I think that a song, when it works, never mind a piece of long form music, even a song is something that speaks to itself but has a language all of its own, ideally.
“I was an optimist, a great champion of the human spirit. And I lost that for a time. I feel like I've regained a bit of that in the last few years but there was a period of my life in which I had a very low opinion of people in general.”
“I love to sing old Motown songs to myself, or some Patti Smith Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday. That gets me in the mood for singing.”