When I find a cover song that I like, I'll work away at it until I kind of believe that I wrote it.

The older I get, the more I think it's this listening. You listen for it, and you have a bit of patience. And it'll come until it sounds - to me, the best songs I've written, I think, are ones that I can't hear anything - any of myself in it. It sounds like a cover song, like somebody else's song - really something you've stolen wholesale off a radio that you've listened to in someone else's flat.

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip.

The older I get, there doesn't seem to be anything remotely more interesting than talking about love and the lack of it and what happens when it's taken away from someone who's had it.

You've got to really know your song, inside and out.

What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

I've always felt kind of like an outsider, even when I was very successful back in the old days. Even then. I kind of enjoyed it, really.