I appreciated that interview; I think I came across it when it came out and might have even wandered back to ILM to post about it? (Can't remember.) At the time (in 2012), I figured the engineer/producer was a *student* -- I think I even Google Mapped the studio to see its proximity to the local university -- who really was putting their all into the beats and making spoken poetry fit by hook or by crook. If anything, the interview suggests *more* genuine collaboration, back and forth spitballing and matching of visions, than I had assumed, which is probably a good thing since I like to believe that all the music I like happens more or less that way, with at least some level of meaningful interaction between the different players.

I haven't really done the lyrics-qua-poetry read yet, not least because I never really trusted the transcriptions of the album when it came out (there were some widely disseminated lyrics that I was positive the transcribers got wrong), but I was always struck by how perfect and how strange so many moments on the album are at describing feelings that don't get a ton of treatment in ANY form in music, like those spasms of laughter, laughter, laughter in the face of a death. I mean, I hate referring to things as "raw," but...the lyrics are pretty raw! Even now off the top of my head I can remember some of them: "our bodies will hold us together," "I got dressed up on the way down," "I don't want to make more mistakes...I still need to make more mistakes."