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As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

Ben Gibbard

I’d like the songs to be more storytelling, but also have the turns of phrase within them that would hopefully distance my writing from the pack.
BEN GIBBARD

Distance Hopefully Song Storytelling
I don’t think I was doing anything poorly at that time, but I can certainly see how my writing has changed.
BEN GIBBARD

Certainly Changed Think
We wanted to be like R.E.M., but the reality is that 15 years after R.E.M. was putting out those records, the playing field had changed drastically as well.
BEN GIBBARD

Change Drastically Record Well
We would scoff at the idea of a nice studio. “Why would you want to go to a nice studio? Oh wow, they have really expensive gear. Ooh, that’s really fancy. Well we’ve got an eight-track. We’ve got it going on here.”
BEN GIBBARD

Eight Expensive Fancy Studio
You can’t please everybody all the time, but I think for the most part we tend to maintain a healthy level of self-reference to kind of make sure we continue to push things forward.
BEN GIBBARD

Healthy Self Thinking
I don’t spend my time perusing message boards to find out what people think about me or if people think my songs are good or if people love that lyric or this or that. I just want to be happy with it myself – and if other people like it, that’s great.
BEN GIBBARD

People Song Thinking
We always idealize the past because we don’t feel the painful stuff the way we used to.
BEN GIBBARD

Feel Idealize Painful Way
I don’t want to be overdramatic about it, but I’m starting to see a lot of my bad habits get the best of me.
BEN GIBBARD

Habit Starting Want
I don’t think Chris realized he was in a band until 2001. He all of a sudden woke up one day and realized he was in a band. He thought he was just recording my solo project. Three albums later, we’re in Baltimore trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.
BEN GIBBARD

Album Project Realized Sudden Think
You spend hours alone, only with your thoughts, and you torture yourself. It’s a tendency of many writers to temper the self-destructive act of writing with other self-destructive acts. I certainly was one of those people for a long time.
BEN GIBBARD

Long Self Writing
Hall & Oates is one of the few musical groups as satisfying now as it was back then. There’s something incredibly musically satisfying about their songs. Nothing has diminished my love for them.
BEN GIBBARD

Group Musical Song
I feel that we are currently living in a world that is similar to late ’50s, early ’60s kind of world.
BEN GIBBARD

Kind Late World
I feel like on those older records there are a lot of attempts at clever turns of phrase.
BEN GIBBARD

Attempts Clever Older Record The Phrase
I’m a war of head versus heart, it’s always this way. My head is weak, my heart always speaks, before I know what it will say.
BEN GIBBARD

Heart Love War
I think sometimes a narrative can come out of a single word.
BEN GIBBARD

Narrative Sometimes Thinking
Liking interesting things doesn’t make you interesting.
BEN GIBBARD

Interesting Liking Things

As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

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As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

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