In fact, when the fires of empire get hidden, they still stay burning underneath the moss, seething away. This is true with a lot of the countries with really difficult, impenetrable nationalist movements - countries that once had a big empire, like Turkey, England, or even in Italy, with the fascists in the middle of the last century. People who had empires, unfortunately, want them back eventually, somehow, someway.

I was a latecomer to politics. Maybe I'm just very slow. I got to everything when everyone else had left.

What I like about popular culture is its accessibility, and I've covered popular songs because they are amazing things.

Anybody who thinks pop music's easy should try to make a pop single and find out that it isn't.

We've all got to earn a living. And writing songs is what I do. But when I've done a record, it's not that I think it's better or worse than anyone else's, but if I think that nobody else would have done it if I hadn't, well then that's ok.

I get slightly irritated by people who say they're natural rebels because it just means that they're going to be against whatever anybody does, which is almost like saying you might as well leave it as it is.

This constant pressure from record companies to come up with a hit single or something like that, I find completely tiresome.