If you have written really well, people will swear that it happened to you.

In the early years, I found a voice that was my voice and also partly my father's voice. But isn't that what you always do? Why do kids at 5 years old go into the closet and put their daddy's shoes on? Hey, my kids do it.

My dad had a very difficult life, a hard struggle all the time at work. I've always felt like I'm seeking his revenge.

"Born To Run," that expands every time we go out. It just seems to you - more of your life fills it in, fills in the story. And when we hit it every night, it's always a huge catharsis. It's fascinating to see the audience singing it back to me. It's quite wonderful, you know, to see people that intensely singing your song.

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.

That Elvis, man, he is all there is. There ain't no more. Everything starts and ends with him. He wrote the book. But for him, I'd be selling encyclopedias right now. There have been a lotta tough guys. There have been pretenders. And there have been contenders. But there is only one king.

You're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past.