I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peaceful. Funny but the more hurtin' the music was the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin' the blues myself but I'm writing them for other people who have a hard life.

I love weird or funny or beautiful sentences Joy Williams could write a microwave-oven manual and I'm sure I'd love it because the sentences would be tuned up like music.

People forget how outcast 'They Might Be Giants' can be. They have a reputation for writing really deft funny clever melodies and they also make a lot of music for kids which is terrific but when you see them in concert they can rock the house.

I don't dismiss the music that I was involved with I don't think it was a joke I don't think it was funny or a phase I don't think it was just something I was doing back then to me it was who I am. It connects all the way through. I don't distance myself from any of it.

It's funny how I use social media because I don't use it to promote my restaurants that much. I use it for social issues and I think that's what it's for. I do a few things - I mess around with music a lot because that's a passion of mine. If something strikes me and I want to share it I do.

I would call it a comedy variety show. We have some people just doing straight standup. We usually try to have one musical act of sort. So its just people being funny in different ways not just sketch not just standup not just characters all of those things.

Music is more difficult - try naming a political band. The Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys are political but they are more funny than they are political.

People never ask people doing serious music 'Do you ever think about doing funny music?'

I really wanted to just be a musician. I didn't want to be anything else but I was funny and all that.

No writing musicals is the hardest thing in the world. And it was really funny because I remember when the South Park movie came out there were some critics that said 'Well it's obvious that in order to get it to be 90 minutes they filled some time with music.'

I mean it's funny playing music how of course you want it to do well you want them to like it but it's not competitive like an election it's the Olympics it's not a Formula 1 race. The Billboard charts are just to show you what people like.

It's funny when bands or younger musicians ask me: 'So what does it take to make it?' Well first explain to me what you mean by 'making it': Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood?

It's funny how the music industry is enraged about the Internet and the way things are copied without being paid for. But you know why people steal the music? Because they can't afford the music.

I'm half Jewish I'm half black I look in-between. I dress funny. I play all these different styles of music on one record. It's like What is he doing?

It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.

You know fame is a funny thing man especially you know actors musicians rappers rock singers it's kind of a lifestyle and it's easy to get caught up in it - you go to bars you go to clubs everyone's doing a certain thing... It's tough.

I can tell you dearest friend that if it became known how much friendship love and a world of human and spiritual references I have smuggled into these three movements the adherents of programme music - should there be any left - would go mad with joy.

Working with people the musical part is one thing but the personal part is totally different and just as critical. If the friendship is there and it's a lasting friendship then it will take care of itself.

Love is a friendship set to music.

To me music has to be about freedom. It's the most important thing in my life.

To her audience Janis Joplin has remained a symbol artifact and reminder of late Sixties youth culture. Her popularity never derived from her musical ability but from her capacity to link her fantasies of freedom and immortality with ours.

That happens every time I get behind a guitar regardless of what I'm saying 'cause music is freedom and being free is the closest I've ever felt to being spiritual.

Maybe a part of me recognized how right the improvising spirit of jazz is. Not the sounds but the freedom to work with musicians who work that way. It felt very natural to me but I think there's a way to do it without it being a jazz record.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise and take chances and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.