I feel that it's nothing if not an incredible privilege to be able to get up on stage and play for people, and I don't ever take it for granted.

You know, that single girl life and that sense of isolation - that doesn't leave you just like that. And that's what that song is about. I remember that, and that is imprinted on me, that sense.

You know, I didn't have enough money to quit my day job... the myth of the major label deal. Nowadays, you have a tour bus and a stylist and all this stuff. But back then, no way.

In the late 80s, artists could be signed to labels and be nurtured. It wasn't, "We're going to give you one shot, and if you don't measure up, you're gone".

I think topical songwriting is a real gift, and it's hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message.

Emmy Lou Harris introduced me to the work of the Vietnam Veterans of America foundation and the Campaign for a Land Mine Free World.

It's a pretty frantic world that we live in