When I don't get something I want, it's a navigational nudge from the universe. You and John Hiatt both wrote songs for Three Dog Night, and Hiatt's still a hipster. I started in 1967. I'll be 61 this year, and it feels like it's been two or three careers. What happened to me was that I was recording and being a guest on The Tonight Show , and I began to disconnect from being a songwriter.
Celebrity becomes an addiction.
It did for me, anyway, and enough of a distraction that it took me away from the observing. It took me away from the joys of collaboration. When I got sober, my career was gone. The one I had going in my mind hadn't been around for years. I didn't know if I'd ever write again.