I want to let everybody know that I'm from there, and country is Tuskegee. Or should I say rather, my country is Tuskegee. I was born and raised there, it's not just someplace I passed through one day.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When people ask me where I am from, I never say Serbia. I always say I come from a country that no longer exists.
Where liberty is, there is my country.
People are asking us, 'Why have you gone country?' And we say, 'Man, we were born country.' They gave us the tag 'Southern rock' years ago as a way of not saying country.
It's very important to me that people see I am an American and I was born in the States.
As I tell young people in workshops, 'It's your country. If you came here on the bottom of a slave ship, if your people came here seeking political freedom - however your folks got here - it belongs to you just as much as it belongs to anyone, so claim it. It's your birthright. America belongs to every person who is here.'
I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.
In a funny way, nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not.
The question about my Canadianness comes up a lot, and I'm never quite sure what to say about it. I've carved a life out for myself in Oregon, and it feels like home, not because it's the States but because that's where my friends are and where my son is.
If anybody asks me where I'm from, my first inclination is to say, 'Washington,' because that's where I grew up meaningfully.
When people ask me where I am from I never say, 'Serbia.' I always say, 'I come from a country that no longer exists.'