There's that area, right there, where you can be too hard on yourself or you need to be really hard on yourself - I'm trying to ride that line by telling myself that I can always write better, sing better, what can we do to make the show more interesting? Pretend that you're the guy who's been in the front row for the last five shows; what would make it new for you?
If I completely understood what was going on and I understood these songs, they wouldn't make sense to play live anymore. They're still enigmatic for me. I'm still searching in the songs as they are. That's what's actually been the most fun about playing and touring for me is that there's still a lot of caverns in the songs where you can go and hide out different nights.
When you put a new show out, you always have a few kinks that you need to iron out, and you need to dial your show in. You figure out over a couple of weeks what songs work well together and what songs may not have the impact you thought they would at that spot in the show.
It was actually the production group that ended up producing the show for us...Every musician, especially in the hip-hop community, you always make these show recaps or vlogs, and essentially what "Touring's Boring" was is, we tried to make our vlogs interesting and almost more like a TV show. That's how we got discovered by TV.
Money. . . those who don't have enough of it are only aware of what it can buy them. When you finally have enough of it you become aware- acutely aware-of all the things it can't buy ... the really important things, like youth, health, love, peace of mind.
To become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted.
As you move through the day, be aware of how you treat yourself. Be aware of what you do to and for yourself, because you set the standard for others. As you grow in your awareness of how you treat yourself, you will probably become aware of the example you have set for others. You may realize that the time has come to set a new example.
Genre-spanning is the effort to make the live show interesting. It's also a great way to challenge yourself as a writer.
Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.
Being mentally strong doesn't mean you don't experience emotions. In fact, mental strength requires you to become acutely aware of your emotions so you can make the best choice about how to respond.
It's interesting what a new song can do to the other songs. A new song can be the grout of the record, tie the songs together, and define a new room in the house, helping the other rooms make sense.
A lot of our leadership has become acutely aware of speaking more fairly, of speaking more balanced, of recognizing that hate speech in any form, even if it comes out of emotional anger, is dangerous.
I suppose in some ways doing some of the songs in the show felt a bit like I was doing cover versions. I was covering myself. Not that they didn't feel like my songs, but the way I was approaching them was from a place so outside where they were written. The fact that these songs were in the context of a live show was a new thing.
The thing about Bob Dylan's performative essence is that he keeps singing these old songs as well as the new songs, and the old songs become new with new arrangements and new contexts as time goes by.
I'm influenced by a lot of different genres of music. So I'm constantly trying to rework production and make things interesting in the live show and on records.