A lot of my songs are fantasy. I can dream up all kinds of things. That's the kind of world I live in. It's very sort of flamboyant, and that's the kind of way I write. I love it.

Folk musicians, blues musicians did write a lot of songs about the "Titanic". That's what I feel I'm best at, being a folk musician or a blue musician, so in my mind it's there to be done. If you're a folk singer, blues singer, rock & roll singer, whatever, in that realm, you oughta write a song about the "Titanic", because that's the bar you have to pass.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don't get me.

In my songs, I'm not saying something that's never been said before. The have lyrics aren't going to blow people away. It's the emotion and the melody that drive it home.

In writing songs I've learned as much from Cézanne as I have from Woody Guthrie.

I don't write songs about a specific, elusive thing. I write about love, and everyone knows what it is like to have your heart broken.