I've written so many songs about Englishmen, I have to go elsewhere.
I know that people don't listen to music much in the way when they'll put on a CD, sit down, have a drink or go on a car journey. People pick and choose and just listen to tracks. But when I make a record, I try to think about it as a 50 minute musical journey, so the mood is very important, as is the sequence of the songs.
Of all the songs I've recorded, 'Amarillo By Morning' always sticks out in my mind.
If you are speaking about my own songs, I would think so because we were talking about that particular era and I was singing one of my songs that I recorded 50 years ago.
Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren't as strong as some of the others, so you look better.
I didn't write those songs, but I can relate to every one of them... I have.
At 93, so deep in dementia that she didn't remember any details of her life, my mother somehow still knew songs.
The one thing that concerts have done for me is given me the opportunity to get back to sort of do songs that I want to do. It's about enjoying yourself.
The opportunity to record the song came when Phil Collins' record label, Atlantic, was doing a tribute album to him and they asked all these different artists to do renditions of his songs.
Country music's really good about telling a story, so I want songs that tell good stories where people can say, 'That happened to me!'
Anytime I hear songs that are so honest, whether they make the person who's singing it look good or not, there's a level of honesty that resonates with people.
Getting to do 'December Songs' in a cabaret-style format was so interesting because it's like a one-woman song cycle that actually tells a story. It feels like a theatrical experience more than a cabaret because I didn't talk in between. We went from one song to the next, nine songs in a row - bam - I told the story in half an hour.
You've got to separate the singer and the songs.
Even though other people wrote my songs I put my stamp on them. I have a connection, but there is no truer connection than an artists and their own song.
The easiest songs to write are pure fiction. There is no limit to how you can tell the story. I find it difficult when I'm replaying an event through a song.
I didn't want to repeat my mistakes so I stopped, took some time out and started having therapy. My songs were bringing up feelings inside of me I didn't really understand, so I wanted to understand where they were coming from to help me be a better person and a better songwriter.
The best vocalists I can think of are female. There is no singer I can think of who can touch Ella Fitzgerald. And when Billie Holiday sings, she's merciless about it. Her voice has just this immaculate sadness - even in happy songs, there was something that was so broken about it.
I do remember actually learning chords to Beatles songs. I thought they were great songwriters.
I love songs that tell stories. They make you feel something, something real.
I don't want to be famous or recognizable. I don't want to be critiqued about the way that I look on the Internet... I've been writing pop songs for pop stars for a couple years and see what their lives are like, and that's just not something I want.
I was supposed to go see Led Zeppelin when I was in, like, the 8th or 9th grade, and then John Bonham died and I never was able to. For me, music is such a huge part of my life, and I use songs like memory triggers. So a lot of my memories of being a kid and growing up are associated with different songs.
I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.
I knew Bobby Dylan back in the days when he lived in the village. He used to come and see me and sing songs for me, saying they ought to go into my next collected book on American folk music.
It doesn't take long to make catchy songs. That's not my problem.
That's where it begins and ends for me and these songs were the ones that touched me the deepest. It was like I was laying hold of some part of me that I didn't even know was there until I let it out.
I'm in a difficult position in the sense that, preposterous as this might sound, I don't like being the centre of attention. I get up on stage every night and play songs, but I almost feel the songs are the centre of attention. I don't like opening my birthday presents in front of people, either.
It's a big flash of all these things and whatever you take out of that statement's one statement, one mind, one statement, one act, one show, and all the songs are one.
First you date the songs, and then you get engaged and then you marry them. They have to stand the test of time, because they are going to be yours for the next 20, 30, 40 years. So you had better choose right.
It doesn't take me long to write songs.
When I was five my parents bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I quickly learned how to play it with my father's guidance. Thereafter, my father regularly taught me all the good old fashioned songs.
Writing the songs and producing the songs and arranging them and recording them is your canvas and your palette and your brush.
To have a body of work is a blessing - when you have songs that have been around generation after generation that they call timeless music, you can work that for a long time.
My grandmother passed at 104. She sang and wrote songs until she passed.
It's nice to see people invest in what you do as an artist and sing the songs back at you and feel something. You get to feel something more than what you were feeling when you made the record.
Deep Purple definitely belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 'Cause they had great songs, great musicianship, they had an impact, and they're a huge influence on the heavy metal community as a whole.
I think I write funny songs that make people kind of, like, stop what they're doing and be like, 'What did you say?' And then it makes them laugh a little bit.
