One of the things I find most interesting about Desolation Town is that while there’s a definite geography and unity of place, the events within the song aren’t tied to a specific time or era.
Yeah, well I’m glad you said that! I’m really interested in a non-linear sense of time. That is to say, that the same character or heartbreak could happen simultaneously in different places at different times, like Wuthering Heights. So it could be New York City in 1979 or Palermo in 1879. Certain problems linger, don’t you agree?
There seems to be a sense of loss and regret throughout the EP.
Yes. I’ve lost some things, and regrets… I’ve had a few. Then again, too few to mention. But seriously, much art is lamentation. And this certainly is.
Does it bother you as a writer that listeners will possibly interpret these songs in a way that is different with what you intended? For example, I interpret “It’s Not the End of the World, Jonah” as cynical and sarcastic, but what you intended could be something else entirely.
No, quite the opposite, I’m thrilled when they do. I try to create songs with drama, and atmosphere and ornamentation… but songs that have the space within them to be explored, interpreted, rewritten in the listener’s image. That’s far more interesting than the sordid details of my life, don’t you think? Whatever a listener adds to a song in their mind is just as important as what I wrote. We’re partners, lovers in a long distance affair.
A writer once told me that when someone else sings his songs, he feels like a divorced man watching someone else play new daddy to his children. Though you wrote the songs on Desolation Town, you’re not the main vocalist. As a songwriter, are you protective of your songs and how they’re sung?
Well, I’ve always had another singer sing the bulk of my songs. I prefer it, for reasons that have a lot to do with my answer to the previous question. The more prisms a song can pass through, the better. But, it did take a while until I got comfortable with this particular prism, being Lisa. She is so different in so many ways from the vocalist in my previous group. But at this point, these songs are hers as much as mine. But in terms of being covered, one of my songs “Burning Hearts,” has been covered by the group Winterpills, and I do find that a strange pleasure.
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