Until You Expose The Cancer, You Can't

It Was Always So Hot, And Everyone Was So Polite, And Everything Was All Surface But Underneath It Was Like A Bomb Waiting To Go Off. I Always Felt That Way About The South, That Beneath The Smiles And Southern Hospitality And Politeness Were A Lot Of Guns And Liquor And Secrets.

The Good Lord Bird Don't Run In A Flock. He Flies Alone. You Know Why? He's Searching. Looking For The Right Tree. And When He Sees That Tree, That Dead Tree That's Taking All The Nutrition And Good Things From The Forest Floor. He Goes Out And He Gnaws At It, And He Gnaws At It Till The Thing Gets Tired And It Falls Down. And The Dirt From It Raises Other Trees. It Gives Them Good Things To Eat. It Makes 'em Strong. Gives 'em Life. And The Circle Goes 'round.

I'm Trying To Educate People About Things That I Believe Are Right, And Some Of The Things That I Believe Are Right Might Not Be Right, So I Live In Constant Self-doubt. I Think That Creates A Kind Of Search That You Have To Have, And It Prevents You From Doing A Lot Of Stuff That You Would Normally Do.

The Act Of Choosing What To Place In Your Piece When You're A Historian Or A Non-fiction Writer Already Renders It Into Fiction For Someone Else. In Some Ways Fiction Comes A Lot Closer To Reality. When You Start Talking About Something As Brutal As Slavery And Life In The American West, It's Really Important To Take A Non- Judgmental Stance. We Romanticize A Great Deal About Life In The American West, But I Thank God I Wasn't Living During That Time. No Matter What Color You Were, It Was Rough, Crude, Tough Living.

There Has To Be Some Mystery In Life, Because The Joy Of Being A Writer And The Joy Of Being A Musician Is The Joy Of Discovery. I Don't Want Someone Discovering For Me What I Should Be Discovering On My Own. If A Person Is Discovering For Me, Then They're Living For Me. It's My Responsibility, Indeed It's My Privilege, To Go Out And Discover The World For Myself.