Close contact with words

Hey, this is Labor Day weekend, all the kids go back to school Tuesday, I only have a few more performances for the grant, and there's now a piano at work.

There's also some major stuff going on at work, but I don't feel like talking about it.

Is everything okay, farmboy?

Oh, I'm okay. It's mainly about a teacher who's having some major challenges right now. There is literally nothing I can do about it. It's just interesting and worrisome and -- up to a certain point -- none of my business.

It's good that you know that.

So, what's up with you, man? What's your life been like lately?

Good. It's been good. I'm reading the same book that you've been reading.

Freedom? By Jonathan Franzen?

That's the one. I just started it. It's very interesting.

I'm loving it, myself. I'm amazed how readable it is...I mean,it flows so naturally that it's just effortless to read. I would like to write songs like that.

Some people would say that you already do.

Well, that's the goal for me, to be as natural as possible in my music. In my lyrics and in my singing. (laughs) I guess it's working.

This songwriting stuff, it's fuckin' hard a lot of the time, but when you get it it's fuckin' wonderful.

I've been taking myself more seriously as a writer lately. Which is not as good as actually writing,

you know?

Yes, but you've been reading more lately...

That's true, and the last book I finished was a novel about a writer. The John Irving book.

But, you know, it's having close contact with words. That's important.

Hey, here's my little lesson for the day. In his book On Writing -- which I haven't read yet, but I will -- he says that to be a writer, you have to write a lot and read a lot. There's no two ways around it.

I can believe that.

Translate that to songwriting -- write a lot, listen a lot -- and we got something there, you know?