Early on I was just a kid in a cowboy hat with a bunch of other guys in a room that were putting out some records. Now thank God, in the past 3 or 4 years, when.. it's really hard to burn an image of a face with a song these days. I think that the songs like 'Don't Happen Twice' and 'Young' were songs that helped me do that and I think that 'I Go Back'(did) that even more.

My elementary school is still there [in Luttrell, Tennessee]. I drop by my high school. It's a small community. I say this every night before I do the song 'The Boys of Fall' in the show - I'm really happy about where I grew up and how I grew up.

My fans get enough politics on TV every day. I want them to think for themselves. I don't want them to listen to me.

There's this emotion we all feel of being overwhelmed at times, feeling that you can't get ahead. For me it's self-imposed because I'm so driven and I'm always going from project to project.

When I'm a ship tossed around on the waves, Up on a highwire that's ready to break. When I've had just about all I can take, baby you save me

I do sing about drinking, but it's in a party way. I don't sing about drinking in a drowning-my-sorrows way, like in George Jones's "If Drinking Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)."

Live a little, love a lot.