You go back and look at some of the ancient writings that exist throughout the world about wars and it's the same; the human beings' articulation of events is the same. That really fascinated me.

In the same way, I write some of my more difficult pieces when I'm at very happy stages in my life.

Everything from a lifetime's worth of collecting things. You know as we go through life, and something stays and ends up on your shelf and lives there until you die? Just those little things.

My mom is a sculptress.

I've always felt profoundly about what's going on in the world on a daily basis. What I hadn't felt was that I was at a point in my writing career where I could write about these things in songs and do it well.

I'm a very private person, so obviously I don't enjoy talking about more personal matters. But at the same time I care very much about my work and I would like people to know that it exists. So I appreciate that there's a meeting point, where I would like people to know about the work that I'm doing, and that requires me to talk about it.

I think I'm a maker of songs, and songs are like films or a picture: You put them over there, and they have nothing to do with you.