"Barnett admits to having experienced writer's block before moving to Los Angeles, where she bounced around to different neighborhoods and is still settling in. Despite their being the song "Los Angeles," she notes that while the constant moving in the city is the "backdrop" to the record, "it's not really what the album is about at all." More revealing is her description of fighting through songs that refuse to fully reveal themselves at first."
""There's definitely moments along the way where I'm like, 'This is not worth it and this is not going to work and I'm wasting my time,'" she says. "But something in me brings me back to it." She points to tracks like "Mostly Patient" and "Site Unseen" as songs that nearly disappeared forever before finally finding their way onto the album."
"That same patience led Barnett to notice how songs can evolve out of older fragments, almost like a musical universe folding in on itself. Barnett lights up at the comparison of lyrical and thematic callbacks to older songs. "I personally love when I'm listening to someone's discography and you can hear where the other song came from," she said, citing Leonard Cohen and Harry Nilsson as artists who often did it naturally."
Courtney Barnett returned with Creature of Habit after a long gap, creating songs that feel loose, lived-in, and connected across time. She described writer’s block and the process of moving through Los Angeles neighborhoods while still settling in. Although the city provides a backdrop, she said the album is not really about constant moving. She recounted moments of doubt when songs seemed not worth continuing, yet she kept returning to them. She cited tracks like “Mostly Patient” and “Site Unseen” as songs that nearly disappeared before finding their place. She also emphasized how songs can evolve from older fragments and how callbacks create a musical universe that folds inward.
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