["A Deal with God"] was the first single off Hounds of Love. I'd put a lot of work into putting that album together and I wanted it to have every chance.

Chips of plutonium are twinkling in every lung.

Nobody really knows, do they? They told Stephen Hawking he only had a year left to live and how many years ago was that? You can't know it all.

School was a very cruel environment and I was a loner. But I learnt to get hurt and I learnt to cope with it.

With some of the songs, we brought the pitch down to alto.I'm older, so naturally my voice is lower now.

It's a real joy to be moved by something, but it doesn't happen often to me.

The thing with 50 Words of Snow is that it was literally back-to-back from Director's Cut [also released in 2011]. It was more or less that I got to make two albums in one hit. I was already in this space in my mind to be writing and making an album.