My songs tend to sprint toward some epiphany and then explode.

I tend to gravitate toward ballads and mid-tempo songs.

This is why improvisational music and comedy is so inspiring: You are seeing something being born, and that energy, there is no substitute for. These songs, most of them, are about a minute old when you hear them.

I try not to write songs in which men glamorize their own need for approval from women. That's kinda a bogus way to go out. But I try to do this quietly. I'm not about to go around telling people how they should or shouldn't think. My feminism is for me.

I am permanently a student of people who make great songs, but besides sort of learning by absorption, I just love listening to music, hearing what's going on, hearing new things or new old things.

I always assumed people wanted to hear me tell stories, but then I had 'The Sunset Tree.' It turned out, my own stories were the ones that registered with people the hardest.