I remember when I was very young, I read an article by Fats Domino which has really influenced me. He said, ‘You should never sing the lyrics out very clearly.
I love country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously. I also think a lot of country music is sung with the tongue in cheek, so I do it tongue in cheek.
I always think it’s better to be not taking drugs or drinking or anything. That’s not saying I’ve never done it because I have. But I sort of learned I think after a while there has been – it didn’t take me that long to realize that it wasn’t a good thing.
The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the early ’60s, and I was coming out of it. America was even more ordered than anywhere else. I found it was a very restrictive society in thought and behavior and dress.
Music should elevate you. You can be raised, or left stranded. You can’t be raised all the time, in my experience. This might be a rare moment. You might just go up to that level but that’s always good.
I’m not the businessman. I don’t deal with the business at all. Not anymore. Occasionally, every four years or five years, they tell me I’ve run out of money, I have to go and make some more.
