Time and time again I can't please myself.

We waste a lot of our lives sometimes. There are people sitting across from us who would make the whole world better if we spent more time with them in it, but we can't get across that gully.

I have a lot of problems understanding connections between people and how to negotiate that. It makes everything hard offstage.

But what you realise after you've been in the business for a while is that people develop opinions about you that don't have anything to do with your music, they like or dislike you for a million reasons, they like or dislike you for your last record.

Losing fights, or even winning fights, can be heartbreaking, and you can throw that away, but the truth is that it does make our lives better.

A long December and there's reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last.

For me, songwriting is something like breathing: I just do it. But that doesn't mean you're fantastic.