You meet a lot of people and have a lot of experiences, and they color you and stay with you - but I'm not the grieving widow. Life is much more complicated and interesting and full of zigs and zags than that.

If I'm crazy, I'm blissfully so!

So there'll be no guiding light for you and me We are not sailors lost out on the sea We were always headed toward eternity Hoping for a glimpse of Galilee

Like falling stars from the universe we are hurled Down through the long loneliness of the world Until we behold the pain, become the pearl

A good song deals with the human condition, and the truth of the human condition.

It's basically a city of songwriters and that's what gives it it's strength, that's what gives it its lasting ability. You've got people making all different kinds of music and that's what attracts me to Nashville as Music City.

I'm very influenced by landscapes, not so much the way places look as the way the names sound. In this country we've got so many cultures, and the place names - the Spanish names and the Indian names, which are so incredibly musical.