The most effective instruments do have a vocal quality.

The missing links in my life's work, no less!

I only choose musicians who I think will emerge, can emerge, with their own character, while still going along with the tune in question.

Because of my politics, people think I'm anti-American. But I was quite the reverse. What I don't like about the United States is when the government acts like an old, imperial 18th- or 19th-century European power.

I stopped drinking a few years ago, and drinking was a big help with me making music, because drinking gives you courage. But it also makes you reckless, and that's the trouble. You can get away with that your 20s, but not in your 60s, and I'll be 70 next year. Life is a small space now, much more intimate. I'm not out there in the world anymore, but I'm watching.

There's no field of music which doesn't have good ideas.

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