritual

Some claim it takes 10 minutes. I don’t really know how other songwriters work. I'm just grateful that I can write one, after another, after another and bring anything to conclusion. I don't think about how long it takes me. It’s the finished-ness of the song that I really cherish. There's a reason why our …

bulletproof

When I go on tour, I meet a lot of interesting people. After a show near Woodstock this week, a sweet man calling himself Star Blanket handed me a mysterious bag whose contents, he said, would make me … bulletproof. I opened it and looked inside it, and it was white willow bark, a cage necklace, and a …

living room music

There's a tempo they want. A sound quality they want. There are subjects they won't air. The music industry (like any other successful industry) is about formulas and rules. Follow them, and you will succeed in it as a songwriter and, for better or worse, likely remain a part of it for life. Incidentally, the formula looks like this: This Brightness plus that Tempo plus this …

messengers

Driving home from a show late at night with the windows down offers its own music if I’m paying attention: A frozen lake breaking apart in the middle of winter ... The angular song of an unseen screech-owl … Half-crying stars out on the interstate, semis blowing their horns below … The sound of the highway brushing against the car …

warm spot

When I was 18 or 19, I decided I was going to get a gig at a famously dusty and dim, folk music club in New York City. Its purple neon beacon, hanging three feet below the century-old pressed-tin roof, blared two city blocks, a kind of downtown iconography. It was the kind of place where …

threads

My latest song was inspired by a lovers’ spat I witnessed outside the movie theater here in town. It’s about a terrible, terrible betrayal, and the possibility of moving from the brokenness to happiness, if only for a few moments. When you’re a songwriter living in a small town you hear more things, about all sorts of people — Those two parting angrily on the street, leaving their love affair hanging …

shadows and light

If I’m in a town and there’s somebody I like who has passed away, I’ll visit their grave. Sometimes I photograph it, sometimes I lie beside them and think about their work, their special loneliness now, or bring flowers. It’s nice to visit where people are or you believe them to be. Just because they …

signals

There’s a path behind the place where I live, and a black gum tree on the path. Up against it stands some big leaf aster. I don’t know if you know what that looks like, but this tall beauty has bluish flowers, and large heart-shaped leaves. It’s just a gorgeous color. Whenever I get to this spot where this tree stands, …

b-flat

Science fact: the universe is humming. A black hole in the Perseus cluster approximately 250 million light years away is emitting a note: B-flat. Actually, its entire tune is the note B-flat, but 57 octaves lower than middle-C, or one million, billion lower than what the human ear can hear. Science has a name for …

a little faith

Some days I'm certain those who don't have faith know one thing more than me. Most days, one thing less. Faith is the way to get where you're going as an artist. Without faith, the leap to greater art never works. I don't pretend to know how a new song comes into my life out of nowhere. I don't want to …