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Naturally, no one knows more about music than musicians. They talk about their own work all the time, but they rarely get to talk about other people's music.

I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we're totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.

Everybody is bound by some social rules. But I think that artists need some kind of freedom to explore their minds and that some of them tend to take that freedom to live a little more openly or a little more dangerously, sometimes a lot more self-destructively, than other people.

If everyone in the music business were brutally honest about what their intentions were then you could sort things out, but it's all smoke and mirrors.

Every artist has to make their own statements and they have to live with them.

The thing about a music career is that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Look at all the times people threw in the towel on Dylan - or Neil Young. Remember when Young was doing things in the '80s like 'Trans' and the rockabilly album and being completely lambasted by critics who now think he is wonderful again?

Most artists, you know, you spend their entire lives learning how to play music and write songs, and they don't really know how the music business works.

For a lot of pop performers, fame and celebrity is part of the job. But for singer-songwriters, no one really cares.

Most of my arguments with musicians through the years have had more to do with their attitude about music, or their attitude about their own lives, or their personal responsibility. Music has never really been the big centerpiece of the fight.