If Paul McCartney tells me that so-and-so song is his favorite song, what do I care? What do I care what anybody else says?

What I do isn't black music, it's just my music.

Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters.

I was a pioneer in MTV and I was there from the very beginning. So I saw how that developed and how loose it was and how much fun it was in its looseness. And I was influenced a lot by that.

I have an English family and I've lived in England for years.

Any song I don't feel good about, I shelve. Anything you ever hear me sing, it's because I want to.

I'm in the trenches; I do the best work I can always do. Having said that, the way that what I do converges with the outside world is fascinating to me. Because it ebbs and flows. People's interest and understanding, it changes all the time.