I had success. I had a number one record. I had a number one album. I have to make this kind of record again or else I'm going to lose it all. That's how you end up making the same song over and over.

When you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again.

People really feel like music is free, but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap and it's good water. But they're okay paying for it. It's just the mindset right now.

When I listen to great music, the first thing I wonder is what people were saying when this came out of the speakers in the studio. I want to know what happened when they played it and said, "This is the one!"

By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn't need pen or paper - my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape.

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.

I jack, I rob, I sin. Aw man, I'm Jackie Robinson 'Cept when I run base, I dodge the pen