The songs are all indexes of a time in the past when I was writing them.
I don't have one thing I go back to, but we listen to a lot of music in the bus, and we always get a few songs or a few records that end up being themes for the tour. On tour I read all of George Saunders' short stories and all of Alice Munro's short stories. George Saunders is who has taught me about this question about whether or not love is possible in the contemporary world, with all of its simulations and all of its pop and divergences and all of the confusion and distraction. Whether or not contemporary reality is actually hospitable to love.
I didn't sit down and write a song like, "I want to write a song about this," but I just spent so much time living in this affectively charged space of the live show, with its risks and the incredible reward that comes from people knowing me, recognizing me, affirming me. And then I would wake up in the morning and have an eight-hour drive where I would read George Saunders and listen to Grouper and Pure X. And you bond so much with your tour-mates and your bandmates because it's this weird, quite desperate way of living.
Luckily, like for instance the song "Suicide Dream 1," I wrote it out of such an incredibly powerful state that the melody carries that affect. So when I produce that affect, that melody, with my body, I'm immediately thrown into it.
"Face Again" is actually the most George Saunders-y song. Basically the verses, I'm describing a world where love is being killed, and then in the first chorus, I'm sort of protesting it. It's like, "I don't think you know what's best for me." And then by the end, it's like I've given in, and it becomes very desperate.
As someone who listens almost exclusively to contemporary hip-hop and R&B, I definitely like "No Bullshit" by Chris Brown, and melodically I'm really into what he's doing - that song is kind of singular because it's got this piano intro and outro. But obviously I'm not singing about what he's singing about. What we want out of our songs is not the same thing.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: