Loss is the great unifier, the terrible club to which we all eventually belong.

The religion I have is music. Even the times I have headaches, when I'm singing, I can't feel them. My dad used to say that, too, especially near the end of his life. He would be in pain - a lot of pain - and he said the only time when he didn't feel pain was when he performed and sang.

He [Johnny Cash] was so fragile. We invaded Iraq in March, and he died in September. And because his health was so fragile, he couldn't take the controversy of making a public statement against the war. He knew that people were rabid. They attacked me mercilessly after I did the press conference with Musicians United to Win Without War. He knew that he couldn't tolerate that.

The new record started out being about loss, but it's morphed into being about how relationships go on even though one person is not in a body anymore.

For me, art is a more trustworthy expression of God than religion.

I was a songwriter; that was the torch I carried. This is an honorable profession. This is what I do.

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.