"Desperanto" has a tune I wrote at first for lyrics for The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," and then amended it to fit Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are." In re-arranging it for this album, I retrofitted the lyrics from a song I wrote in 1987 for my band, The Sycophants.

I didn't change much, lyrically. Maybe 25% of the words got updated. Cute idea: Esperanto is the universal language of the last century, and so Desperanto is the universal language spoken by loners in their desperation to fit in and cover the fact that they're, well, loners. It's not pretty, after all, when one's potential friend, employer, teammate, or lover discovers one is a loner. It a realization that at some point, sooner or later, this loner will shut you right. the fuck. out. This sort of thing probably strikes the loner as more than a little unfair, as everyone is—beneath the veneer of togetherness—actually out for themselves. Can the loner help it if they themselves don't have the energy/acting skills to keep up the charade for very long?

So it's vital that every clever loner camouflage themselves with a language that dresses up their lack of friends and networking in terms of independence and unique circumstance. "Oh I've got tons of friends, back home in, uh, Switzerland...How I do miss them!"

It's a horrible sandtrap, really. The loner feels unworthy to join in because no one wants him to join in because he never joins in because know one knows him well enough to tell him he's worthy to join in...

As for me, I might have felt that way when I was younger, but I've since come to love and accept myself, be my own best friend, etc., etc.,