There's enough ugliness - you know, we got wars going on and people dying and sickness and everything. We don't need to have our art be ugly. But it is, in a lot of it. And these people justify this crap by saying, "Oh we're just representing what's out there, man". Basically, you're making it worse and number one, the artist's job is to elevate people and to lift people up and to give them a place to go, something to hold on to.

As you sell your soul and sow your seeds, and you wound yourself and your loved ones bleed. And your habits grow and your conscience feeds, on all that you thought you should be.

I got my first guitar when I was 16. I'd play for my family and friends, but taking that guitar out there into the wide, wide world wasn't something I ever thought about.

When people ask me what 'American Pie' means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to.

But I knew - in the old days, if a song was a good song, I don't care if it was 'Yellow Submarine' or, you know, or 'The Times They Are a-Changin' or 'Don't Be Cruel', you knew it, you know? You heard that song, and you were talking about it, and you knew it.

Devoid of all romance, the music plays and everyone must dance. I'm bowing out.

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.