Growing up, there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast.
My earliest memories as a child are listening to Beatles records, and they are a big part of how I've learned to write pop songs.
To look for some kind of insight or meaning in pop songs is not really - well there's plenty of other places where you should probably look first before you start looking for it in a pop song.
The kids out there want something they can relate to, something that's real; most of that whiny stuff isn't real. The cheesy pop songs just bore me to death.
That's what is so great about being able to record a 13-song album. You can do a very eclectic group of songs. You do have some almost pop songs in there, but you do have your traditional country, story songs. You have your ballads, your happy songs, your sad songs, your love songs, and your feisty songs.
Anyone would be embarrassed of what they did at 15 or 16. I listen back to that first record, and I'm like, 'Compared to what my contemporaries were doing, it was crappy.' You listen to an early Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera song, and they are great pop songs. I just don't feel like on that first record I got anywhere near anything great.
I don't want to sing boring pop songs - I want to sing songs that are meaningful to me.
I don't really have a favorite pop artist - I just listen to some pop songs here and there. Mostly, though, it's Beyonce and show tunes.
I see songs not as a commodity used up when the album goes off the charts, which is often the case with pop songs. I see them as a body of work. Life should be breathed into them.
I don't own an ABBA album, and I never had the urge to go and buy one. If you're just talking about well crafted pop songs, they were fantastic.