I don't make "beats" and I am not a DJ. I don't want to be.

Instead I actually make original music which I dream up out of my own head and then produce and record alone, without anyone else's help. Unfortunately, this scenario is getting to be more and more rarified these days.

Lately it seems to be perfectly OK to "sample" a big chunk of someone else's record (a concept that used to be known as stealing or at least cheating) and then talk (not sing) on top of that borrowed track. P Diddy (or whatever he's calling himself these days) would not have had a career if it had not been for his penchant for swiping samples of real artist's work. It's stunning to me what people will settle for these days. When I was a kid an artist actually had to be talented at something other than using a sampler. Imagine that.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't do a Delphinium Blue DJ set at a club. That might be fun. What I am saying is that what I value most is original thinking, original work, original music. And I prefer it if this music is made by one person. Like a painting or a piece of sculpture. Michaelangelo's David was not made by "a band".

I'm sorry if I sound pissed. It's just that I'm a big believer in originality - in original writing. I've spent a lot of time working on a whole lot of songs - from scratch. Over 400 at last count. Does that mean I'm any good at it? I don't know. It probably just means I'm neurotic and working things out by making music.

I often get asked about "how" I write songs. Non-artist types seem to be endlessly interested in the "process" - although I think the process is mostly quite boring. For me the really fun part is at the very, very beginning when I first sit down at the keyboard/guitar/computer and start fooling around. When something strikes me as interesting, for whatever reason, I latch on to that little bit of an idea and start playing it again and again...and again. It's at this point that the fun goes out and the work comes in.

I've read many, many books by and about songwriters and I have found that my method is very similar to Paul Simon's and Lindsey Buckingham's and even Madonna's. If you read about songwriting you discover pretty quickly that there are a lot of myths about the subject. Songwriting rarely happens in a burst of romanticized creativity. Sometimes the initial core of a song will come that way but rarely. All of the artists that I just mentioned - in the many interviews I've read with them - describe a process that very much involves work and effort and difficulty. All of these artists confirm that they have struggled at times (many times) to turn a small idea into a larger, finished work. I can vouch for the same experience. And I can list on one hand the number of songs I've written that came to me pretty much full blown.

I will say however, that when that rare gift from heaven does come along in a burst of sudden glory, that those kinds of songs tend to be really good - really heart felt and really to the point in some way or other. It's hard to explain why these "quickies" happen or why they happen so seldom but I think sometimes you're just in a mood and an idea comes into sharp focus and you just get all the lyrics you need right then and there. You're so into whatever the song is about that the logic of it takes you forward and you get the whole thing in one sitting. Sometimes you get it all in five minutes. But most of the time songwriting is work - like anything else.

I read an interview with Paul Simon not long ago that was really fascinating. He was talking about how sometimes he'll get a large part of a song finished but still come up short - missing some crucial section that continues to allude him. He even said that sometimes this missing piece manages to escape his grasp for years. Then at some unforeseen, unplanned moment in the future he takes that old song back out and dusts it off and takes another stab at it - and sometimes he gets it. Sometimes after waiting all that time he finally finds that missing part and the song almost finishes itself - or at least that's how it feels. I can definitely relate to his story. I have had that same experience on a number of occasions.

There have been many songs that were nearly complete but missing some important element. And sometimes it really did take a year or more to find the missing part. At any given time in my life I have had lots of unfinished songs lying around. A friend of mine once told me that he thought I had the world's largest collection of unfinished songs but I don't think I'm alone. I think failure is the norm in any art. I think real art only comes to those who practice their art on a constant and never-ending basis.

I meet so many people who say that they want to be songwriters or some kind of artist but when I ask them what they're doing right now, they say they're still thinking about it. Well, that doesn't work. If you're going to write then you might as well get started. Don't expect great things right off the bat. Just relax and get into it and find out what you can do. Practice helps a lot. And I guess in order to endure all the practicing that is involved in any art you really have to love it. And I guess that's where my desire to write songs comes from. When I hear someone else's song and it touches me and I am amazed by it and momentarily taken out of myself by that song then it renews my own desire to create and I usually turn on the keyboard and the computer and start playing. That's how songs are born.