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.

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

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.