When I was growing up, I was always looking for the most willfully uncommercial music: Whether it was Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa or King Crimson, that's what attracted me.

My fifth record is, in many ways, inspired by the hugely ambitious progressive pop records that I loved in my youth.

There are certain topics that I've come back to time and again throughout my career. On 'To the Bone,' there are certain subjects I have touched on before.

It's always lovely to discover that the people that you kind of look up to are actually very down-to-earth people.

Studies demonstrate that as gaps are being closed between men and women - in access to education, in health, even in economic participation - the most difficult gap to close is in political participation. Somehow that sharing of raw power, political power, remains very illusive.

Just eat less and exercise more.

I believe that if you're healthy, you're capable of doing everything. There's no one else who can give you health but God, and by being healthy I believe that God is listening to me.

My son died from cancer. My granddaughter died from cancer. I have a lot of reasons to think that reality is not a friendly neighborhood. And the stories that I tell distract me, and if I do the job right, they distract people from things that are happening to them that they wish had never happened.