[charlene]

Tell us about “If You Could Read My Mind.”

That was written during the collapse of that marriage, unfortunately. [That's why] it came through the way it did. It’s a great song. No one has any gripes about it. I wondered what my wife and daughter might think. My daughter is the one who got me to correct “The feelings that you lacked” to “The feelings that we lacked” when we do it on stage. There could be feelings on both sides, and I should have done that in the first place, but the song was written in a bit of a hurry. I didn’t get a change to rewrite that one. You have to watch out for that stuff. You start writing those personal songs, and you get personal attachments. You’ve got to be careful, and I am. It’s kind of restrictive in a way. During my first marriage, I could be more open about what I wrote, because I had fewer restrictions.


Was writing that song a therapeutic process?

At the time, I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that eight months after the album came out and nothing was happening to it-it had no legs-all of a sudden there was a hit single. So I was very surprised by that. I was actually quite glad. My marriage had just broken up, and I was afraid that I was going to go down the tube after that. I was scared for a few years. I was scared the whole time I was married, as a matter of fact. I was one of those people who got married almost knowing that it wasn’t going to last, which is a terrible feeling to have once you get to it. So I wrote some songs pertaining to it, but I got them out of my system early.

What do you think it was about your song “Sundown” that connected with people so easily?

Well, it’s got a good beat to it. It’s got interesting harmonic passages. It has a great arrangement and not too bad of a vocal. If I was going to do it again, I’d probably try to do the vocal again. I’d do it the way Jesse Winchester does it. It comes out a little bit funkier. He’s great. I was on a roll writing a whole bunch of songs at that time, and it was one of your typical insecurity-type songs, a “where is my baby tonight” kind of concept [laughs]. People can relate to that. It’s that concern about not being totally in control of a given situation. I was writing a whole bunch of stuff at that time. I think my girlfriend was out with her friends one night at a bar while I was at home writing songs. I thought, “I wonder what she’s doing with her friends at that bar!” It’s that kind of a feeling. “Where is my true love tonight? What is my true love doing?” I guess a lot of people really do relate to that. That’s part of romance…that wondering.

Is that your songwriting process-to write a lot at one time?

Yeah, you have to clear the time and isolate yourself-at least I do. I have to isolate myself from my family and everything. As a matter of fact, isolating myself has probably ruined all of my marriages.

Is there any way to find a comfortable balance?

Well, you see, it’s at the point now that I’m not writing…right now. I have six children. To say that I have too much responsibility to have time to write…people don’t believe it when I tell them that. But I’m spread way too thin right now to think about writing. I’m 68, and I’m more interested in the welfare of my family members right now and, therefore, I can’t afford to isolate myself for the four or five months to a year that it might take to write ten good songs. I would not be able to see my family and my grandchildren. I would not be able to attend to my responsibilities of running my publishing company. I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things that, by necessity, have got to be done. The only legacy I will have, probably, will be a live album somewhere.

Was there a particular moment when you decided that it was going to be this way?

Well, you sort of just know it. I had a serious health issue that took me off the scene for two years, and you tend to understand that there’s more to life than just making albums. That’s really why I’m not doing it.