When digital technology started becoming the norm, you've got 50, 60, 70 years of recordings on tapes that are just deteriorating. Like, a two-inch reel of recording tape won't last forever. It dissolves. It will disappear.

When I look back at those pictures of my mother performing - and listen to her recordings - it makes me sad to think that all of that joy she found in her work came to an end. I wish she hadn't had to make that sacrifice, even if it was for the benefit of my father and siblings and me.

You just go where poetry is, whether it's in your heart or your mind or in books or in places where there's live poetry or recordings.

I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn't want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. 'Discreet Music' was like that, and 'Music for Airports.' What you hear on the recordings is a little part of one of those processes working itself out.

I love the excess of Christmas. The shopping season that begins in September, the bad pop star recordings of Christmas carols, the decorations that don't know when to come down.

Orphans, dead parents, lonely children at Christmas, morose spoken word recordings, everything you love about the holidays. Move the turkey over so you can fit your head in the oven.

I didn't make my first solo record until 1981 so I don't have any 60's or 70's recordings but I am working on a large boxed set called DUST to be released next year, the 20th anniversary of my first solo record.

Eric's Trip is still a huge influence on me. The style of those recordings and the rawness of them is very inspiring. And the density of the distorted parts, amazing.

Orphans dead parents lonely children at Christmas morose spoken word recordings everything you love about the holidays. Move the turkey over so you can fit your head in the oven.

I love the excess of Christmas. The shopping season that begins in September the bad pop star recordings of Christmas carols the decorations that don't know when to come down.

When I look back at those pictures of my mother performing - and listen to her recordings - it makes me sad to think that all of that joy she found in her work came to an end. I wish she hadn't had to make that sacrifice even if it was for the benefit of my father and siblings and me.

I didn't make my first solo record until 1981 so I don't have any 60's or 70's recordings but I am working on a large boxed set called DUST to be released next year the 20th anniversary of my first solo record.