I've had my ups and downs, and I definitely have a sense - in America, especially - that once you've made your mark and gotten your Rolling Stone piece and your Grammy nomination, that they're on to the next piece of meat, and they don't necessarily like to follow the twistsand turns of an artistic career. Throwing an opera at them is something they have to notice. There's nothing subtle about it.

I definitely have a Luddite's approach to what's going on. I find that as I get older, I get stupider.

I'll be honest, I worry sometimes about what I've done. I have tied my whole person to my art and, whatever it takes to get that hook, I will go there and do it.

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

For me, the iPhone is harder than reading Faust.

The song is about knowing the end result of every situation you're in, and being able to play it out in your mind and see it before it happens. It's about addiction, really, about knowing how it's all going to end up. In that sense, you're watching a movie of yourself all the time - and then you want out of that movie.

My parents were serious working musicians, but they were not stars - not like pop stars that you have now. They had to make a living and that meant touring, working hard, going on the road - and we were roped in.