I didn't want to just be another girl singer. I wanted there to be something that set me apart.

I sacrifice in my love life and my social life, but those things will be there in three or four years. This is a really important time in my life. I can't just be the girl who sang 'I Kissed a Girl.' I have to leave a legacy.

I was always keen to do a solo album. I just wanted it to be the right time and the right place so that I could actually work properly on the songs that I wanted to do before I got too old.

All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble.

Every record I've made, I convinced myself that I had so much to prove, so it had to be about everything that ever happened, everything that's happening now, and everything that could ever happen.

Forget that blind ambition, and learn to trust your intuition.