I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you’ve experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run.
The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the early ’60s, and I was coming out of it. America was even more ordered than anywhere else. I found it was a very restrictive society in thought and behavior and dress.
People have this obsession. They want you to be like you were in 1969. They want you to, because otherwise their youth goes with you. It’s very selfish, but it’s understandable.
Music should elevate you. You can be raised, or left stranded. You can’t be raised all the time, in my experience. This might be a rare moment. You might just go up to that level but that’s always good.
I’m not the businessman. I don’t deal with the business at all. Not anymore. Occasionally, every four years or five years, they tell me I’ve run out of money, I have to go and make some more.
In England they always try out new mobile phones in Isle of Man. They’ve got a captive society. So I said, you should try the legalization of all drugs on the Isle of Man and see what happens.
