What songwriting does better than almost anything is empathy - it's incredibly empathetic. The reason people sat around in bars when they were bummed out and listened to country songs is because it made them feel better in the long run.

Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.

Sonnets are guys writing in English, imitating an Italian song form. It was a form definitely sung as often as it was recited.

Critics are notoriously liberal with their use of the term 'genius'.

You know, I'm not comfortable with people whose politics are static in a democracy.

Funerals are a pagan rite. There's not any doubt about it.

Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.