I mean, I've been given a terrific life by the audiences who stuck with me all over the world.

Because of an off-hand funny comment I made backstage at a concert years ago, a story circulated that the song has been a burden and even that I didn’t sing it for a while. That’s completely false. I am very proud of ‘American Pie’ and the many satellites that grow from it and revolve around it. For many years I carried my songs around and now they carry me around. I have always sung ‘American Pie’ for my audience and would never think of disappointing them since it is they who have given me a wonderful life and untold affection for almost 30 years.

It's a video world now, you know? It's not a musical world. It's a video world. I can watch videos. I see videos, you know, Britney Spears, she's sexy. I like to watch her videos. It's not like the music is what I'm hearing. It's different now. But it's not my world. It's the world of young people and they have what they want and they have what the technology and the society produces as a result of all these advancements that have occurred. And the in the future we'll have something else. Maybe we'll have holograms and, you know, all kinds of stuff.

I developed this fantasy world. I found that that was much more fun and more interesting and exciting than real life was to me. Then, once I got the guitar going when I was a teenager, I set sail for the direction I've been in my whole life.

I'm living in a world that was created a hundred years ago with vaudeville and people traveling around and medicine shows and things and making live music on stage and I'm still doing that. I like it that way. I like to present something to people that's had 40 years of being honed and perfected. It's something that you're not going to find with an artist who's been around for two or three years, or even ten years.

You're going to be buying your ticket with your heartache, you're gonna be payin' the man with your dues. You're gonna be living alone when you hear that whistle moan, you're gonna be learnin' to live with the blues.

It's really hard to teach me anything. I can't read music. I never learned how to read music. I read books about things and try to learn - I don't like to learn from anybody. Later on I would, once I'd get the hang of things. Like I ride horses, I'm good at that, Western riding. I learned all about it reading and studying. I'm always learning about horses, I like that.