Music

The Elegant Aging of Richard Thompson

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At the same time, the man says he could not have made Mock Tudor 10 or 15 years ago. He began the album -- produced this time around by Beck and Elliott Smith cohorts Rob Schnapf and Tom Rothrock -- only after he collected enough songs to make his conceptual album a reality. Mock Tudor, he explains, could not have been made by a young man. A young man doesn't have the perspective, he offers. And he's just too scared to look beyond his own reflection.

"As you get older, I think, it becomes more of a compulsion to be honest," Thompson says. "I think when you're younger, there's more bullshit in the way. You're more self-deluded about your life -- your hopes, your ambitions. When you get older, it becomes painfully clearer, and there are places to hide. You are more aware of when you are writing a lie, and there's a strong sense of duty: 'You must tell the truth.' That's the only way you will move the audience -- to tell the truth. And if you do it right, the audience will get it. If you're obfuscating, the audience will only be confused.

"And you're less fearful of being ridiculed. I play what I want regardless of what you say. You feel, 'Who cares?' I mean, if you're getting up on a stage and making a fool of yourself anyway, you might as well mean it. For me the best part of all of this -- writing, performing -- is still the communication. I get off on the communication. That means you have to perform the song and someone has to receive it, heart to heart."

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