In “Korean Parents” and other songs, like “The World Isn’t Fair,” you have an old-fashioned introduction-the way songs always used to start.
In “The World Isn’t Fair,” that’s all that goddamn thing is. It never gets to the hook. It’s a series of intros. But it’s about the best song I ever wrote. It’s a giant subject in as few words as could be done.
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It’s one of those songs that requires active listening-it’s so brilliant, and yet I don’t think many people give songs that kind of attention.
I have a friend who told me he tries to get people to listen to it. He’ll say, “Sit down, it will take three minutes, it’s not hard and it will make you laugh.” And he couldn’t get them to do it. It’s not the right medium for the type of stuff I do. Cause people are doing something else when they listen to music. They’re driving or watching television, they’re talking. It’s for Norah Jones, it isn’t for me. It’s like falling in love with someone not your type.
Your first album came out 40 years ago. After all these years do you have a better sense of how to connect with your source of creativity, to make songs happen?
My first advice would be to be tough enough to hang in there. And fight it. A lot of it is stamina and toughness. And don’t let the critic become bigger than the creator. Don’t let it strangle you. Go ahead and write “I saw this girl/she was the best girl in the world…” Let it go. Put a string of stuff together. Go ahead. And then-and I don’t always follow this advice myself-then futz with it, make something happen. Write something down…do something. And stay there; stay there three hours, four hours. And good things will happen. Some days you get things that are gifts. A song will happen and it will go all the way through to the end. You can see to the end of it right from the beginning.
You once said your greatest challenge was to live up to the standard of your past work.
It’s not that I think it’s so great. I mean, it’s a bit of a fringe operation. I just don’t want to get worse.
