There are certainly a lot of people - and I won't name names - who are getting by simply on expression. And I guess that's valuable in some sense. But songs are not better just because they're emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out.

I'm allowing myself every opportunity, every tool that every other artist should allow themselves to use. If anybody expects me to not use certain language or certain words, like I have some kind of penalty restriction, it's completely unrealistic.

The trouble, dollIs not moving mountains, butDigging the ground that you're on

I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively... writing songs was king.

Folk music is not for a select group of people who feel that maybe he taught them about this music and that it belongs to them. It doesn't belong only to them. It belongs to everyone who's interested in the blueprints of good songwriting.

Of course, I came up around music and fame, but this is still my first time experiencing it all. I'm still going through it like anybody else goes through it. But I'm still doing something I've never done before.

Its a little gross to put yourself in every song. I mean, how interesting do people really think you are?