I spent a lot of time playing in miserable places that were not a lot of fun. Somebody once said it is character building and I was like: My character is just fine.

So much of what we do as artists is a combination of personal experience and imagination, and how that all creeps into your work is not so linear.

The best advice my mom ever gave me was that you have to talk about your emotions. If something upsets me, she'd say, 'Get mad about it; it's healthy for you,' and I could feel like: Good; now it's over...next!

You know, we recently played a benefit with my husband, Elvis Costello, and Sir Elton John, who is a mutual friend of ours. Playing with Elvis and Elton and accompanying them with my band was a pretty euphoric experience.

My dream as a child was to play with a bass player like Ray Brown, who played with the Oscar Peterson Trio. The feeling I had listening to his work was almost carnal, so to actually play for him was earth-shattering for me.

I think that I was being much more uptight about those things before. I feel like I really don't have to prove anything at this point other than what I'm doing.

Sometimes I can't get out of the character because the story is very intense.