I just wanted to have a look at my whole musical career, get right back to when I started and why I started doing it in the first place.

My responsibility is to fulfil what that natural thing is. The thing that I dislike about pop rock Top 40 music is that it's not natural.

The first piece of music that captured my imagination was probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.

If you're putting somebody down, you're doing it because you're just seeing a part of yourself that you don't like. That's all that is.

Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

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.

Jazz comes from a tradition where it swings. Swing was the main ingredient of jazz. And once it loses the swing...well, that's it.