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" Recovery stabilized me; songwriting gave me a purpose. "

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" I got issues. Boy, have I got issues. "

" What I was told is that I was born to a mother who was a Catholic, while her boyfriend was not. They couldn't get married unless they put me up for adoption. "

" If I start tracing, I bet I will find a writer in my family tree. "

" Fundamentally, our job as songwriters is to sit down and listen. "

" I think it's a stereotype that soldiers don't talk, because my experience is that they will talk if they are met with empathy and no judgment. "

" What I really like is this salted calamari - with jalapenos on top. "

" I don't ever want to tie a song in a little bow. Life doesn't work that way, and war doesn't ever work that way. "

" A lot of times, a bunch of songs have to be written to get to the next really good one. "

" There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it. "

" I think I'll always draw from being a person that doesn't know how to have a normal life, whatever a normal life is. "

" If I write for beauty and truth, the songs will find their way to me. Then, it's the songs that speak to the audience, and they can become part of the tribe that is into what I do. "

" In my early years, I couldn't find a community. I couldn't find anybody like me. I felt so isolated. There was nothing but shame and loneliness. "

" I have such a good life. It's something I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. "

" In a lot of ways, songwriting helped save my life. "

" I'm a big fan of Lou Reed, and I do a lot of talking through songs. It's more effective with my vocal limitations and also more powerful to slightly sing sometimes. It depends on the emotion, but I'm never going to try to compete with great singers. "

" War is hell. Sending young people to conflicts that are unwinnable and unresolvable - it puts them in a position where they're going to suffer. And yet their experience is that they're proud of their service, and they should be. Service freely rendered is a noble thing. "

" I did not know that the wounds of war are often invisible. "

" When I first got sober, I hadn't read anything for six or seven years. I didn't have even that much focus. "

" Being in recovery for a lot of years now, I've worked with a lot of people who've gotten sober and sat with a lot of folks who are suffering. Bearing witness is a really underrated thing; it's a big damn deal. "

" Melody's like tweezers that go into the infection and pull out the wounded part. You can almost not stay silent in the face of a melody that matches your emotion. You feel seen. "

" I spent my 18th birthday in jail. Charges were dropped as long as I promised never to return to the state of Kansas. My parents took me home to Louisiana. I lasted there a week. Then I ran away. "

" I'm a traveler and a vagabond and an observer, and the songs come through that. And that's just the way it's going to be. "

" Songs are here to help us: they build bridges from heart to heart. "

" I'm sort of stuck in adolescence in many ways, like most artists, and march to my own beat. "

" By the time I got to songwriting, I had been faced with a lot of troubles as a result of my own collective of trauma. I was someone who instinctively figured out that writing songs about the struggle helps you with the struggle. "

" Songs bring us into connection with each other. When they resonate, when we're in resonance, singing together, we become one for that 3 1/2 or four minutes the song lasts. It takes away that isolated loneliness that modern life is so full of. "

" I long for real and true connection. It has been the theme of all the songs in my whole life. "

" I came to music and knowing a little bit about life, and I came to music knowing a lot about business - and that's a real advantage. By the time I came to music, I had purchased real estate, opened restaurants, and been in the business world, so the music business didn't blindside me. "

" I'm grateful to songwriting and recovery to bringing me to a place of peace. "

" People who have been through trauma, their souls are hurting. "