The first song that I ever recorded was written by my mother.

Each song is a child I nourish and give my love to. But even if you have never written a song, your life is a song. How can it not be?

Everything in life is not all beautiful, not all fun. There is lots of killing and drugs. To me, a perfect album talks about the hard stuff and the fun and caring stuff.

I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, 'Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we'll talk.'

Sometimes people ask songwriters what a song means, not realizing if they had more words to explain it they would've used them in the song.

A song is like a dream, and you have to make it come true. They're like strange countries that you have to enter. You can write a song anywhere, in a railroad compartment, on a boat, on horseback -- it helps to be moving. Sometimes people who have the greatest talent for writing songs never write any because they are not moving.