Now that I believe in God, I have an extra layer of saying I'll write about what I write about and assume that I'm being offered the opportunity to illuminate something important. But when you think you are too important, you become some sort of fascist.

The very best thing you can do is to try to write a song that has some sort of impact.

I was raised by parents who really admired the religious leaders of the left, as many 60s and 70s liberals did.

There's tons of anger and angst and peculiarity and eccentricity, and good towns know that that's okay. But towns that are kind of bullshit don't know what to do with all those feelings.

When people in government [make mistakes], they don't say, those people in the government. They say, we've got a problem to solve.

The summer ends and we wonder who we are And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car And today I passed the high school, the river, the maple tree I passed the farms that made it Through the last days of the century And I knew that I was going to learn again Again, in this less hazy light I saw the fields beyond the fields The fields beyond the field

I think music is another language.