You can't stay the same. If you're a musician and a singer, you have to change, that's the way it works.

The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.

[The music is about ] for the purpose of getting people to an excitement level. They feel something, they feel emotions. They're going to go home after that concert and remember it.Maybe they got something out of the experience rather than intellectualizing about what songs mean which is the whole head trip.

I educated myself. To me, school was boring.

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.

Go up to the mountain, go up to the glen, where silence will touch you, and heartbreak will mend.

Men come, men go, all things remain in God.