When I started out in this business, I was a performer before I was a songwriter, I was a performer before I was recording. Performing is the roots. That's where it all came from. You didn't start out doing it because you wanted to make an album.

[Touring] is not necessarily a priority. It's just a part of who I am as a performer. That's obviously why I'm doing it; why I'm in this business is part of me has to perform.

I'd come to the point where I wasn't really putting out creatively. I didn't seem to have anything to say in that period of time after the '74 tour. There was nothing definite that I wanted to record.

These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.

The media is going to stick a label on records. And the public is going to pick it up from that. And that's what I was getting sick of-the whole analyzation thing.

I thought of collaborating with other people which still might happen at this point. It might not. I was just trying to break the cycle because I had gotten to a point where I was definitely sure that I was on the wrong track after about 16 years.

That song [You Got To Make It Through The World] came from a vibe I picked up from an old blues singer named Bo Carter. My lady was making a film as a thesis for U.C.L.A. and she wanted me to write a song to depict this character. The movie had something to do with bootlegging and stuff like that. I found this Bo Carter record and he was just saying something about making it to the woods or something like that.