I think a lot of people have an idealistic view - if you grow up in the country, there can't possibly be anything wrong with you.

I long ago learned that you can't expect people to interpret the songs in the way they had meant for you, as the writer.

Maybe I'm just purely lucky. If I've come up against obstacles I've always found another way around it.

I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.

Most of the stuff that I do talk about, about being counted out and being an underdog, 'cause that's what I feel like I am.

I've always been very politically interested from a very young age and I hadn't felt that was something I could begin to bring into my songwriting because I hadn't felt I'd reached the stage, that I had the skill with language enough, yet, to do that.

I try to see as much dance, theatre and films as I can because all of it feeds me in a way that I need feeding for what I do.