I'm frightened of my innate vanity. I mean: the suits lined with scarves? Even I know the warning signs. I could quite easily end up in a tiny Playboy mansion, all on my own.
When I was getting started, I was so busy just fighting my way through, and I was under contract at Warner Brothers. I did 40 hours of color television with the late Robert Taylor as a young cop.
'Storm Warnings' is a poem about powerlessness - about a force so much greater than our human powers that while it can be measured and even predicted, it is beyond human control. All 'we' can do is create an interior space against the storm, an enclave of self-protection, though the winds of change till penetrate keyholes and 'unsealed apertures.'
I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.
The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.
That attitude that I wouldn't succeed didn't come from my family; it came from school and then the township we lived in. I wasn't going to settle for that, and my mother warned us not to settle for less, to make the most of our lives.
I was working with another major label after Warner Bros, and they were telling me who to hire as musicians, what kind of music to play, what producer to use. I mean, what's the point of putting me on the record?