We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.

If you don't have music, you have silence. There is power in both.

If it came back I would be thrilled. I would be delighted to write more songs. I need them now because I want to make an album and I have to depend on other people's music, which I've done for years. But still, it'd be really nice to be able to sprinkle it with my own.

In this society, we don't like to face the future and the dying process and all of it. Most of us really don't want to think about it, but it's facing me in the mirror every day.

I'm not a rock and roller, a hitmaker. I'm highly dependent on what's coming out of these vocal cords.

And my voice now is a struggle, it's a daily struggle to keep it up. Gravity has begun to fight the vocal cords the way it does with everybody. So I have a vocal therapist, and we record the sessions and I use them on tour every day.

Nonviolence is a flop. The only bigger flop is violence.