As a kid, I always had a super vivid imagination, like "Man, I like those shoes, but they should've made them in purple" or like, "Man, I wonder how ….

Normally I begin writing a song with just with aim to express something, and sometimes I don't know what I want to express until a sentence comes to ….

Heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening. Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing. Heard the song of a poet who died in the g….

Come ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of Harvest-home!.

I don't think of community as being a romantic notion. I think it's as vital as air and water, and so I think that informs a lot of what I write abou….

My job as a songwriter is to write good songs..

I sing the songs that people need to hear..

I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart..

School of Rock. The best music school anywhere. This whole idea of getting kids not just taking lessons and learning notes and chords, but learning s….

Clive [Davis] tried to tell me that saying certain words in a song - or as he says, 'putting some balls into it' - isn't bad, it's just strong emotio….

'Nashville' songs and country music have always been about storytelling and about the heart and confessionals. They're monologues..

Elvis Costello's song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It's storytelling and it's deeply intelligent and clever..

Doing a scene truthfully is very similar to doing a song truthfully. They're really parallel..

I know some people are like "I'm depressed and I'm a struggling artist" and that really works for some people, but that doesn't work for me. I have t….

If I've got a talent, it's for picking the right song at the right time for the right audience. And I can always seem to get people to sing with me..

Don't go changing, to try and please me You never let me down before..

I didn't say I wasn't gonna do rockabilly. I just said I ain't gonna sing no song that ain't a country song. I won't be known as anything but a count….

When I'm writing I've been playing something for a couple of hours and I'm almost in a trance. At two or three in the morning you can actually see bi….

Every song that I've done is me in one way or another..

Women stand for the objective world for a man. They stand for the thing that you're not and that's what you always reach for in a song..

My elementary school is still there [in Luttrell, Tennessee]. I drop by my high school. It's a small community. I say this every night before I do th….