Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn’t understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn’t understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.

I find it ironic that now water is more expensive than music. On the one hand, record companies can't go crying when they've gouged consumers for decades, charging exorbitant prices for CDs that cost 29 cents to make. On the other hand, when music is free, musicians starve.

I feel fortunate to have made records during an era where people actually bought music. But I have friends in struggling up-and-coming bands now that will certainly never be able to pay the rent, because music has been devalued.

The way corporate media likes to portray America is as a homogenous whole that high-five's each other at the Super Bowl. But what we have is a grotesque disparity between the rich and poor that is only getting wider.

Music, I think, is best when it honestly explores personal demons, and it stirs around in the silt of the psyche to find out what's really there.

The reason why many young people in the Vietnam War era were active was their lives were threatened by the draft and they were going to perhaps be forced to go overseas and fight in an immoral war.

In America, we have freedom of choice. But some are free to choose between Lamborghini and Rolls Royce while others are free to choose which dumpster they're going to have their meal out of next. Some are free to choose which, you know, homes and farms to foreclosed on, while others choose which bridge they're going to sleep under tonight.