'Well, I think he tried to make them all his own. He would read them, and I
dont think he was especially concerned with what the writers original
intention was. It was a question of, "How does this song hit me, and how can
convey that mood or the emotion that I feel in my version of the song?" He was
really a master at taking a song-even a song you mightve heard many times in
your life-and imbuing it with a kind of storyteller mentality. Again, even if
you had heard a particular song your whole life, when he sang it, all of a
sudden you understood it, or thought about the words in a different way, or
you took the song more seriously.'

--- RICK RUBIN