It's four in the morning, the end of december I'm writing you now just to see if you're better.

Undertow" "I set out one night When the tide was low There were signs in the sky But I did not know I'd be caught in the grip Of the undertow Ditched on a beach Where the sea hates to go With a child in my arms And a chill in my soul And my heart the shape Of a begging bowl

As soon as anybody does one of my songs, I rejoice. This particular case of all these great singers doing my work - the implications are very rich and the temptation to think of the outcome of these masses of the mainstream injecting my work into the marketplace, it's a very sweet speculation.

Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love.

We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made. In love we disappear.

It's inappropriate for an elderly chap to register, you know, authentically, his feelings, you know, because they really can be interpreted. So you have to get quite covert as you get older. Or you have to find some avuncular way, you know, of responding.

We are awakening from the dream of isolation, from the dream of loneliness, and it's a terrible shock.