I conceived in art college at the age of 20, near the end of term.
All romantics meet the same fate some day. Drunk and cynical and boring someone in some dark cafe.
My first four albums covered the usual youth problems – looking for love in all the wrong places – while the next five are basically about being in your 30s.
If I’m censoring for anyone, it’s for my parents. They are very old-fashioned and moral people. They still don’t understand me that well.
My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I’m a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, ‘Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!’ and I took that as a great compliment. That’s exactly my intention.
We have a war dictator who was not elected, he snuck in. so he punishes people that threaten him in any way, or even say something he doesn’t like. It has no resemblance to democracy.
You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you’re still young at heart.
When I came to California, it was the mecca of the world. Every young person on the planet wanted to be here.
What I do is unusual: chordal movements that have never been used before, changing keys and modalities mid-song.
The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music.
Paul Simon started piling up a lot of words, more than the bar could handle, and I stopped!
Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.
My name had gone stale, and no matter how progressive I got, it was my time to die.
I sang in art school, just to get money to smoke.
People used to say nobody can sing my songs but me, they’re too personal.
A few drinks later you’re not so choosy when the closing lights strip off the shadows on this strange new flesh you’ve found.
They used to laugh at me when I refused to ride on all those double decker buses, all because there was no driver on the top.
Innocence is drowned in anarchy. The best lack conviction given time to think, and the worst are full of passion without mercy.
Elusive dreams and vague desires fanned to fiery needs by deadly deeds of falling empires.
We’re captive on the carousel of time, we can’t return we can only look behind.