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Black people lived right by the railroad tracks, and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy, and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that.

My dad was a truck driver, and from the time I was knee high to a grapevine, I was driving a truck.

I was raised around music.

I was in my late 20s, in the process of shaping my musical outlook and what I wanted it to be about, when I first encountered Woody Guthrie.

I was reared on folk music.

When I got outta High School I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis, Memphis.

Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.

What is that song that Willie Nelson sang? 'Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few.' I think of that. No big deal. I've reached a stage in my life where I am content.

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

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.