And, as soon as I could put together the, you know, three or four notes that made up, like, sort of a rock and roll lick, you know, like a Chuck Berry kind of thing, I was off and running. Just completely taken over.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
From the time I could play the piano, I remember trying to write tunes. They were in my head, and I would just sit down and start noodling. Next thing I knew, I had written a melody.
And, so, when I picked up the guitar, suddenly, just playing a couple of notes really, really spoke to me. It was almost like I should have been doing it prior to that. You know, it was something that just felt really natural.
I wanted to play piano, and that slid quickly into writing - it wasn't enough to play other people's notes: I had to write notes too.
I thought what I was good at doing was playing real simple guitar licks, since I'd cut my teeth on what Duane Eddy was doing; licks that were simple but had staying power.
When I tried to play something and screwed up, I'd hear some other note that would come into play. Then I started trying different things to find the beauty in it.
I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords. That was my original mission.
I had tremendous fun fooling around with the way people talked about songs, just the way that became another way of understanding the world.
As soon as I could speak, I was singing. Before I could even speak full words, I would make up ones to sing and I have it on tape, too.
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands.