It's the emotion...each word has got a connotation and symbolism and the thing is finding what's behind the word-what meaning it has and what emotion. I'm really into vocal repetition as a definite art form.

I'd been performing in bands since I was 12 which represented, at that point, about 16 years of playing music.

That song [You Got To Make It Through The World] came from a vibe I picked up from an old blues singer named Bo Carter. My lady was making a film as a thesis for U.C.L.A. and she wanted me to write a song to depict this character. The movie had something to do with bootlegging and stuff like that. I found this Bo Carter record and he was just saying something about making it to the woods or something like that.

There's a million things that come through when you put songs together and it's kind of difficult to pinpoint exactly what triggers it on every occasion. It's just like somebody writing a screenplay or something like that.

[Rock 'n' roll] is still a primitive form and there's no way you can get away from that. It's one of the primitive art forms and that's why it's good and that's why it's lasted...you know, it hasn't become sophisticated and it's not in the opera house.

I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first.

Shivers up and down my spine It's a feeling so divine Let me go back for a while Got to go back for a while To that magic time.