I create because it makes me connected to something larger than myself.
Even if I'm doing a show and there's five people in the audience and the sound system is terrible - I mean, it's been a while but I've certainly done those kind of shows where it's just every conceivable thing is against you - you still have music. It's still something that's real whether there's five people in the audience or a hundred thousand people in the audience. And that's always been there for me.
There's so many different ways humans have used music to express the spiritual part of our nature and to connect us with the divine. So for me the pathway is through music.
I do feel a connection to the divine and to the infinite.
You are connected to something very much larger than yourself. And that's a beautiful thing.
Music has always felt very real to me.
I try to stay in gratitude as much as I can. You know, we all get to the point where we're frazzled, or tired, or frustrated, or whatever it is, but I try to take those moments and realize that I do have so much to be grateful for, and allow it to send me back to those feelings of gratitude and just live in gratitude as much as I can.
This is something I think that blues music, or folk music, and all those particular genres that have a perspective about life deal with - where the difficulties of life are seen as something that are very natural and nothing to be embarrassed about, and something that we all go through; something that's part of our share of humanity. And it accepts those difficulties and pain as such. I think there's a wonderful forgiveness that can come over you, if you have that perspective on it.
How long have you been sitting in the darkness? You forget. You know you're getting hard to be with and you're crying every time you turn around. Oh my crazy baby, try to hold on tight. Oh my crazy baby, don't put out the light. And your hands are shaking something awful as your worries crawl around inside your clothes.
It's very reassuring and spiritual to be connected with something larger than yourself and the inside of your own head.
I try to bear pain and not panic. I try to remember that it's got an expiration date, even if I don't know when that expiration date is. And I try to use it as fuel for my work.
Singing is a f***ing blast. When it’s really good, it’s as good as the best sex. I get nipple erections all the time on stage, I do!
With me, it's so eclectic and all over the map that no one knows what to expect, ... It may not be a great career move, but all these things - singing with the Funk Brothers and the Dead, singing a Dolly Parton song - is great. I'm welcome to all these different worlds, and that's been wonderful.
If you're stuck in a situation that's painful or there's something that makes you angry, it can enable you to step back from your own experience of it and realize that this is just a part of what it is to be human. It can allow you to accept it a little bit more and make you feel like it's less unfair.
I think I had a tendency to get stuck inside my head and go to some very dark places in my mind, and get stuck there. I couldn't see a way to get out.
It's not just something that you do intellectually when you do music. You do it with your body, and you do it with your emotions, and you do it with every part of yourself. It engages your mind as well, but engages all parts of yourself.
If you listen to soul music, or R&B music, or Blues music, a lot of that came from church music and spiritual music, and music has always been a really really powerful tool that people have used to get them closer to God - whatever they define God as. And for me that's always been part of what drew me to it and keeps me coming back for more.
Through music I've discovered other philosophies. Buddhism in particular is one that has always - whenever I've studied it and read about it, it's just been so true to me. And I do try to take some practices of that into my daily life. Whether that's meditating or trying to see the world from that perspective.
The interests behind fracking are very powerful and they've managed to control the dialogue for a while, because they have forced people to sign disclosure agreements; people who have had negative experiences who are not able to speak out because they've signed disclosure agreements with the gas companies. Things like this. They've managed to strangle the opposing viewpoint, but it does seem like the people who are against fracking have started to gain some traction and the realities of what an environmental nightmare it is are starting to become known.
We've been together so long, I hope it just wasn't the drugs.
Being an artist is not exactly the most universally respected, or secure thing to do with your life. It can be frightening and you can feel that you're taking a lot of risks just with your own life, and your family's security. But the rewards outweigh those things.
I make myself suffer with a lot of self doubt.
I feel like I'm getting better as a writer and as a singer and that there is more to discover there, so hopefully other people feel that way too without having to disassociate with the earlier work.
I do think that it's a challenge for me or for anybody who has had certain iconic things happen to them in their career to re-engage people and say that there's still more to discover. And also to have that confidence in yourself that you still have more to bring.
Oh, deeply vulnerable as a woman - to love someone not knowing whether they love me in return.
