I don't think songs are magic. I don't think you could write the perfect song and change the world. But everything contributes. We all have opportunities to change peoples minds, and I think a lot of that is cumulative. You have to hear alternative voices a lot sometimes for something to sink in, for there to be a shift. As songwriters we should be speaking up. But everybody, in whatever their work, has an opportunity to speak up. I think it's that cumulative effect that will put all of us together to make that change.
... [Writing protest songs] is hard to do, I guess, that's one reason why everybody's not out there doing it more. I find that political songs are the hardest. You know, it's really hard to take something so big that is infested with words that are very pedantic ... you take a word like "capitalism" and "patriarchy," and try to make music out of it. It's much easier to make "love" and "trains" and "stars" [into songs], you know, that s**t just flows. But when you're trying to really speak to political issues in a song, it's very tricky writing, I find.