I'm 62. I started writing songs in elementary school. They were awful. That's okay. I figure I've written a few hundred bad songs by this point and will probably write some more, but I've also written some good ones and I feel good about that.

I tend to write funny songs. (Or songs that start out as jokes and maybe turn into something serious along the way.) Often the "I" is not me but a character who I "get" and let speak. Other times the "I" is much closer to home. And still other times it's a bit of both.

I never think too much about it until someone remarks on a song with something like, "I never knew that happened to you" and I have to say, "Uh, that never did happen to me. It's a story, not a confession."

"If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often." Leonard Cohen