14 Quotes by Jay Farrar

You're sort of shaped by your environment in a way. I don't know if it affects every songwriter in the same way, but there must be something to it. If you're living in a busy city environment, you're going to write differently than if you're sitting in a Thoreau cabin by a lake somewhere.

A lot of songs were written in about a six-month period that coincided with the run-up to the election. And we were recording it in the fall, just a couple of weeks before the election. The World Series was going on too, I think. Just having that climate in this country at that time, I had to acknowledge some of what was going on at the time.

There's an immediacy and a starkness that's there. I think a lot of Leadbelly's arrangements and his use of the 12-string guitar were atypical, especially the 12-string, which showed his individuality. I guess he approached it that way because the 12-string was louder. Leadbelly and the punk rock aesthetic - maybe there are some similarities there.

serves as a sort of inspirational character or a point of reference when thinking about topical issues. He had a willingness to take social injustice head-on and write about it.

I really wanted to get back to playing electric guitar and being in a band, and regaining that feeling that you get, that sense of camaraderie that goes along with it.