I told a story with the E Street Band that was bigger and better than I could have done on my own.

I don't like to write rhetorically or get on a soapbox. I try to make the stuff multi-layered, so that it always has a life outside its social context. I don't believe that you can tell people anything; you can only draw them in.

What excites me about a lot of the artists I love - and I realize, well, they created their own personal world that I could enter into through their music and through their songwriting. There's people that can do it instrumentally, like Jimi Hendrix or Edge of U2 or Pete Townshend. I didn't have as unique - a purely musical signature. I was a creature of a lot of different influences.

Music doesn't tell you where to go. It says, go find your own place. That's what it told me.

Judge said, what you got in your defense son? Fifty-seven channels and nothing on.

I think if somebody comes up and simply says, your jobs? I'm going to bring them back. You're not comfortable with the browning of America? I'm going to build a wall. ISIS, I'm going to defeat them. Those are very - it's a simple, but it was a compelling message for a lot of people.

I guess my view of America is of a real bighearted country, real compassionate.