Im not, by nature, a collaborator. My biggest influences were people like painters and poets. These are solitary workers.

I would encourage people to realize that you don't have to panic if you're not part of a mainstream, or if you find yourself outside the flow. If it doesn't suit you, don't go along with it. Just sit it out and get your stuff done. Don't just sit moaning or getting drunk—I spent some years doing that. But if you can just come up with something of your own, however minor it is, that's going to be easier to live with when you're at the end of your life.

Potentially, America is really the greatest, but it's not yet, I don't think. It's too much like an old-fashioned empire, waving the stick and dropping too many bombs on too many people.

There are a lot of composers who were fantastic, but I challenge them to write a record that you could play five times a day for two months on the radio, songs that people will want to dance to on a Saturday night.

Those nations of artists, finding their own individualism, and kind of standing against the world: to me that's the ultimate nightmare. I want to get lost and diffused in the world.

I looked at what adults were doing and how they wanted to earn money, and I really didn't want to do that. I wanted to go away.

I'm not a soldier for anything, either. I'm only a singer and I don't think it makes a difference what we sing.