Livingston Taylor

I spent a lot of time refilling the well, teaching myself, exploring songwriting and studying the great detail of the great songwriters—Rodgers & Hammerstein, Gershwin, Cole Porter. I got all their sheet music and read through it, which was an adventure and re-exploration of great writing. I also needed to teach myself to play piano better. Eventually that came to this record. It took a year and a half to make, and it was a huge project. Many of the songs I recorded and re-recorded; some of them I recorded three times. I knew it was going to take its own time, and it was ready when it was ready.
-Livingston Taylor

I was lecturing high school students, which couldn't have been further way from the world where I came from. I was racking my brain as to how to get through to them and looked throughout the room to find a group of white students and then a core of African-American students all sitting together. I started talking about music as if they were ready to be in the music business. I told them before they got rich and famous, they'd have to be creative and take one step at a time towards it. I asked them, "Are you ready to take it step by step?" So with that desire to find a way to communicate across the broad gulf of age and culture, I created the song's main character—someone who loved getting in and out of trouble. I had to be careful not to get him into such terrible straits that redemption wouldn't be possible, so I set it up as kid who got drunk and was driving a stolen car.
-Livingston Taylor

There are certain things we carry onto stage that we can't hide—ethnicity, gender, our age—those things are pretty tough to hide. People see old and white, and I can't change that. That said, I'm not going on stage to talk about what I believe. I'm on stage to be in the company of my beautiful audience that supports me, and I don't want to preach to them.
-Livingston Taylor