Creating a decent pop song is a challenge - and occasionally, once in every decade - it's kind of fun to do that.

It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs.

I don't listen to a lot of music any more and even the people I've loved for years - the Nick Drakes of this world - I can't go back to them and listen to them over and over.

I'm obsessed with books.

Sometimes a little compromise isn't a bad thing. You don't need to be precious about it.

I knew that I had to find my own voice, both figuratively and literally.

The public so often want to freeze the artist in a moment in time when they were at their peak, and they want the artist to revisit it over and over again as if it was something authentic.