Geocities

1000 Miles Away

"I was living in this green Datsun station wagon and I was reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. My breaks and my car kept falling apart and I was like there must be something spiritually wrong with me. Basically, I didn't have enough money to fix my car and so it had to be a spiritual problem. So I was like maybe my breaks are out because I'm having problems slowing down in my life. So I started walking everywhere slow. Like, "It's okay, man." It didn't help. My starter wasn't working, I'm like maybe I'm having problems getting going in my life. So I'm really affirmative and blah, blah, blah. It didn't help, so I finally sold it." -VH1 Hard Rock Live

Adrian

"An experiment. I don't know an Adrian but Mary Epperson is actually an elderly piano teacher back in my hometown of Homer. She recently told me she doesn't know an Adrian either."

Amen

"I think that lyrically, as a poem, it's very strong, and I like what it stands for. I wrote it for the death of Kurt Cobain--not so much for him, but for his suicide following. He was definitely the hero for the heroless."

"I wrote this indirectly for Kurt Cobain, but more precisely for the angst he represented - but even more exactly for the hopelessness many felt after his death. The dilemma of what does it mean when our heroes and idols kill themselves. Personally, this is my favorite song."

Angel Standing By

"I think our hands manifest thought. The world becomes what we believe. Nothing really exists until we tell our hands to do it, and so I started to say 'Okay, I'm going to be very careful what I'm thinking' 'cause my life sucked. I was like what do I want to do and where is change possible and where is hope possible? I started staying very merciless and focused on that and it works. I just want to tell you guys it works. Be careful what you think. I was scared a lot and I spent a lot of time being very focused on how scared I was. So I wrote myself a little lullabye 'cause I think that even in our loneliest moments none of us are ever alone." -VH1 Hard Rock Live

Daddy

"Daddy, my poor father. We live in a small town in Alaska and everyone thinks it's about him, it's actually about when I was seven years old and went to a friend's house for dinner...and...we went to the kid's room to watch TV and we watched my favorite show which was the Jeffersons...and...the father came in the middle of the show and turned the TV off and punished the children because they weren't allowed to watch black people on TV. And I had never heard of such a thing in my life. And I wrote the song years later wondering if they had become like they were told. Cause we're not started like that, it's not natural. We learn it." -The Lauren Hutton Show

Foolish Games

"I quilted this song by using a variety of poem pieces I wrote over the years. I collected various lines to make patchwork verses and then wrote the chorus to tie them all together."

I'm Sensitive

"This, like Pieces Of You, was written in three minutes, or something ridiculous. It was a word burp. It's what happens when you get so upset or passionate about something - you throw up words. Also, like Pieces, I thought everyone would hate it. I wrote it because I'm tired of being cynical. It just doesn't feel good any more, yet the world seems to stomp any tender notion we may hope to have. And to quote the sageistic daddy-o's of Earth Wind & Fire, 'You're only as beautiful as your thoughts.'"

Little Sister

"A 'first batch' song. I was home in Alaska. An old friend's younger brother was looking for ways to spice up life in a small town with even smaller action. It made me sad to see there was so much beauty around and all he could think to do was drugs and TV."

Morning Song

"This marked a new direction for me; something with a smidge of humor. Until I met Steve Poltz of the Rug Burns, I always felt funny was cheesy and that cheesy was bad. He showed me humor sometimes works better and laughter more easily heard than pain."

Painters

"In the tenth grade, I was fascinated with the question 'what was immortality?' I read numerous philosophies, but the theory which has stayed with me was that of Plato, the Symposium. The idea that through Love and Beauty we achieve immortality. Putting all our soul in our work makes it not only alive with passion and emotion, but also it exists as one of the truest and most honest expressions of self. Making life a beautiful art, the art then retaining life. I still believe Beauty is one of the most important and difficult things to create and express."

Near You Always

"I don't know where this came from. It just wouldn't let me go to sleep one night till it was 4 a.m. and finished."

Who Will Save Your Soul

"I wrote this song after coming back from Mexico--I was traveling through there when I was about 17. I came through San Diego and California for the first time in my life. I thought it was interesting to see how many of us in the world are taught that nobody can know you better than somebody else and you have to go to God to be forgiven and you have to go to therapists to be understood and you have to go to lovers or friends or wives or husbands to be loved, and we spend very little time focusing on ourselves and forgiving ourselves and being nice to ourselves. And that's originally why I wrote this song." -VH1 Hard Rock Live