http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/files/uploads/COV62-NO-CD.jpg
What music have you been listening to recently, for yourself? How do you use music, if you like, for leisure or whatever?
Well, it depends on where I am, you know, it depends on where I am. Obviously when I was travelling along on the Dylan tour I was on my own on a bus, just a couple of my crew and I'm listening to whatever I'm listening to. I was doing a lot of writing on that tour, I had a lot of time on my own. I spent all of last year on the road, from about April to November, with a couple of breaks, because Diana and I had our twin boys, Frank and Dexter were born the December before, so at six months they went on the road with their mum. And I went along too, because I was obviously anxious that family life on the road was going to be good for them. And we've got some people helping her, so that she can do her work and she gets to leave the boys with somebody very capable. But it was also peace of mind for me to go along for the first couple of trips, so I spent the time that I wasn't on my own tours on her tours, just being Dad. If you're waking up with, as they were, nine month old boys, you're listening to different music than if you're waking up in a hotel room on your own and you turn on the TV or put on the radio or whatever it is or your iPod.
So have you got up to speed with children's music recently?
Some children's music, but I think it's good for even little kids to hear all sorts of music. I mean, their mother was playing shows until she was seven months pregnant, so they heard music since before they were born. Children can hear music in the womb. They certainly seem to react to music and when music comes on they fling themselves about and of course they like the children's songs but they also like rock and roll.
[...]
...But in the long run, it's a life, it's a vocational thing being a musician and I'm, you know, I'm the third in three or four generations of musicians in my family in total, maybe five generations, who knows where those fellas upstairs are headed.
I've got to ask you this, what's it like at your age chasing around after two year-olds?
It's fan-fucking-tastic.
You can bend down to them and all that kind of thing?
Oh, yeah, I'm pretty spry, you know.
And the broken nights and so forth weren't too bad.
Well, I don't sleep anyway, so it makes no difference to me.
