In what ways do the books you read figure into the music you write?
Songwriting is of course a very different art to that of the novelist — condensing sometimes large ideas into rhyming couplets seems to be the opposite process.
But it is interesting to me how often a novel will begin with a quote from a poem or a song, so the territories do overlap to some extent. My favorite songs are narrative songs, short stories that can be recounted in three minutes. My favorite novels are extended songs. What is “One Hundred Years of Solitude” if not an opera? And a grand one at that!