For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too,” he says. “And you just do it by picking up the needle and putting it back down and figuring it how these people did this magical thing. It’s rather mystifying when you think about songs — where they come from and how they’re born. Many times, it’s very humble and very mundane, the origin of these songs.