Writing is not work. In fact, theres nothing better. Writing is something that if the music business went completely away tomorrow - radio stations quit existing and music quit being popular and it was old hat - I would still write songs.
In the years that Ive seen concerts, when Ive paid to see somebody I want to see, there would be a certain amount of songs Id want to hear. So whether its stuff I want to play every night or not - or stuff Ive been playing for years or stuff you get tired of playing - you have to play what people pay for and make it fair for them.
Writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking my eyes. It's an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought.
My first gig, I was about 17 or 18. But I'd been singing a long time. I got a guitar when I was 8, and started trying to write songs as a teenager.
Through the years I've accumulated this big bag of songs. When I go out I do close to two hours, and it's all just attitude - and up-tempo. I've accumulated so many of those types of songs now that the show just gets off with a bang, and I'll only do two or three ballads the whole show.
My fans have been very loyal to me, so I want 'em into the mix every song. I don't want 'em having breaks on stuff I'm trying to push on them.
I loved both [Bob] Seger and the Eagles, knowing why they didn't play some of the songs I wanted to hear. But at the same time, they covered all the big bases, and the stuff that most people had heard. But they definitely had a bunch of album cuts that I wanted to hear that they didn't get around to.
If I hear a conversation and somebody says something intriguing, my first thought is, Is that a song? I write all year long, and at the end of the year I pull these forty or fifty things out and say which of these things do I want to record.
I've written 90 percent of the songs in my career, on all my albums.
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