It’s dictated in some ways, the type of songs I’ve written. Since I don’t have a voice like Andrea Bocelli, you know, or I never saw myself necessarily as a romantic figure to where, and the vast repertoire of songs is love songs, ninety-five percent of them throughout history have been that. That’s what people like.

But at some point, I grew bored with, even before I started recording with writing that type of song. I remember it very well. It’s the one, I was writing a song for Frank Sinatra, Jr., and it was called “Susie” or something. And I couldn’t take it. I mean, cause I had read books and I didn’t know why we shouldn’t have the same latitude a short story writer has. We still don’t have it, I mean no one does it much. But, so I wrote “Simon Smith”. And I remember that was the first really odd kind of song like that I wrote.

And then I continued most of my repertoire, they’re not love songs. Which is highly atypical for any songwriter outside of, you know, people who write for Sesame Street. In some way, I’ve written sort of third person songs for my whole, almost my whole writing career. I’m in character with many of them.

I don’t think it’s the best medium for that kind of work necessarily, because people are used to “from me to you”. You know that type of direct expression. Maybe the medium is better for that possibly. You know, for when you’re going 80 miles an hour on the freeway you aren’t necessarily going to notice irony. Oh, I mean, that’s ironic. I don’t know whether I’d notice myself.

But it’s what I choose to do and my best songs I can see characters in it. And by the diction of the singer, what he says, the words he knows and how he says it, the audience can tell what he’s like and what it’s about. I generally think the audience do not recognize themselves in these people. I don’t see that. I think audience is a little better than the people I write about usually.

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