Why can't you write a great pop song when you are 85? Maybe you can.

There are some songs where I'll have had the music for 20 years and then finally the lyric will come through. That's not common but it does happen. Then there are other songs that come really quickly.

Things change when you learn to loosen your grip. I think one way and the future is desperate. I think another way everything is in sight. Trees bend so branches don't have to break. We mend the wounds of our last mistake... I live one way holding onto the fence post. I live another way sliding off into space. Each life is loosely assembled... Birds swim, fish do fly. Proud man begins to cry. Birds swim, fish do fly. Things change, so why can't I?

Weave me a rope from this dark despair, from this dull-eyed pain... Weave me a rope from this endless night, from this distant shore... Weave me a rope that will pull me through these impossible times.

I think quite a lot of people have a friendship or a love that's gone like that and it never quite reconciles properly.

Why can't you write a great pop song when you are 85? Maybe you can.

I've got kids now and they will constantly pull you into the here and now - they are very present and very vivid.