When I was 18 years old, I went on the road with my dad after I graduated from high school. And we were riding on the tour bus one day, kind of rolling through the South, and he mentioned a song. We started talking about songs, and he mentioned one, and I said I don't know that one. And he mentioned another. I said I don't know that one either, Dad, and he became very alarmed that I didn't know what he considered my own musical genealogy.

You stand in front of a great painting and your heart just opens and your mind expands about what's possible. That, to me, is a connection to what God is.

Like Thornton Wilder said, time is not a river, but rather a landscape that you step in and out of. I've always found that true of creative work, and I've heard so many songwriters and writers in general say the same thing... When you're going into the realms of your self and trying to tap into the mystery of this creative source, linear time kind of falls away.

I found it was really impossible for me to write songs when I couldn't sing.

I wanted to be the writer in the room setting depth charges of feeling out the world with my language.You know, I had a very romantic idea about that.But I grew into being a performer.

"Country" has become a marketing term. I see myself as a songwriter.

My dad had more compassion than me. He was nonjudgmental. He didn't care where you stood politically. He just took you as a person on face value. He could love all stripes, and that's why all stripes claim him. He didn't judge.