Leave your thoughtlessness behind you then you may begin to understand. Clear the emptiness around you with the waving of your hand.

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

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.

In the gentle evening freeze, by the whispering shady trees I will find sanctuary in the Lord.

Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play.

The wild night is calling.

What was happening with me, with the album [A Period of Transition], with the people who took the pictures, the record company, everything, getting a new manager [Harvey Goldsmith]-it was all saying a period of transition to me so that was the title choice. It says what it is and obviously nobody is going to analyze that. It's exactly what it is.