I would take songs that I'd loved as a child and redo them in my mind for the new voice I had, the low voice.

We'll all be equal under the grass, and God's got a heaven for country trash.

San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell. May your walls fall and may I live to tell.

What I said, what are you [Rick Rubin] going to do with me that nobody else has been able to do to sell records with me?

I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.

It makes me so mad that some people underestimate the wisdom and energy of young people. All because they don't look the way older folks think they should look. I'm working on a song about it. Maybe some of those closed minded people will realize long hair and tattoos don't mean they should be ignored. Close minded people are part of what's wrong with this world.

I've never been accused of a felony. I never spent time behind bars except for a few overnight jail times back in the Sixties. [But] I think there's a little bit of a criminal in all of us. Everybody's done something they don't want anybody to know about.