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

I don't know how many thoughts we have a second, but it's quite an amazing number, and just to pin down the appropriate sequence of those, all you really need is a pencil and a piece of paper.

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

I find it hard to take rock groups very seriously or treat them with respect. There is something absurd about these gloomy young men getting together and banging away.

The United States is a country where everybody can start again.

I think that pop, and to some extent rock, are like sport and fashion industry in that they're about the exuberance of youth. That's the sort of subliminal ideology.

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.