RY: Any songs you’ve previously played that listeners will be familiar with come release time?
JM: I think the only songs you’ve heard that are definitely going on the CD are "Hummingbird" and a song called “I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)," which I think was originally just called Untitled 2 or something. Everything else is new, so new that even my closest friends can’t identify any parts of the songs as something they’ve heard me mess with before.
RY: It was kind of like you were saying before about what Paradise Valley could have been. I remember you telling me in the past that you kept throwing tracks off Continuum in favor of newer/better songs.
JM: It just kept going. There’s a whole other Continuum record. I remember sitting at a pool with Steve Jordan and making track lists and we had record one and record two. There’s "The Hurt," there’s a song called "Please Tell Your Boyfriend to Chill," which I think Herbie Hancock played on. There is a "[I Don't] Trust Myself [With Loving You] Part II." There are a ton of songs, but I’m not remembering all of them right now. There was a song that was going to close off Continuum that is a fucking cool song.
They’ll come out sometime. They have to. They just end up coming out. So, Continuum was a very composted thing. Born and Raised was also. There are tons of half-things on Born and Raised that never hit.
RY: Like "Tonight We’re Living Proof?"
JM: Oh man, I love that song.
RY: Do you think that will ever come out? Don Was told me that he wanted you to put it on. He said you didn’t want to put it on because you felt like it could take away from the rest of the record.
JM: Did you ever hear that song? It was a smash. I could put it on the next record, though. We’d open up with it and people would go nuts. But it’s a little young for me now. That’s all. That’s why I have the career I have. I’ve always been authentic with what’s coming out because people can smell it on you, man. If I’m 40 years old and up there talking about hitting on girls in New York City and “Tonight’s the night / it’s all we have is tonight,” it’s not going to last long for me, you know?
I also didn’t have the second verse finished. There’s a song called "Sweet Unknown" that almost made it. There was a song called "Helpless" for Born and Raised that I adored. Everybody did not like it. It was one of the only times where my compass was off.
I loved that tune, man. It was great. “If I’m helpless / tell me now / tell me now / and I’ll stop trying to figure it out.” It was mean and it was cool. I’ve just made enough records now to know during the making of the record what is going to congeal and what is not.
I’ve thrown a lot of things off records that people have liked. I’ve fought for things to go on records that only I liked that people didn’t. But ultimately, the records just end up being the way they are supposed to be.
RY: And sometimes those songs, like you said, come out, like "Go Easy on Me," which I like a lot.
JM: I love that song, man. Love that song.