“What started as a whisper Slowly turned into a scream Searching for an answer Where the question is unseen I don’t know where you came from And I don’t know where you’ve gone Old friends become old strangers Between the darkness and the dawn”

The music is in the lead here, and a large part of this, I have no idea what I’m doing. I feel a closer bond with the craft of songwriting, stronger than I ever have.

Could’ve sworn I heard you say Amen this morning, showing some kind of sign that you believe. Did it fall from your tongue without warning? Or just another trick to fall from your sleeve?

Fearlessness, absolutely. Discipline. You also need open-minded creativeness that lets everything in. You never want to lose a word or a phrase, yet every one should count. Always the best language possible. And, finally, knowing when to leave it alone. Stop when it’s done.

It’s not easy for a mother and son to sing a duet. You can’t just sing about anything.

My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center.

Every single time I step into the studio, I say, ‘Can I still do this? Do I still have it? Have I ever had it?’ I suppose there’s a good amount of self-loathing that goes into any form of artisanship.

If I fall, I fall. I’ll rise up like anybody else.

You can kill a lot of time if you really want to put your mind to it Or leave it all behind and never really have to go through it

Let us burn one from end to end, and pass it over to me my friend.

Don’t be discouraged by writer’s block. Writer’s block just means you need to listen to other music.

Don’t let what you have to heal from blind you to how much there is to heal for.

I can change the world With my own two hands Make a better place With my own two hands Make a kinder place.

The woman in you is the worry in me.

As long as the songs are strong, I think you can express yourself in any style and have it be soulful and have it be your own voice.

I refuse to age disgracefully in rock ‘n’ roll.

I’m not going to do the Ben Harper house record or the Ben Harper drum ‘n’ bass record.

For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing.

When dawn comes, that memory gradually distances…Tonight, I will bring it to sleep with me, so that will not be taken away by the waves of the night.

Across the curve of the earth, there are women getting up before dawn, in the blackness before the point of light, in the twilight before sunrise; there are women rising earlier than men and children to break the ice, to start the stove, to put up the pap.

The petroDollar system breaking down, where oil is no longer paid for in Dollars internationally.

We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.

Do not be small minded. Do not pray for gourds and pumpkins from God, when you should be asking for pure love and pure knowledge to dawn within every heart.

No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.

What have they done to the earth? What have they done to our fair sister?