I was sensitive to music and poetry, and it was around me growing up.

I am so sick of reading about another car bomb, another suicide bomber, another 10, 20, 30, 70, 100 people dead in a day, both Americans and Iraqis.

Well, the first year I lost my voice I didn't mind so much because I was going to have a baby and I was distracted with him anyway, I didn't even think about it that much, well, OK, this is what's happening.

Celtic music is part of the language in Scotland and Ireland, where every kid and grandparent knows those songs, music by the likes of Woody Guthrie and Hank Snow is getting entrenched here. They are part of our cultural language. It's part of a living treasure. It doesn't just belong to a museum.

Yeah, I was in the phase for the last ten years or so where every record I made I said OK, that's the last one, I don't want to record anymore, I don't want to do this any more, I don't want to have a public life.

More and more, I see myself as a folk musician, and someone who values context.

I was a songwriter; that was the torch I carried. This is an honorable profession. This is what I do.