I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.

I just wanted to have a look at my whole musical career, get right back to when I started and why I started doing it in the first place.

I'm still basically the same as I always was. I still listen to the same people. That's where I'm coming from.

[You Got To Make It Through The World] it's kind of a survival song. Survival is what's happening and it's basically a song about that.

You are who you are. It doesn't make any point to go out and buy the Top 40 albums to see what those acts are doing. There's no point in hearing what's going on. The only thing that's going on is what's been going forever. It's just that some people dig that bag and some people dig the other bag.

The fact I wasn't getting off made me realize that I really had to take a hard look at it and at the type of music that I played, which ranges from ballads to country type stuff to rock and rhythm 'n' blues. It takes in a wider spectrum.

I realized I was growing up or something like that. You have responsibilities...you've got to think about getting your act together. I didn't even know what it had been doing to me. I didn't realize how dangerous it was. People talked in terms of drugs and I used to think in terms of...well in Ireland, everybody drinks. Nobody gives it a second thought. You're Irish number one and you're a drinker number two. That's the first two things about us Irish.