In an interview with Radio.com, Black talked about his music, from his past hits (which made him one of the biggest and best-selling country artists of the 1990s) on up to his current project and beyond (he's planning an album of all new material in 2014). He touched on the stories behind some of his most recognized songs, such as his current album's title track, an earlier version of which earned him the ACM Vocal Event of the Year in 1999.

Black also explained that he writes all of his material, both now and dating all the way back to his 1989 debut single, the No. 1 smash "A Better Man," which he penned with Hayden Nicholas. Watch an early performance of the song:

Writing all his own material, Black explained, went against the grain of how much of Nashville operated in the late '80s and 1990s, when he was swiftly gaining recognition as one of the most popular artists on the country landscape, thanks to albums like Killin' Time, Put Yourself in My Shoes and The Hard Way.

"Nashville has a very different way of approaching the making of records. I didn't really fit into that way. I am a songwriter first. I start with the song. I make my records. They or I, one of us were backwards to the other," he said.

Black said that often artists, their A&R department and producers work together to find songs to record. He, of course, wasn't utilizing that system.

"There was a lot of pressure for me to be a part of that," he said. "I always had so many songs written each time I went into make a record. That made me weird or a misfit, and for years I wondered, 'How does the songwriting community that I respect and admire, who have written some of the soundtracks to my summers, how do they view me as a songwriter?'"

It turns out they all respected him. One songwriter complimented Black and said they all wished he would run out of creativity so they could write some songs for his records.

Black was driven to write at an early age after his father would explain the liner notes to him. He said nine times out of ten, under the title of a great song Merle Haggard recorded, Haggard wrote it himself.