Forty years into his recording career, John Hiatt has chosen to title his 22nd studio album, Terms of My Surrender. Surrender? Is that as in Cheap Trick? Or Appomattox? Hiatt laughs, tentatively, at the choice.
'It's my Appomattox,' he says, wryly. 'Really I don't know where it came from, that idea of trying to arrange the terms of my surrender. I don't get to do that. It's a labor in vain in that respect, if you think you can negotiate that with anyone, or anything. In reference to the title song, it's in terms of love. You've got to give it up. The song says, 'I can't negotiate the terms.''