I started writing songs after I heard Hank Williams.

Early on, before rock 'n' roll, I listened to big band music - anything that came over the radio - and music played by bands in hotels that our parents could dance to. We had a big radio that looked like a jukebox, with a record player on the top. The radio/record player played 78rpm records. When we moved to that house, there was a record on there, with a red label. It was Bill Monroe, or maybe it was the Stanley Brothers. I'd never heard anything like that before. Ever. And it moved me away from all the conventional music that I was hearing.

You know, sometimes a person's reputation can be far more colossal than the influence of the person. I don't pay any attention to it anymore.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

Now the wintertime is coming The windows are filled with frost I went to tell everybody But I could not get across Well, I wanna be your lover, baby I don't wanna be your boss Don't say I never warned you When your train gets lost.

There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They have got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt.

I was lookin' high an' low for them Reds everywhere, I was lookin' in the sink an' underneath the chair. I looked way up my chimney hole, I even looked deep inside my toilet bowl.