People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.

The best songs just come unasked for. You don't have to think about them. Summer is a good time for songs.

In my songs, I try to look through someone else's eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message.

When the punk thing came along and I heard my friends saying, I hate these people with the pins in their ears. I said, Thank God, something got their attention.

I don't think people care about the mechanics of songwriting.

Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.