The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.

My father was a physicist and also an activist. My first public protest was with my dad at Stanford. I came by all that honestly.

I'm lucky to have met so many people who have been involved in peace and who have been peace prize winners.

I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you...because no one has the right to take the life of another human being.

Sometimes I get lonesome for a storm. A fullblown storm where everything changes.

Sometimes I get lonesome for a storm. A full blown storm where everything changes. The sky goes through four days in an hour, the trees wail, little animals skitter in the mud and everything gets dark and goes completely wild. But it is really God - playing music in his favourite cathedral in heaven - shattering stained glass - playing a gigantic organ - thundering on the keys - perfect harmony - perfect joy.

It sounds corny, but it's absolutely true: A song chooses me. I don't go looking for a certain kind of lyric. It kind of develops its own little arc and I'll just see what happens.