I don’t write sad songs; I write lonely songs. To be here is to be lonely. We’re desperate to belong, desperate to know love, even in its most deceptive forms. I’ve somehow made a career of self-perceived failure. I’ve often reflected on whether that mindset fulfills its own prophecy: quite possibly. I’m no longer seeking the type of greatness I once envisioned, the kind that might live in an imagined stranger’s mind. I’m hoping now to be something greater within my own little world. Something intangible but peremptory. My ambition now is a life of greatness in small spaces, a private fame in close quarters, a life so intimate it need only whisper its declarations of love and victory. My darling failure is becoming.