As far as songwriting, my inspirations came from love, life and death, and viewing other people's situations.

John could write a mean song. He had a lot of venom in him. Whereas I had a happy childhood.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

At art school, a teacher said: 'The best paintings are when you get lost in a piece of work and start painting in a stream of consciousness.' I wanted to do music, not art, so started writing lyrics that way. The first song I wrote was called 'Ice Cream and Wafers.' The next was 'Holding Back the Years.'

I don't write songs about a specific, elusive thing. I write about love, and everyone knows what it is like to have your heart broken.

A song is like a dream, and you have to make it come true. They're like strange countries that you have to enter. You can write a song anywhere, in a railroad compartment, on a boat, on horseback -- it helps to be moving. Sometimes people who have the greatest talent for writing songs never write any because they are not moving.