I wish my memory weren't so bad. They tell me it's from all the football and boxing and the concussions that I got.

There's a time where people were out holding posters in protest outside shows I was doing, and thankfully, we've moved past that. And a lot of country stations wouldn't play me. They were more conservative than I was.

I never was one to go into an office and write. For one thing, I had a job. I was cleaning the ashtrays and setting up the studios at Columbia for a couple of years and working every other week down in the Gulf of Mexico flying helicopters. I didn't really get to just write songs for about five years.

Human rights is something that wasn't hard to be inspired to write about because there have been so many violations of those rights.

I'm an activist for gay marriage equality and children's rights. I'm the face of Share Our Strength.

You're not going to hear me sing about being on a tractor or being married... because I don't know anything about that.

Although I'm sure she's completely charming and delightful, I'm not sure if Kate Middleton might be the best role model. This is a person who has got where she is by marriage, a person whose weight, clothing, hair we worry about - we don't worry about what she's thinking.

One day I was in Starbucks going through one of my books on accounting, and this beautiful young woman came up to me and said, 'My accounting book is different from yours.' Her name was Joyce, she had a background in finance and administration and ran a surgery center. Within a short time, we were married.