Everybody's talking about the President, we all chipped in for a bag of cement.

We live in hope of deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us

I think it's something to do with the structural quality of the songs. We weren't actually trying to make stuff that was cool, or of the moment, although a lot of it was. We were trying to make stuff that was good enough to stick around and lo and behold, it has.

I feel like the sixties is about to happen. It feels like a period in the future to me, rather than a period in the past.

It was a period when they used to read into our lyrics a lot, used to think there was more in them than there was.

Bach was so mathematical and I liked this idea that you could have one instrument going, 'One, two, three, four', and then you have another instrument going, [double time] 'One, two, three four', and another instrument going, [doubled again] 'One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four', so you could add twos and fours and eighths, and that happens a lot in Bach.

The Stones also still have a huge following. Mick Jagger leaps around like a crazy dude. And Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts are playing great too.