Thanks for that. Interestingly enough, the first single I ever bought (I was born in '62) was Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" which spurred me to pick up "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy," which to this day I continue to regard as his last truly good record...

Not to beleaguer you into submission over this, but any word on contemporary influences? Or just stuff you like to listen to?


And, what inspired you to come up with the line: "Instead of Nero, we got Madonna, she's fiddlin' with herself..."? I always loved that line... I got Bedtime stories just prior to heading to Greece and Turkey in the summer 1990 and can vividly remember "strolling" around the tenements of Istanbul with you on my walkman; that song and "Sirens in the City" really hit home there for some bizarre reason...