I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

When I want 30 musicians in the orchestra, I get 30.

I don't try to make 15 musicians sound like two each.

I'm not an intellectual composer.

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers.

In a sense, a hit belongs to the person who made it popular, but if a tune is good enough to attain tremendous success, then it certainly deserves more than one version, one treatment, one approach.

That was when the Spanish came in and conquered the Aztecs. I thought that was a clever thing.