My Girl was originally called Dance With Me and it was going to be about doing things while you still have the life left in you to do them. Actually, the original version was probably a more interesting concept for a song than My Girl but for some reason I couldn't make it come together.

I guess that was the problem. I was trying to "make it" come together and that approach never works very well for me. I was having trouble finishing the lyrics. One day I decided to record the guitar part on my iphone so that I could take the song around with me.

I was walking through my neighborhood in Crown Heights, singing along to the song on my headphones and trying out different lyrics and different phrasing. It hit me while I was crossing the street.

At that moment I was paying more attention to looking out for cars than writing song lyrics. As I hustled across the street was sort of singing under my breath and subconsciously I blurted out "my girl! She takes good care.... My girl.. Flowers in her hair."

I fell in love with that lyric and how simple it was. I felt like other people could probably vision the woman I was talking about. From then on the lyrics were easy because I dropped the complicated "concept" approach and just went with what seemed to be flowing out of me at the time. I guess I was happy that day.