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

First off, I think nudity is taken differently in America, though they did make a fuss in England, too.

I'm not an autobiographical writer, but I am a writer who deals with human emotion on all levels.

Some things lend themselves well to songs, some things don't, and I'm learning that a lot at the moment. It's still a relatively new way of writing. It's only really the last five to 10 years that I've taken my writing seriously in this way, as something I can keep working toward. I think I feel myself much more before as simply a songwriter.

I get to a point when I've collected together enough words that seem like they want to be songs rather than poems, or sometimes not.

I don't like things to be handed to me on a plate; that means nothing. I like to go through layers of unraveling and every time I listen to something, it makes me feel something different. Now I'm aware of the conflict that's going on, but at the time I just let what was happening happen.

Folk music was to strengthen and unify people, whether it was through an uprising and rebellion or whether is was through hard work, bringing in crops. But it was to strengthen each other and that's still what music is about today.