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'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.

I suppose I was waiting until I was old enough to have some sort of experience to sing about. When you're young, it's hard to sing the blues. Nobody believes you.

To a certain extent, yes, we do. But there's - but there's a very limited menu. There's only about sort of 20 songs that you hear on rotation.

When somebody like Elvis Costello comes along, anybody can make a good record with him.

As soon as one of my records goes on, it makes a vast portion of the public nervous. They get spooked by it. To some people who have ears to hear, it's a delightful, refreshing change. But to most of the public, it's a load of homemade-sounding nonsense.

So you can be about your business, and then on it comes again. And this time you're ready, and you've got a wine glass or something. And you put the glass up to the wall, and you can hear through the wall a little bit more of the song - maybe just the middle bit this time. You know, you managed to get in a little bit of the end. And so it goes on until - because you just got to - you really just want to sing it.