You know, I'm pro-troops, but I'm not pro-war.

Health care's a great example. We spend billions of dollars a year in foreign aid helping people in countries where the money never gets to see the bottom tier, because the bad, corrupt politicians in the government that they have there end up taking what we give them.

Through the years I've accumulated this big bag of songs. When I go out I do close to two hours, and it's all just attitude - and up-tempo. I've accumulated so many of those types of songs now that the show just gets off with a bang, and I'll only do two or three ballads the whole show.

And yet this is farther than I've ever fell; You know me much too well. Funny it don't feel like we just met. It didn't take much time. Forever's more than crossed my mind, and we haven't even said 'I love you' yet.

Writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking my eyes. It's an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought.

I've written 90 percent of the songs in my career, on all my albums.

My daddy served in the army where he lost his right eye, but he flew a flag out in our yard until the day that he died. He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me, to grow up and live happy in the land of the free.