I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest.

I'm just a very primitive, infantile folk singer.

People have habits about what they think songs should be like. There's the folky thing of: "Poor me, I'm a sensitive person in a cruel world." Or the pop thing of: "Hey, look at me, I'm sexy."

People say, oh it's a shame, you're not nostalgic about the '60s. Well actually, it's quite good, when you think of it. Wouldn't it be sad if I was sitting here wishing it back?

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.

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.

We did not get any money from the early records. It was all taken by crooked managers. It is just a gangster's paradise.