I've written songs for Shirley Bassey, Marianne Faithfull, and Linda Thompson. I sort of focus on these wonderful, aging divas. But maybe that's because I think I'm Christina Aguilera.

I bemoan the fact that all my famous friends have places in St. Bart's and I have to go to Montauk.

The mind has so many pictures Why can't I sleep with my eyes open? The mind has so many memories Can you remember what it looks like when I cry? I'm trying, trying to tell you All that I can in a sweet and velvet tongue But no words ever could sell you Sell you on me after all that I have done.

The moment something happens to one you love, it's twenty times more intense. You experience pain and enlightenment on a much vaster scale.

But I don't even think you hear me at all Under your medieval ceiling behind your biblical wall

I strive for what you do find in Shakespeare's work - that there is a definite humanity and a definite character behind the writing in the sonnets, and it's very real because it's so deeply personal. I try to aspire to that in what I do.

I have an ounce of Lady Gaga's full-bodied ambition.