Greg Trooper writes great songs, including one of my very favorite songs in the world, Little Sister. On top of all that, there's his voice - an instrument I have coveted for 15 years.
Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion, too.
I'm a very disciplined person when it comes to my work, but discipline can't save m from being a drug addict.
Maybe I'm not as big a star as Bruce Springsteen because I'm not as good. I don't know. It doesn't matter. I still have an audience of a certain size. I think it's one of the things I'm luckiest.
You know I ain't never prayed before 'Cause it always seemed to me That prayin's the same as beggin' Lord, I don't take no charity.
I had everything I need to get me killed.
Every country that's ever been the most powerful country in the world ceases to be the most powerful country in the world at some point.
You can go out and find ways to make your own record and get it out there now. If you really want to, you can be heard. Keep things simple. Learn to go out and play solo. That's a really really good thing to learn, if you're a singer-songwriter. Don't be dependent on a band because you may not always be able to afford one.
Actually, in its purest form, Islam is incredibly tolerant. That makes what's going on in the world really bizarre.
I was comparatively late in understanding Bob Dylan's overwhelming importance as a songwriter. Everybody who does my job exists in the shadow of Bob Dylan. There are two categories: Dylan and everybody else. It's as simple as that. And it's going to be that way until he dies.
I've never known of Wal-Mart to be a good neighbor in any town it's ever moved into.
I feel like I owe my audience something. They feed my kids. And I really like my job, a lot.
I don't get in vote in whether or how people remember me when I'm gone. It's really dangerous to sit around and worry about it too much, for me. It gets me way too in myself to worry about what people are going to think about me when I'm not around anymore.
Politics has always been in my music. Anybody who doesn't understand how political "Copperhead Road" is isn't listening very well.
It's incredibly irresponsible to allow victims' family members to witness executions.
We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.
When I write something simple I'm always really proud of it. When you write something that simple with that much air in it and the whole premise behind it is something pretty obvious - that everybody wants to be happy and free - the song is sort of an exercise in not forgetting that's what you really want and what you really need. We can get caught up in a lot of other stuff.
Or you can be like the Soviet Union, start out with ideals, and end up ceasing to exist.
I make an embarrassing amount of money for a borderline Marxist, just by selling 100,000 records. I don't sell millions of records, and I don't need to.
I wish I was as sure about things as Bill Monroe was sure about things.
I grew up counterculture. I'm essentially a hippie, and I'm essentially a folkie.
Every leap forward that I make is by reaching back and firmly getting a footing in the past, and pushing forward as hard as I can.
I'm not a Democrat; I'm something well to the left of a Democrat, but I'm just realistic about the system.
I wasn't raised to not write about issues, and I'm just living in really politically charged times. You know, I'd rather write songs about girls, but it's just hard to do right now.
I can deal with conservatives in a democracy. With real conservatives, I don't agree with them, but I understand why they believe what they believe and I believe they're being honest with me about it.
