I'm glad that my music has helped other people as it's helped me. It makes me glad that I did what I did with my life.

Do you believe in rock 'n roll? Can music save your mortal soul?

All you gotta do is think of the song in your head. And it doesn't matter whether you can play it or not, you can get somebody to play it. With songs I've written, there's a song called "The Statue", which I can't play. There are songs that I've written that I've actually just hummed on - there's a song on one of the albums they have there on the Internet called "My Love Was True" and it's almost operatic. I can't play it. But I can sing it.

Over the years I've had more and more of an association with Nashville.

I had asthma when I was a kid, asthma so bad that it would turn into pneumonia and I almost died several times. Nobody knew why back then, but now it's obvious.

That's the hard thing - getting started. You get started for a long time until you finally get to this point where people call you an icon or whatever they call you. It's nice. Suddenly the audience is with you more and they help you along and it's not so much that you have to do everything.

I think longevity is more important than trying to make people realize you're around every second.