And at the time, for one of the few times in my life I didn't have a band, I just had myself and the guitar, so I was going to have to do something with just my voice, just the guitar and just my songs that was going to move someone enough to give me a shot. So I wrote songs that were very lyrically alive and lyrically dense. And they were unique, but it really came out of the motivation to - or I understood it was - I was going to have to make my mark that way.

From the beginning, I imagined I would have a long work life.

Blame it on the lies that killed us. Blame it on the truth that ran us down.

You can go from doing something quite silly to something dead serious in the blink of an eye, and if you're making those connections with your audience then they're going to go right along with it.

The light from the oncoming train focuses the mind.

For me, President Obama is our best choice because he has a vision of the United States as a place where we are all in this together.

An audience is not brought to you or given to you; it's something that you fight for.