I don't really do Japanese interviews. I don't think there's much call for me in Japan.

After a while, you just don't do things you don't wanna do - that's the great freedom you get, the older you get. You learn what to do and what not to do, and what will be a waste of time and what won't be a waste of time.

I always thought my records were number one; it's just the charts didn't think so.

I've had to try and find a way over the years of writing narratively that doesn't really require you to sit down and work out what the story's about. You're brought into a sort of sequence of images that have that emotional resonance, but it's kind of irrelevant what the actual story is. It's taken me maybe 13 albums or something to work that out.

And she moves among the sparrows. And she floats upon the breeze. She moves among the flowers. She moves something deep inside of me

I have to be able to see the thing that's going on that I'm writing about, or else it just doesn't make any sense to me.

I don't like those songs where you have to listen to a story to get into them. I don't want to have to pay attention to music in that way, I just want it to hit me in the heart and do what music's supposed to do.