I don't want to sing songs and write songs that need to have images behind them that are of a specific time. The times we live in today - I mean, there's a lot to work with. But I think that if I was my age in 1975 or 1985, I would have felt the same way because that's what I gravitate toward.

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

The songs I write should only be gauged by what other writers or peers are doing today. If the barometer for all songwriters was to match his body of work, then anyone you might mention alive or dead is a failure. But I've learned to not be too hung up on what's fair or not fair.

Those things interest me a lot in songwriting - the human nature of how people think, and the muck that we wind up in.

My songs have always had hope and perseverance in them - I never write songs that have no escape hatch, no positivity.

But there's got to be an opening somewhere here in front of me. Through this maze of ugliness and greed.

I don't want to sing songs and write songs that need to have images behind them that are of a specific time. The times we live in today - I mean, there's a lot to work with. But I think that if I was my age in 1975 or 1985, I would have felt the same way because that's what I gravitate toward.