I'm an extremely slow worker, very unprolific. It can take me weeks to do a three-minute song, or at least to make it sound, in my mind, like I haven't written it. That's when I'm satisfied.

I felt that in order to do what I wanted to do, I had to do certain things, and one of them was to have a hit in my own right. At least one.

Elvis Costello had a brand new bag. He was a musician, but he knew all about the attitude part of it.

I'm playing to the sort of people who like the same records.

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

If anyone comes along, I'm more than happy to welcome them, but I'm not interested in world domination.

And religious music and the sort of symbolism of it and everything. But I had this idea. Actually, I sort of dreamt it. I woke up - just before waking up one morning, I sort of dreamt this song or the idea of it and the first little bit of it. And I jumped out of bed and I thought, well, you're still asleep. You're going to forget this in a minute - you know, like you do when you've had a dream.