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

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

" I think if people really listened to what our families who serve go through, we could have a realistic discussion of what it means to send young people to war. "

" We can't see ourselves very clearly. This I learned as a songwriter. I'm forever trying to figure out what my own truth is. "

" I think, because of the kind of writer I am, I can't do it halfway. I can't do it without dedicating my entire life to it. I have to give it a hundred percent. "

" The job of the artist is to go to the places where most other people are embarrassed to go to. And show it. "

" I've learned our soldiers are so much like everybody else. They're just put into an extreme situation. "

" 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. "

" Ultimately, what I want is for my songs to outlive me: I want my songs to keep being played even after I'm gone. "

" 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. "

" I guess I find it easier to talk when I have a guitar in front of me. "

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

" I'm from New Orleans, and I have a French last name - although I have no real relationship with my last name because it's not my name. I don't know my name. "

" I have got my story. Adoptees rarely get our stories. We only know what we are told. I don't even have my story, really. My mother won't tell me. She won't tell me who my father is. She won't tell me the story of my birth. "

" I got sober at 27 and started writing around 30 and started playing music in public around 32, 33. "

" The world doesn't need any more pretty good songs. "

" I don't know who my dad is. "

" There's an ocean of misunderstanding. It's called the civilian-military divide. I had a lot to learn about our military - who they are, what burdens they carry. "

Misunderstanding

" Songs, especially lyrics, have always been really important to me. "

" 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. "

" If somebody in a family is in service, the whole family is in service. I didn't know that. I didn't know our veterans were being deployed seven, eight, nine, 10 times. It's inhumane. "

" I knew I had that Cajun heritage, that Acadian heritage; I just feel it. And my gut says Irish on the other side. Irish and French, that's what I feel. When you're young, it doesn't matter so much, but as you get older, I would suspect part of the ageing process is to wonder about your ancestors - who were they? What were their lives like? "

" I think we're very much in a mystery here in this life and that artists try to pierce the mystery with their art. "

" People in Ireland take in the whole song. After a long history of great singers and songwriters and poets, they are able to consume the entire song - not just the external; they go inside. "

" 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 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 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. "

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

" Once I got my life sorted and started to get healthy, then I was able to focus on writing. "

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