In Between Effect And Cause And Just

The Second Half Of The '60s Really Was A Kind Of Learning Period, In Terms Of Writing, For Me.

A Number Of Iraqis Told Us They Had Welcomed The U.s. Forces As Liberators Initially But In The Intervening Months, They Had Come To Feel That They Had Swapped One Oppressive Regime For Another. The Iraqis Did Exchange One Oppression For A Lighter Kind, In Some Ways.

Here's Iraq, Where Irrigation Was Invented, Where Law Was Invented, Where Writing Was Invented. All These Things That We Consider Necessities Of Civilization Started There. And The People Who Live There Damn Well Know That.

Abu Ghraib, As Bad As It Was, Can't Be Compared To What Saddam Was Doing To People.

I Always Write The Lyrics First. There Are One Or Two Exceptions Over The Years, But That's Pretty Much The Way It's Been. The Process Of Applying Music To Words Is A Bit Like Scoring A Film. You've Got Imagery.