don’t fear death. It’s more that I just don’t want to lose any more people, because I love them and love having them around. But, of course, we can’t make these cosmic covenants: we can’t bargain with God. It’s like asking the world to stop turning. So you learn to make peace with the idea of death as best you can.

ebbing

I want to know I have done something of value within my allotted time, for others, that the songs have been of some utility to people.

munificence

But that doesn’t mean I have attached an arbitrary meaning to it. The meaning was always there embedded in the song and waiting to reveal itself.

dissonance

spend more time hanging out at the better end of my character.

forbearing,

just piles of words that, at the time, seem to amount to little more than the evidence of my failure as a songwriter.