My father's best friend, Georgie Terra, was an Italian guy. The children and the cousins and nieces and nephews were children of the Mafia. Those were the children he grew up with. If you want to go to a safe neighborhood, go to where the Mafia is.
I'm not afraid to use my personal experiences and put them into a song. I think that's when you get the best stuff anyway, when it's real emotion.