I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies. - Elvis Costello

You think you're alone until you realize you're in it.
Now fear is here to stay,
love is here for a visit.

Why can't a man stand alone? Must he be burdened by all that he's taught to consider his own? His skin and his station, his kin and his crown, his flag and his nation They just weigh him down

Once I had recognized that it was not my vocation to write a happy ending, I did my damnedest to avoid one entirely. I once referred to this process as “Messing up my life, so I could write stupid little songs about it,” and I can’t improve on that description here, but then songs are never exactly taken from life.