In my early shows, I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge. I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do. The cathartic part was in the essential act of singing.

What I'm trying to do is just sing what comes to my body in the context of the song. And if you go by the emotion of the song, it's almost like stepping into a city. Cities have certain customs and rules and laws you can break, and that's what I was doing.

A song just doesn't have verse-chorus-verse. It could just be one line. There are Chinese love songs that you have to learn one melody for a three-minute thing, and nothing ever repeats. I like that.

All music industry places are the same, really. They have the same dynamics and the same concerns and the same needs.

I started writing when I was 13. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13, but I'd always been singing. I had my first little acoustic when I was six. But I started being in bands when I was 13.

The music comes from within and outside. Within is the big mystery of life; we've all got it.

There was a time when I stopped singing, between 16 and 19, but that was done on purpose, maybe as a punishment, maybe as a cure.

Critics try to pin so many different inaccuracies on me and my music; they look at the complicated things and try to simplify them. They think they can nail your whole life down just by knowing the bare bones of your history in partaking in 10 minutes of conversation.

I don't want to do any more covers. It's good to learn to make things your own, but the education's over. 'Grace' is putting a lot of things to rest.

In my early shows, I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge.

The Smiths hasn't been equaled. That goes for the composition of the songs, the lyrics, and the performance.

I've always felt that the quality of the voice is where the real content of a song lies. Words only suggest an experience, but the voice is that experience.

I resent the fact that a parental warning sticker has to be included on an album as cover art. To me that's censorship.

I made a statement all my own.

I'm convinced I got signed because of who I am. And it makes me sad.

I've already created my own thing.

I figured if I played in the no-man's land of intimacy, I would learn to be a performer.

I disoriented myself from everything about being a human being and just played and played and played and sang and sang and sang.

The only goal is in the process. The process is in the thing with little flashes of light: those are the gigs, the live shows... it's the life in between. That's all I've got.

The thing about a music career is that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Look at all the times people threw in the towel on Dylan - or Neil Young. Remember when Young was doing things in the '80s like 'Trans' and the rockabilly album and being completely lambasted by critics who now think he is wonderful again?

When I sing, my face changes shape. It feels like my skull changes shape... the bones bend.

'Grace' is basically a death prayer. Not something of sorrow, but of just casting away any fear of death. No relief will come - you really just have to stew in your life until it's time to go. But sometimes, somebody else's faith in you can do wonders.

I think that all people are many people. I think all people have many, many, many different souls inside, and they just shift from one to the other.

I do like structure, and I'd love to be better at it.