I grew up with a very big extended family, with a lot of aunts. We had about five or six houses on one street.

My image had always been very heterosexual, very straight. So it was a nice experience for me, a chance to clarify my own feelings about gay and lesbian civil rights.

I was in my late 20s, in the process of shaping my musical outlook and what I wanted it to be about, when I first encountered Woody Guthrie.

All the music I loved as a child, people thought it was junk. People were unaware of the subtext in so many of those records but if you were a kid you were just completely tuned in, even though you didn't always say - you wouldn't dare say it was beautiful.

If you listen to the great Beatle records, the earliest ones where the lyrics are incredibly simple. Why are they still beautiful? Well, they're beautifully sung, beautifully played, and the mathematics in them is elegant. They retain their elegance.

Settle back is to settle without knowing.

Sometimes I do an automatic songs, songs that you don't really think about, or work on. You just look back and it sorta surprises you.