I think a lot of men are afraid of pretty things, and I'm not, I like pretty songs.

I try and eat good. On the road, that's next to impossible. And we eat a lot of unhealthy things when we're in Texas - that's what you do there.

I didn't do anything differently than what my father was doing. It's a really hard family to rebel in. I could have become an accountant. Or I could have become a Republican.

I don't think I have any right to say I belong to that [Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan tradition]. I think that's something that eventually maybe you get inducted into. I'm just experimenting.

I think the best thing an artist can do is not hang out with other artists. I really dislike hanging out with musicians, for the most part, except for a few select friends, because I don't like to talk about music all the time.

What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.

All my records have been written to be records, rather than writing a group of songs and seeing if they fit together.