Eventually I would like to reach the stage where I don't have to write about love and kisses and all that stuff. I wish I could write about really ultimate things. That's where I think all of us want to go, really. All the groups seem to be heading towards a kind of pop music that deals with ultimate things.

The basis of everything that I plugged into when I was younger was blues, and it always stayed with me.

I tried to reach the combatants with my music. I tried to turn my anger into something positive. Myself, and others like me, just tried to keep rock and roll alive.

I used to hang out a lot in jazz clubs, and the groups took to a kid like me who wasn't afraid to get up and sing with a jazz band. Then I started to hang out in rock clubs and learned to carry off different styles.

In the day-to-day life of a traveling musician, it's easy to miss so many details. The world goes by at high-speed; it will take your breath away.

I'm really still a child of the Forties. I still think about it a lot, about the repercussions of armed conflict. Until 1953 we had rationing. We couldn't buy meat, we couldn't buy pleasurable goods like cigarettes and sweets. I didn't starve - my family were lucky - but I knew what it was like standing in line waiting for foodstuffs.

Everything I do - if I do it, is going to be personal.