Cat Power - "I don't blame you"

Cat Power"s usual songwriting process : "Usually what happens is, I'll play it [the piece of music] four times early on and be like, is this something I don't want to remember? If it's something I want to remember, I have to play it four more times because I have to remember it. Because in the time it takes for me to look under my bed to find the tape recorder, I lose all the lyrics and the music. My music is really easy because there isn't much change in it most of the time. The words are the journey for me; the visual stuff that I have to remember. It's usually an image and I'll remember. When I press record, whatever makes it on the tape, that is where the song gets saved. Then I'll put it under the thing [the bed] and a couple months later I'll be like, what is this ? And then I'll remember. The trick is remembering it and making yourself, the next night or later that night or a couple hours later, testing yourself without the cassette if the song still resonates with you. The ones that come out are the ones I remember, so, there's a lot of them that are like, no, no, no, no, no".

Cat Power's peculiar writing and recording process for "I don’t blame you": "I sat there while everybody was playing pool, ping-pong, and getting stoned while we were mixing and transferring tape. I was in there singing that song. We'd all been drinking all night or whatever. I was remembering somebody and I was just sitting there. I must have played it 20 times. I got so completely delirious that when Adam [Kasper, producer] walked in he was laughing at me. Usually I don't sing when anyone walks around. I was just staring at him and laughing and singing. I was like, [singing] 'Adam, why don't you and press record ?'" And that's it.

Available on the album “You Are Free”