One woman I interviewed, Amanda Ghost, said, "Let's not bullshit, there are no women at the top of the music business, and that is a serious problem." And I said, "Yes!" And I didn't shy away from saying that. But I still don't want to be in the firing line. I'm not clever or witty or brave enough to get into the political nitty-gritty with it.

The female psyche is inherently self-sufficient, because female sexuality is inherently self-sufficient. I think women are maybe more comfortable, or women are able to find physical beauty in each other that doesn't terrify them.

I read a lot by female psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé, who wrote prominent biographies of Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud because she studied with all of them. She had this unbelievable insight into contemporary psychoanalysis. What is so interesting is that she wrote her life, and she knew that her life would be about these men, and it didn't stop her from leading an incredibly successful academic career. But her strange self-awareness that she was going to bookmark these men's lives is really interesting to me.

One woman I interviewed, Amanda Ghost, said, "Let's not bullshit, there are no women at the top of the music business, and that is a serious problem." And I said, "Yes!" And I didn't shy away from saying that. But I still don't want to be in the firing line. I'm not clever or witty or brave enough to get into the political nitty-gritty with it.

My songs are not pretty. They're what I call optimistic realism.

If I don't have an outlet in which to express myself...throug h songwriting or other mediums...I get a bit jittery.

I remember my father playing me Same Situation when I was a nipper, and saying how nobody since has done melodies as well as Joni Mitchell. I concur. The thing that most affected me was just her resonance, and that is something she must have been born with.