Music is a kind of magical thing, and you can't make magic every time, but you try. Every once in a while it has that magic, and the audience knows that. I probably miss it more than I hit it, but I think that's what all musicians try for.

When Eric Clapton cut 'After Midnight,' he sold so many records and it was so big at the time, I decided that I would pursue the songwriting thing. I was 34 years old at that time. I'd been down the pike and back before I had any success at all.

You don't really need a lot of hype and to be famous to sell songs.

I love the rabbits and the squirrels and the birds.

People said my records were 'funky' and 'muddy,' but the truth is they were just demos.

I'd like to have the fortune, but I don't care too much about the fame.

I'm a background person.

On the 'Escondido' album, I think it took us a month to make that album.

I basically make my living writing songs, so I've been able to go around in my trailer. If I got tired of a place, I could move on and roam around. It's a nice environment for writing songs, as opposed to sitting at a recording studio console all day.

The only albums that I have personally named were 'number 5,' 'number 8' and 'number 10.'

That's the nice thing about songwriting: You don't have to punch a clock or be in a specific place to do it. There's really a lot of freedom to it.

I generally, you know, I don't - I don't really scat. I'm - I'm basically a songwriter so you need a little lyrics that rhyme and stuff.

I try and manufacture recordings to sound spontaneous. Then, some things are spontaneous.

Widespread Panic discovered a couple of my songs and started doin' 'em on the gigs. They'd take a song and expand it and everybody plays a long time and people really like that. But I made my living as a songwriter so I try to get to singin' and get it over with.

Makin' records is one art form and playin' live is another. It's like the difference between makin' a movie and doin' theatre.

When you get successful, the money comes in and pretty soon you've got to hire an accountant, you've got to get up early, and then you've got a day job.

I tried to play anything people would hire me to play, because I was a musician.

My music's gotten much more famous than me.

As the years went by and technology came in, I used a lot of technology.

Working in bars back then, in the '50s, to get a job you had to play all kinds of music. There'd be customers come in and yell jazz tunes at you and yell rock 'n' roll tunes at you and polkas and rhythm and blues and country music.

People have heard my music, but all my famous songs were made famous by somebody else... But that was my goal.

I was a late bloomer in the music business.

When they say, 'Well, you gotta do some interviews on TV,' I went, 'Oh, I like to watch TV, but I don't wanna be on it.'

There's a couple of songs of my own I wished I'd have never put out, that, you know, I'd like to burn. But with the advent of digital and computer, nothing goes away any more, you know.

What my whole object was is not to really sell records. I was trying to sell songs.

I sing and play guitar, but songwriting is how I pay my rent. And so I didn't really need a lot of publicity to get people to record the songs.

That's kinda what happened to me: I listened to jazz, country, R&B, rock 'n' roll. And when I sat down to write a song, I had all these influences comin' through.

I make my living writing songs and, you know, I'm not a show biz kind of guy.

If a guy came up and said 'we got a polka band and we're going to play polkas next Saturday night' I'd play polkas.

I'm not a household name.

Basically, I'm just a guitar player that figured out I wasn't ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing. So I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.

I remember when I made my first album, I was 32 or 33 years old and I thought I was way too old then.

I'm so old, I can remember before rock 'n' roll come along.

What's really nice is when you get a check in the mail.

I've never sold a lot of records.

I think it goes back to me being a recording mixer and engineer. Because of all the technology now you can make music yourself and a lot of people are doing that now. I started out doing that a long time ago and I found when I did that I came up with a unique sound.

I stopped a lot of people who wanted to shove me into the real big time. Your ego wants to say, 'Hey, I'm somebody, man,' but I knew there were many days when I just wanted to be John Cale.

Clapton was just picking up ideas. He picked up some of mine like I picked up some from the people before me.

Send me the money and let the younger guys have the fame.

I've always enjoyed being a Gypsy.

I'm a great believer in freedom of speech.

I consider myself a songwriter... I guess the business end is my songs and the fun part is playing the guitar.

Yes, I've been down the pike and back. And through the years, I've heard different songs with scatting in it, and it was - always cracked me up as kind of a funny style of music, you know? When I did it, it kind of cracked me up as a comedy kind of routine.

Probably the only thing that I really don't like about being an old guy is so many of the people who understand what we know are gone.

That's one of the problems in being a songwriter and living a long time. What you eventually end up doing is you start imitating yourself.

If you write songs long enough, you run out of material that's original to yourself.

Oh, I'm not a very good singer, and that's 'cause I was always embarrassed about my singing.

I was mainly a songwriter; I really wasn't much of a performer.

There are entertainers and there are musicians, and I never was an entertainer.

All record companies want big-selling records, and my music is a little too raw for commercial success.