Heartache is very fertile ground for song-making but so is happiness, so is absolute bliss.
I’m nearly 50. I’m past being photographed falling out of bars.
It was kind of easier for me to do records that didn’t take a year or two years of my life to write and to make.
I often say fame is kind of like a drug or like sugar: when it’s controlling you it doesn’t feel good at all.
I think I was a singer before I came out of the womb. I also think that the way you live your life, and the choices you make parallel what doors open up for you.
It’s just a theory really, but I have always thought that your physical surroundings can shape your voice and personality.
We’re in a period where society seems very attracted to flash, and that seeps into people’s musical taste.
Television really has been my vehicle. I don’t get played on the radio much, so I’ve relied on TV a lot.
Traveling renews you.
There are days when I still want to be able to do what I want when I want, but there’s also something wonderful about being secure.
I think I don’t sing as hard as I used to sing. I used to kind of hit the accelerator a lot back in my youth, but now it’s just being able to control it, and not work it so hard and use more of an emotional or sub textual kind of approach to singing.
I started singing when I was five. I grew up the youngest of four kids who all studied classical piano, so you could say I’ve been listening to music ever since the moment of conception.
My public image is so low-key, but I get to travel the world and still have an audience and it’s really amazing. I don’t take that for granted.
There needn’t be a distinction between your life and your music.
I think that the older I get and the more comfortable I get with myself, the more I realize that art is about relinquishing control of your emotions and being vulnerable and innocent.
As a songwriter you have an umbilical cord to the song and it’s hard to expand on your understanding of the lyrics. Whereas when you cover a song you can create your own reason why you’re attached to it.
To dance is human, to polka is divine.
I don’t consider my homosexuality a political thing. I consider it a sexual and spiritual thing. I only started going to political rallies to meet women.
I think masculinity is bravado against the mystery of the universe of women. It’s just a fear of not knowing what women have that’s so powerful. It’s this shield they put up to try to get closer.
I just try to speak passionately about things I’m involved in and moved by.