A song stylist is, like, to take an old folk song like "Delia's Gone" and do a modern white man's version of it.

My arms are too short to box with God.

You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

I've got no deep voice today. I've got a cold. But when I was young, I had a high tenor voice.

I haven't been familiar with hard work. It was no problem for me. But first I hitchhiked to Pontiac, Mich. and got a job working in Fisher Body making those 1951 Pontiacs.

By the time I actually recorded Bitter Tears I carried a heavy load of sadness and outrage; I felt every word of those songs... I expected there to be trouble with that album, and there was.... when it was released, many radio stations wouldn't play it.... The very idea of unconventional or even original ideas ending up on "country" radio in the late 1990s is absurd.

A rose looks grey at midnight, but the flame is just asleep. And steel is strong because it knows the hammer and white heat.