I'd want to read the stories that I'd written, I'd want to show the drawings that I made. That was just purely natural. So I knew I wanted to go into the arts in some way and that I'd want to show that work in some way.

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.

I tried to use words that were dealing with the emotional quality that any human being could recognize in the way that they felt about their country. It's to do with the world we live in. That world is a brutal one and full of war. It's also full of many wonderful things and love and hope

But huge photographs of dead bodies are slightly different. I couldn't find much humor there.

I think that's always very valuable: to keep the mind open to receiving all sorts of information, which can then be used in my work, but also just as a human being.

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.

It varies, I don't think there is any one set way of writing songs or coming up with ideas, it comes in so many ways you know.