If a song can't be written in 20 minutes, it ain't worth writing.

There's this process that comes about in writing a song where you just stop and see where it can go. Generally, a song will stay with the same idea. I might be thinking about a particular person, for instance. Then it will kind of go from there. And maybe by the end of the song, it will become something more universal.

I know that song writing is probably the most mystical of the things that I do, in a sense that I'm not sure where it came from or how it started. It's something that I just knew how to do. It's something that just happens.

I think one of the things about writing in the studio is that the song hasn't matured, if you like, so quite often the vocals are early attempts. Whereas once you've taken it out on the road a bit, you learn more about a song.

I open up a big cabinet, and I have a collection of helmits. I put on the different helmets, and I take tree bottles of Robitussin and drink them really quickly. Then I set my hands on fire-I have to write whatever comes to mind pretty fast, before my hand burnsoff." "I just let whatever comes out, comes out without thinking about it to much. Some of it I keep, some I toss out, some of it I turn into giant cigarettes and somke 'em. I think everybodu should just turn off their TV machines and make up their own songs about whatever comes to mind-their couch, their friends their loaves of bread. Everybody's got their own songs. There should be so many songs out there that it all turns into one big sound and we can put the whole thing into a pickup truck and let it roll off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Set your guitars and banjos on fire and before you write a song smoke a pack of whiskey and it'll all take care of itself.