By the time I was 19, my parents weren't very authoritative over my life.I didn't have any doubt about that - at that time about what I was going to do or where I was going. I was a musician. I was going to play. I had a band. We were going to make enough money to survive on.

There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical, questioning and often angry patriotism.

[The Catholic religion] was something I carried with me, never forgot, brought into my music. And it's been in my music ever since.

Tonight I'm stepping lightly and I'm feeling no pain.

Every song has a piece of you in it, because just general regret, love. You have to basically zero in on the truth of those particular emotions.

The past is never the past. It is always present. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. It will get you really bad.

Badlands, you got to live it everyday, let the broken hearts stand as the price you've got to pay.