I vacillate between feeling grateful for what I have in such hard times for the music business and being frustrated that I haven't moved up more quickly. It can be dispiriting to play the same small clubs tour after tour. You think: "When am I going to get to theatres, maybe even arenas?" But maybe that's not on the cards for me, maybe I don't have a wide enough appeal. Most days, I am happy to have the best job in the world.

I vacillate between feeling grateful for what I have in such hard times for the music business and being frustrated that I haven't moved up more quickly. It can be dispiriting to play the same small clubs tour after tour. You think: "When am I going to get to theatres, maybe even arenas?" But maybe that's not on the cards for me, maybe I don't have a wide enough appeal. Most days, I am happy to have the best job in the world.

It's what is strange about doing a job that is also the thing you love, the thing you feel passionate about. People get to the point where they're burned out and disillusioned by the whole thing because when things aren't going well at work it also means they aren't going well in your heart, in your soul. They're all wrapped up together.

I went to a boarding school when I was 13, and it was a very arty school, so there was an opportunity for a lot more. I joined a band and so on. We would do concerts at school, and I would play cover tunes and thought, 'This is really great.'

I used to listen to my dad a lot as a way of trying to be close to him, as well, because my parents were divorced and I didnt spend that much time with him. I used to put head phones on and listen to my dad talk and sing and kind of had a weird bonding in a way.

I remember writing 'The One I Can't Have' at the kitchen table. I was looking at a picture of Truman Capote with Marilyn Monroe and that's where I started. It doesn't make any sense because he was gay, but it was just the idea of the short guy and the beautiful blonde out of his league. That's where I started, but very quickly it became about me.

For a long time I was trying to be poppier and younger. I didn't want to be on public radio or do any of that stuff for older people. Then I realized that that is exactly what I listen to.