I agree: Americans can be very apathetic. We're not proactive. We sit and watch TV.

I'd had my whole life to write my first album. I had my No. 1 and my third single out, and they go, 'Hey, guess what? We need to start recording the next one.' I'm like, 'Uh oh, I got to write another album. Well, how am I gonna write 'Should've Been a Cowboy' and 'Ain't Worth Missing' and all that again?' It took me forever to write the first one.

Writing is not work. In fact, theres nothing better. Writing is something that if the music business went completely away tomorrow - radio stations quit existing and music quit being popular and it was old hat - I would still write songs.

Here's the thing. Just because you're pro-troops doesn't mean you're pro-war. And just because you're anti-war doesn't mean you're anti-troops. Just because you don't support the war people think you are anti-troops and you are a bad guy.

You've got my heart in unfamiliar territory. It's never been out here on my sleeve. But here tonight with you it's quite a different story. You bring out a side of me no one has ever seen.

I'm not the kind of man that holds out on a need for nothing. I'm as lonely as any man around, I just don't like to pick 'em up and lay 'em down.

Don't apologize for being patriotic. Support the troops