The protagonist in 'Deacon Blues' is a triple-L loser - an L-L-L Loser. It's not so much about a guy who achieves his dream but about a broken dream of a broken man living a broken life.
'8 Miles to Pancake Day' is a reconciliation of the classic space-time dilemma.
If there's a strange way to do something, I would certainly like to know about it. I feel that I owe that to my public.
I spent a couple of years not doing any music or anything, just here in Hawaii trying to get healthy and adjust to the new regimen I was setting up for myself.
I think what television and video games do is reminiscent of drug addiction. There's a measure of reinforcement and a behavioural loop.
Given a choice between Charlie Mingus and Eric Dolphy or Joe Strummer and Lou Reed, there was no choice. I like Reed and Strummer, but it's kiddie music.
From a linguistic point of view, you can't really take much objection to the notion that a show is a show is a show.
It's a mystery to me why everybody doesn't love jazz. I've never been able to figure that out.
Rock music is being systematically merged with fashion.
In the '70s, my playing was completely untutored, but it sounded good to me, and I tried to find ways to make those very simple things work in more ambitious contexts.
I don't particularly like L.A.
There was a time in my life when one aspect of my lifestyle called for watching a lot of television.
It's great fun to play with a really good band.
Originally, we had a band known as Steely Dan. As we moved away from the band, we got whoever was appropriate for specific tunes. In a lot of cases, we gravitated toward jazz players who had more sophisticated harmonic concepts.
The perfect day for me is waking up and having a cup of tea with my kids before I drive them to school; Then, I go into the studio and try and write some music for three or four hours and give up about noon.
All our wives are experimental psychologists.
I love guys like Charlie Parker.
It's good - it's great when somebody who is 20 years younger than you comes up and says, 'Wow, we just got turned on to you guys, and you're really great,' or something like that. I like that.
I guess actually playing on the records and touring is a great forced practice regimen for me. And you learn a lot playing with people.
I don't think that the Grammys are in any way a just way of grading music.
