TODD BARRY: So this was the last show of the tour. Do you have the urge to do five more shows now? Or are you ready to catch the first flight home? 

NICK LOWE : No, not really, no. Sometimes I find that I have this sort of… this sort of other—I have this person or this thing which I call “the Bloke.” The Bloke is, I suppose, a kind of inspirational thing that—I used to say that when I, you know, was writing songs—I have written a couple of songs, but since I’ve had a little boy, it’s very, very difficult to devote time to it, so I haven’t written much for a while. But I always used to talk about how the best songs that I write are written when the Bloke comes ’round. And it’s this sort of person who I never know when they’re gonna come, or how to get in touch with him, or anything like that, but when they come along, it’s almost like they’re not interested in doing any interviews, they’re not interested in being on the TV or doing any tours; they’re this fantastic songwriter to show me their songs and I write, I do their songs, and claim them for my own. And sometimes the Bloke doesn’t come ’round for months, you know, and I don’t know how to get in touch with him, but I’ve seen him work so many times that I can do a very good impersonation of the Bloke, you know. And I know the difference, I know the difference between my songs, the ones I do and I write, and the ones the Bloke writes. But also the Bloke comes along on the live gigs, too, and sometimes we find that near the end of the tour, the Bloke goes home and leaves me to do the shows on my own.

TB: So does that mean you’re sleepwalking through the show?

NL: Sort of, yeah.

TB: Really? Wow.

NL: Well, I wasn’t sleepwalking through it tonight, but it has happened in the past. I mean, the Bloke goes home and leaves me—

TB: So do you do anything to shake it up, or do you just wait?

NL: I just wait. I used to fly into a terrible panic about it, but I find that if you wait it comes back.

TB: So you’ve never said, “I wake up at nine and at ten I start writing songs”?

NL: No. I have tried that, because my friend John Hiatt told me once, he said, “I’ve got an office”—it was...