The New York that you write about isn't like the one we often see in movies or television — glittery and sexy or gritty and edgy.
For a lot of people in New York, their life is about work and about what to do with themselves and how to spend their time. They're protective of their personal space. It takes a certain amount of effort to interact in any real way. That's probably true of any town. But New Yorkers are especially skeptical of people making small talk. If a stranger talks to you, you start wondering what's wrong with them. Anywhere else in the United States that's not true. People are more talkative and inquisitive.
Speaking of travel, this album is kind of obsessed with transportation: cars and planes and buses.
Well, cars and girls. It's pop music, that's pretty much what you have to write about. There's actually a Prefab Sprout song called "Cars and Girls" about that. A lot of time when I'm kicking around a lyrical idea, the first thing I think about is where it's taking place. I'll place it in New York, and then I think maybe it should be happening somewhere else. So you end up with travel songs. Plus, I'm in a band, so a lot of my new experiences happen in buses or cars. In our band, we try to write about specific little scenarios. We're not a U2 or Coldplay who writes in these sweeping generalizations.
What was your first car?
It was a Chevy Citation.
That's a funny name for a car.
It was a funny car. It had this fluke thing, some problem with the stereo wiring where, if you tapped on the steering wheel, it was like a snare drum.
That's like a teen boy's dream.
It was totally an accident, but I loved it. I think I had a Honda while I was in college. Not a very glamorous car, but it did the trick. You know, cars are important to anyone in high school. In New Jersey, you didn't get your drivers license until you turned seventeen, and I was on the younger side of my class, so I didn't have a drivers license when I was in high school. It was such a drag.
A lot of your songs are character sketches. Are there any songs you write about your own life?
Of the two of us who write in the band, Chris [Collingwood] tends to write more literally. There's a lot of stuff about my own life that gets into the songs, tons of my songs have little elements of my own life. But I never think of my songs as diary entires. I try to approach them from a different angle. My favorite songwriters are people who created characters. And I think you can make a song more moving and touching when it's kind of a made-up thing. It doesn't have to be what happened in your life. A lot of Beatles songs are about invented characters. They aren't about what happened to Paul McCartney that day.
Who was Stacy's mom for you?
Well, that song is made up, but I did actually mow people's lawns when I was in middle school and high school. Now that I think about it, this seems to be a theme in my songs: inappropriate people to come on to. [laughs] And when I was a kid, one of my best friends told me he thought my grandmother was hot, which I thought was so weird.
Was she hot?
She was, in fact. She was beautiful.
A GILF.
Yeah, a trend that hasn't taken America by storm yet. Somehow I don't think "Stacy's Grandmom" would have been quite as popular.
But let's get back to something you said about all your songs being about inappropriate people to come on to.
[laughs] I just thought of that. It's kind of embarrassing.
Why is it embarrassing?
I just haven't thought about it before. I guess writing about that makes for funny songs.
Another song on your last album, "All Kinds of Time," is being used by the National Football League.
I was really psyched about that. Those slo-motion NFL films were exactly what I pictured in my head as I was writing the song.
But isn't it a bit like "Born in the USA" being used as Reagan's political anthem?
I don't think there's a political agenda in "All Kinds of Time" that the NFL is directly contradicting. And it really is about football.
I know, but I always thought of the song as sad.
For me, it's just capturing this little moment and this unconscious thought process. Some people have said they found it sad, but I didn't really intend it that way. As a songwriter, you try to leave it ambigious. You try not to steer people too much in one direction.
I guess I found the title ironic. "All Kinds of Time" about a high-school football player.
It is a bit ironic. It just grew out of this football cliché, saying someone has "all kinds of time," which is a really strange phrase. When they say that a quarterback had all kinds of time, he really has an extra few seconds.
Did you play football in high school?
Oh, no. I'm a wimp.
