by: Susan Colon (page 176-77)

Your new LP, Our Time in Eden, has a Biblical vibe. Are you now, or have you ever been, a religious person?

When I was young I had an almost mystical experience with Catholicism. I believed that there was a savior named Jesus Christ and his mother Mary, who had a baby without getting pregnant and lives in the clouds and she'll come and talk to you like a good little girl, like St. Bernadette. And my sister's name is Bernadette and it all seemed to make sense that the imminent appearance of the Virgin Mary was upon me. (laughs)

What is the song Jezebel about?

Anyone who's either witnessed or been involved in a divorce knows. My parents divorced when I was nine. Anyway, this song is a dialogue between two people that begins as a confrontation, and it comes to a conclusion about the word "love." In a mystical sense, in a marriage, it's such a powerful word, and it's used as bondage.

You had James Brown's horn section on the album. What were they like?

They were amazing! They read each other's thoughts. They actually sat down to play. But when I listen to the record, I still imagine that they're standing up and dancing around, not sitting in folding chairs.

I read that you used to sit down mid-concert to write song lyrics.

Mmm-hmm. The song that I was singing usually. One time I set my notebook down on my music stand to sing, and when I looked back down it was gone. It had all the lyrics for this record in it. And we stopped the concert and I said, "This concert is over till I get that book in my hands."

And that isn't the only unusual thing you've done onstage.

I used to wear a string of old photographs around my neck. I remember taking it off and wrapping it around the music stand in London and I turned around and it was gone. Two years later this boy got backstage and said, "I feel so bad about this. I stole this from you two years ago." The first time we played Danceteria I had cleaned my apartment and wrapped everything I didn't want in brown paper, and in the middle of the set I started throwing presents out into the audience. People thought it was so astounding to go to Danceteria and get something.

You once said that you would commit suicide by age twenty-five.

Agh! (laughs) I said that, didn't I? I guess when you're seventeen you feel that twenty five is old. And I read somewhere that that's when the body and mind start to decline. It was a reckless, stupid thing to say, imagining that I didn't want to experience decline.

About the Cat Stevens debacle ...

(laughs) Oh, that's what it's been termed? Cat Stevens was never my hero. Cat Stevens is just a singer-songwriter. I think we all felt affectionate toward Peace Train because we knew it as kids. It just seemed so hypocritical that this man who wrote songs about universal love and peace could suddenly condemn Salman Rushdie just for writing a book. So we don't perform it and it's been taken off subsequent pressings of In My Tribe and now I've heard some kids in our audience say that we're censoring Cat Stevens. I never really felt like it was a grand gesture. It was more like his statements disgusted us. It's just that simple. It wasn't like (booming voice), "In solidarity with the people of the free world..."

About Michael Stipe ... is it hard being friends with an ex?

(laughs) Friends with an ex? I don't really know if Michael and I were really boyfriend and girlfriend. It's just ... we went on a couple of dates. It's easy for us to be friends because we do the same sort of work. We just wrote a song together, Photograph, for a NARAL [National Abortion Rights Action League] benefit record.

What's the song about?

Finding an old photograph of a woman from between the first and second world wars and trying to imagine if all the things that happen to women today happened to her. I think sometimes we have these romantic notions that it was simpler and better back then. I have very romantic notions about the pastoral, bucolic, agrarian lifestyle, but I don't know if anyone would want to live before the era of anesthesia. Or penicillin, either. Back then women died in childbirth.

Not quite as pastoral as it seems.

And I avoided the Michael Stipe question well, didn't I?

Is there any subject matter that you have found particularly difficult or painful to write about?

Anything that might be trivialized by a four minute song I just avoid. I was emotionally paralyzed by the Gulf War, but I never thought of writing about it. Obviously all the protest songs in the world didn't stop those bombs from landing on innocent people. I tried on the last record with Please Forgive Us. It was an apology to the people of Nicaragua who were killed in this war that we contributed to, and now, listening to it, I'm embarrassed. It doesn't fit with the music.

Do you do any other types of writing?

I've been working on a children's story for the last three years. (laughs) But I'm illustrating it, too, and that's what's taking me so long. I can't do anything simply. Like if I'm going on a trip, I have to take every single piece of clothing I own, throw it on the floor, and after everything is in the middle of the living room I can pack. Just as a metaphor for anything I do, I can't make a meal until I've completely organized the spice cabinet.

What kind of letters do you get?

Requests for lunch, dinner. . . "stay at my house anytime." A lot of letters from people in the Peace Corps. During Desert Storm I got a lot of letters from boys - I guess I should say "young men," and their letters were real confessional: "I didn't plan to do this, I was trying to pay for college, I don't want to kill anyone, I don't want anyone to kill me, this is so terrifying, but I don't know who else to write to, I was sitting here listening to your cassette…"

What did you listen to when you were a girl, or I guess I should say "young woman"?

I used to go to the library and take out field recordings of American folk music by Alan Lomax. My mother must have thought I was insane. I was upstairs listening to that and Yugoslavian torch music. Then I bought a Brian Eno solo record on 8-track when I was fourteen. I got all the Enos, every one I could, and then Roxy Music. My sister and I shared a bedroom and the 8-track player. She had been an exchange student in Peru, and she would listen to Peruvian panpipe music that drove me up the wall.

What was your brother listening to?

My little brother loved heavy metal. And I would just pound on his wall. I could take it up until Balls to the Wall [by Accept], and then I would just start banging on the wall screaming "Enough!" I can remember trying to write the lyrics to The Wishing Chair while my brother was headbanging in the next room. He finally got headphones and he was listening to a Prince record; I remember walking past his room and hearing him singing this lyric off-key, something about "masturbating with a magazine," and I just opened the door and said, "Uh, is there something you'd like to talk about?"

Are you the antithesis of Madonna?

"The thinking man's Madonna," as The Guardian described me. I have really mixed emotions about her. She's P.C. on so many levels, but it's just her method of expression. There's so many other things that are more important than her behind and her face. I'd hate to look back on this time in my life and think, Oh, that was the Michael Jackson/Madonna era. But if I'm going to be negative about someone it's not going to be her. I'll save it for someone like Charles Manson.

Why do you think men don't call when they say they will?

My men friends always call me when they say they will. I think all my men friends are a little more female than male.

What's the biggest difference between men and women?

They have penises! That's the difference! Men have penises and women don't, and women have larger breasts! That's the only difference that rings entirely true.

And what is the worst thing that a man can say to a woman?

I hate the male answer syndrome. Even if they don't know what they're talking about, they have to have an answer. The other thing is any reference to being overweight.

What's one thing all men should know about women?

I feel like I'm on The Newlywed Game or something! I don't know.

What's Jamestown like?

It's small, but it's a very ... graceful place. But at this time in my life I can't deal with all the isolation. I need stimulation. As difficult as New York City is to deal with on a daily basis, I love walking down the street hearing people speaking Japanese and Italian and Arabic. I know when I go upstate I have to cook because there's nowhere to go out. I don't have a television. I know that I can sit and play the piano uninterrupted; I don't have to listen to the argument across the air shaft. It's an incredibly perfect life and I wonder if I'm going to have a crisis and do something to fuck it up.

I hear you have a nice vegetable garden.