Pastoral Resources

My oldest son, Gary, is a seasoned minister and travels with me for ministers' conferences.

I usually have an idea of how I want a song to sound, but I don't always know how to get there.

I mean, whose songs don't focus on tragedy and loss?

I feel a lot more comfortable being me these days. I'm constantly told that my work is good. A lot of fans and a lot of other artists say my songs and albums mean a lot to them. Isn't that what's important?

I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken.

We just did a few takes of a song and just picked the best one. It was real organic and genuine.

Some of their best songs don't have bridges and choruses. So that made me think I should trust my instincts. My songs were okay, I figured. I didn't need to change anything.

The old jazz singers or old blues singers, you always just saw them kind of sitting down and singing. They weren't worried as much about their voice sounding perfect. They would make the song kind of fit their voice.

I named all my children after flowers. There's Lillie and Rose and my son, Artificial.

The day my son was born my life changed completely.

The experience of creating my adventure games was, other than marrying my husband and bringing into the world my two sons, the most fulfilling, wonderful experience I ever had.

I don't like giving names to generations. It's like trying to read the song title on a record that's spinning.

Quit shouting those rerun songs at me.

I don't really think about having had a hard life. It was just my life, and it's all I knew. It made me who I am - all the good and bad - and it's where all of the songs on Here For The Party came from. I've lived them all.

I'm always imagining some sort of story behind the song, even the ones I haven't written. I'm actively engaging in playacting.

Everything I do is collaborative. It's just my way. I'm really very interested in how the other musicians perceive the song.

I like 'Bewitched' off the first album because it's one of the happiest songs I've ever written and, as any writer will tell you, happy songs are a million times more difficult to write than sad songs.

The longer one is alone, the easier it is to hear the song of the earth.

I'd also say having Jack's son Chris living with us from his 13th year on helped in raising Rick.

The songs were really complicated. I used to meet people in bar bands who were trying to play our songs and they were really struggling with it. Technically it was really difficult stuff.