Got to fight to control the violent side, every day and night.

I just like a good, sad song. The sadder, the better. It moves me.

I knew Fred since I was 14 and was first going to the Old Town School, Fred used to work part-time in the store. Every time I wrote a song Fred would turn on his really good high-class tape recorder, reel-to-reel, and record it. So he's got recordings of me on guitar singing all my songs in his apartment long before I ever recorded for a recording company. I never found out what happened to the tapes.

When I was writing the song, I thought that these people have entire lives in there. They're not writers, but they all have stories to tell. Some are very, very down deeper than others.

People would always tell me about minor chords - when you're writing a song, to put a minor chord in. For me, it's like doom, you know. You know somebody's gonna be extremely sick or die if there's a character in the song.

Sam Stone' is a song about futility.