It seems that the idea of staying together through thick and thin is not something to which many adhere today. I can literally listen to this guy all day long.

That was almost 20 years ago, and I still play his records on a regular basis. I went through an intense Gainsbourg phase right around the time we recorded our first album, End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story. You’ll hardly ever hear anything this authentic or so well put together today. It’s a perfectly trippy ’60s pop jam, and so perfectly French. The string arrangement on this track is not something you hear often, especially in rock music. Serge Gainsbourg And Brigitte Bardot, “Bonnie And Clyde” Somehow, Leonard Cohen makes the fantasy of being a great poet a reality while making it look easy. As an artist, it’s easy to want to be like him. I love the production of this and much of this era of Leonard Cohen’s work. When I saw this list, my first thought was “No Sly? No Miles? Oh well … ” As “white” as this list is, I’m surprisingly pretty familiar with all this stuff, and some of it even brings back memories.

I listen to way too much Motown and almost anything with a harpsichord on it. Even when I do listen to music, there’s hardly anything on the record player that was made past 1987. It allows me to dream and give the music already in my head some space to breathe, thus maintaining whatever is left of my sanity. I generally don’t listen to much music at all, especially when I’m in “creation mode.” I like silence.

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