My Mother set me on the right track, Marty Robbins made me want to write songs, and Jesus Christ did the rest.

One reason I quit doing interviews after years and years and years was because I was making things up.

I am a simple vessel with complex overtones, opinionated on occasions but willing to listen. Comfortable with reclusiveness and devoted to privacy and family. Patriotic to a fault and allergic to cruelty, ignorance and bad music.

Lincolnshire is the Idaho of England. You were either going to drive a tractor for the rest of your life or head for the city to work in a factory.

My mother's father taught English literature. When I was about ten or eleven, I could recite Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' While other kids were playing pedestrian war games, I'd be Horatius keeping the bridge.

Elton John's home is laden with trinkets and books relating to Satanism and witchcraft.

The worst thing about me is that I'll buy albums and put them away on the shelf and forget that I've got them.