I'm pretty much the same person I was 20 years ago. My politics haven't changed. I have the same feeling of idealism. But I am a little bit wiser and more experienced.

Believe it or not, people went so far as to suggest that I might not be able to write songs anymore because now I am married. I tried to explain again that there are other things to write about besides boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy breaks up with girl, girl is sad.

I think we start suffering as soon as we come out of the womb. I think that people tend to stereotype. When they think of suffering, they think of abuse - physical abuse, emotional abuse, poverty, that kind of thing. There's different levels of suffering. I don't think that it has to do with how much money you have - if you were raised in the ghetto or the Hamptons. For me it's more about perception: self-perception and how you perceive the world.

I grew up around poets and novelists and my dad wrote poems about everything - from a cat sleeping in a window to a car wreck he passed on the highway. I learned not to censor myself: that was one of things I learned in my apprenticeship, my creative-writing apprenticeship with my dad.

I'm trying to learn how to tap into the power of my own being. I know it sounds corny.

What I do as a songwriter is a constant force in my life, that I'm grateful to have.

Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem or the song, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few.