It's so interesting to me how songs take on a shape and body of their own and grow.

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've been so used to being supported by musicians, and I don't class myself as a particularly adept musician on instruments. I think I'm a songwriter.

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 really don't pay too much attention; I don't go out of my way to read any interviews.

My father is actually a quarry man - he deals in stone. He also at one point had a lot of sheep, he owned a sheep farm, but primarily the family business was in stone.

Some people, like Leonard Cohen, write one album every 10 years, and labor over a song for five years at a time.