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

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

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

" Creating something beautiful out of pain helps ease the pain. So, that's kind of how I got to songwriting - quite honestly out of desperation. "

" I don't have the experience of being in a war. "

" When you see validation for a life's work and dedication, it's a beautiful day. "

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

" Songs have been my greatest teachers and continue to be really important in my life. "

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

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

" I would make a terrible soldier, because I don't follow orders. "

" It can take me many months to write one of my own songs. "

" I'm an old-fashioned folk singer. I stand in front of an audience with a guitar and a barstool. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I've always been drawn to the hard story, the trauma, because I think art can turn it around. "

" I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song. "

" 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

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

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

" Music had always been a kind of anchor for me. But I didn't write my first song till I was 35. "

" I feel as though I came to music with something to say. It wasn't like that when I was younger. I didn't have the ability to articulate what it was I wanted to say. "

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

" There's such a thing as a tribe - and family of choice. "

" I write to make some sense of things that confuse me. The mechanics of my own heart are the most confusing I know about - and don't know about - and other people's are a bit confusing, too. "

" 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. "

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

" When I finally got sober, I moved towards what I might have been if I hadn't been destroying myself when I was young. "

" There's a universal inside of me. So if I tell my story, you're going to see parts of your story in it. I don't know which parts, but we all overlap. We're all very much alike. "