The tragedy about radio is that now all the stations are programmed by the same computer in Omaha, or somewhere.
There was a story in North Dakota, where there’s so many little communities, and they had a big gas leak – natural gas, which is colourless, odourless, and poisonous. They thought, ‘We gotta get on the radio and get the word out.’ They went to every station, and they’re like pillboxes: they don’t even have windows, and inside there are no people, just a machine. People were shocked that there’s not an actual arterial unit we can benefit from on a real level: they thought they were listening to the radio, but they were listening to a show that was recorded about 12 years ago, y’know? That bothers me, too.
You were inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame this year. It must have been gratifying, after a career where you’ve struggled, and been resolute in retaining your integrity.
It was discussed a lot at our house. I remember saying to my wife, “I’m being inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame? OK, fine. How long do I have to wait out here in the hall?” And she said, “You can’t say that! No-one will get it!” I was just kiddin’ around…
It’s funny, ’cos you go a long time not giving a shit about it, and not knowing anything about it, and then all of a sudden it’s a very cool thing, and they’re interested in putting you in there. It’s like, oh, there’s real value in there, y’know? I had never seen any of the inductions or performances before, and now here I was going to be inducted, and I’m fascinated with it all. A very weird thing.
But everybody wants to be acknowledged – plumbers, carpenters – and I guess everybody has their own form of Hall of Fame – you know, baseball, you name it.
What has your involvement in theatre and movies brought to your music?
In a sense, it all comes from the same place. Ideas come from the same place; the form that they take, it’s like, do you want to be a beverage or do you want to be a vegetable, or a dessert or a nut or a hat or a banana peel. You can start with an idea for a tune, and they’re like sea-monkeys, you can add water and they’ll grow into something else. I always thought that songs are movies for the ears, and at its best, a film can be like a song for the eyes.
But there’s something so modular about a song, they fit in your pocket just like bagels. Which was the whole idea behind bagels to begin with: a hard crust on the outside so it couldn’t be infected or ripped, and it was the perfect size for your pocket, because the food had to travel. Songs are like that – you keep a thousand in your mind all the time. Nobody ever says, “I’ve heard enough songs, don’t play me another song” – there’s always room for another song. It’s not like “I have no place to put these books, I need to get a storage locker.” There’s always room inside for songs.
How has moving from city to country affected what you do? You always seemed such a city guy.
The thing with an urban environment is it’s amazing how many words come through your windshield, hundreds and hundreds, all the time. Up here, when you’re driving, you’re not reading. Not that it’s affected my songs that much. Like Bob Dylan says, there’s a lot of songs created in chaos that have a certain peace to them, and other songs created in peaceful conditions that have an air of chaos. This does not necessarily offer itself up as an environment for peaceful material. Just because you’re in what appears to be a bucolic environment, it may stimulate thoughts of mass murder. Naked with an axe, y’know? Burning down the chicken-coop! Kidnapping the mayor’s daughter! They say that out here, your mind can grow long…
In the country, no-one can hear you scream, but in the city, they can hear you scream…
…But nobody cares!
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TOM’S RIDDLES – THE ANSWERS
* “He’s a dwarf! When he gets on in the morning, he presses the button for the ground floor, but when he comes back he can’t reach the button for the tenth floor, just the seventh; but when it’s raining, he has an umbrella, with which he can reach the tenth button.”
** “The accused was one of two conjoined twins. ‘You have committed the murder, but he is completely innocent. How can I jail you without jailing him?’.”
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