A song is like a saddle: you ride it for a while, and if it's the right kind of song you can sing it for the rest of your life.

In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money.

I won't say I've closed the door on acting.

Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking.

If you don't mark your successes, the day your ship comes in could be just another day at the office, and there's no poetry in that.

I only ever really take out my guitar when I'm miserable, which isn't necessarily a very good time to do it.

Certain songs have a life, and certain songs don't. A song is like a saddle: you ride it for a while, and if it's the right kind of song you can sing it for the rest of your life. And then other songs are only really important for certain periods of your life, and you move on from them and find yourself not necessarily needing to sing them anymore.