I grew up in Chicago, but I spent a lot of time down in Kentucky, and Kentucky was about 20 years behind the life that was in Chicago.
I was kind of shy as a lad, and a lot of things that made me laugh, I found, did not make other people laugh.
It was always difficult for me to listen to my singing voice for the first 20 years or so. I mean, I really enjoyed singing, and I enjoyed doing live shows, but being in a recording studio and having to hear my voice played back to me would really drive me up the wall.
To tell you the truth, the nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame totally surprised me. I had no idea that was coming. I know a lot of people like to say it's enough just to be nominated. But I've been nominated for so many things, I'd like to get this one. I think it's a long shot, considering I never had a No. 1 rock n' roll record.
I can't really sit around and talk with people who believe that the Bible is the way it happened, because that's man-made. I'm a writer, too; that's how I look at the Bible. Like, 'I could've written a better version than that,' you know? At least a more interesting one, and then maybe more people would go to church. I could definitely do a revamp.
I'll go to the movies and hear 'Angel From Montgomery' in some film, and nobody ever even told me about it. They don't tell you your stuff is going to be in a movie. They don't have to, so they don't tell you. You get paid eventually.
After a couple bouts with cancer and everything, black cats are nothin', you know?
I sound like that old guy down the street that doesn't chase you out of his apple tree.
I hate to admit it to my wife, but I only wear two outfits on the road, and then a third one during the day, but I carry about 20.
Even when I was coming up in the singer-songwriter ranks during the early '70s, I thought that people who were stylists and stuff shoulda still been up on the pedestal. I mean, it's fine to recognize people who write songs, but it kinda got out of hand, you know?
It's usually drawing on personal experience. I don't think I could dig deep enough trying to get into somebody else's life. Like 'Far From Me' - I wrote it about this waitress that I was dating when I was fifteen or so, and she broke up with me.
I didn't hear anybody talking about the plight of a soldier coming back home and what he'd gone through. That was why I wrote about that stuff. If somebody else had done it, I probably wouldn't have touched the subject.
When you're singing somebody else's songs, it's just pure joy to me.
When I'm making my own record, it's real work for me.
People thought we were crazy for starting a record company. They really thought I was shooting myself in the foot.
I wrote most of 'Hello in There' in a relay box, which looks like a mail box, only bigger. Sometimes, it was so cold and windy on my mail route that I'd go inside the relay box and eat a sandwich, just to get away from the wind. I remember working on 'Hello in There' inside the relay box.
I embraced loneliness as a kid. I know what loneliness is. When you're at the end of your rope. I never forget those feelings.
Some voices don't blend. They just kinda rub against each other.
I just like a good, sad song. The sadder, the better. It moves me.
Because of my song 'Sam Stone,' a lot of people thought I was interested in writing protest songs. Writing protest songs always struck me as patting yourself on the back.