People ask me how I make music. I tell them I just step into it. It's like stepping into a river and joining the flow. Every moment in the river has its song.

A song is a mantra, something you repeat over and over. We need peace, we need giving, we need love, we need unity. I want the whole world to sing this song.

Each song is a child I nourish and give my love to. But even if you have never written a song, your life is a song. How can it not be?

I get an audience personally involved in a song - because I'm involved myself. It's not something I do deliberately: I can't help myself. If the song is a lament at the loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss myself and I cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the pain that I feel.

I can't see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That's terrible.

The most important ingredient to making a song work is the magic. You've got a melody, you've got words, but on the more successful songs, there's a sort of magic glow that just happens and you can feel it happening. It just makes the songs sort of roll out.