I like duos with percussionists. I like the songs that percussionists sing.

Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.

I'm not much into current electronic stuff, what I think of as lounge electronics, mumbling electronics.

I think the blues is fine for blues players, but free blues has never made much sense to me.

In the absence of that, I am happy to play solo, but I don't think there is any comparison.

I like duos with percussionists. I like the songs that percussionists sing.

I've always liked the effect of having somebody in there who hadn't the faintest idea what was going on.

I don't research anything.

Playing music is not really susceptible to theory much. Circumstances affect it so much.

I think playing solo is a second rate activity, really. For me, playing is about playing with other people.

For me, playing is about playing with other people.

Nowadays, I really like playing in studios.

I wouldn't want to be ideological about it but I think of it as being the best way to approach this kind of playing. I don't think it works in other music, other kinds of playing.

For me, Company is still the best way for me to work.

Personally, I've found one of the more stimulating ways of playing in recent times has been to kind of move outside the free improvised area and work with people who are probably improvisers but they have a particular way of working.

In fact it's quite gratifying for me to see some of the people who really objected to this method of working now being quite so profligate in their use of it.

Solo concerts are murder, I find; I don't like doing them.

I have always been attracted to the cottage industry side of this business.

I am reactive.

Even if it is difficult playing with other people - sometimes it's great, sometimes it isn't, but that is kind of the point of it. It loses its point playing solo.

Personally, I've found that the kind of thing that I like is going into somebody else's area and not playing their music but doing whatever I do in their area.

I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.

Then I decided I couldn't just crawl in the corner and die, so I started putting pen to paper and wrote some songs. I had no idea what for or who I was going to work with. I tried to find my way and direction.

The things in my songs are the edited highlights of my life. I don't go seeking out strange sexual experiences every day of the week.

The way you look for songs, you find yourself looking for little signals and clues about life and how things are.

All my songs were solo voices. Just me singing. In fact, that was the gimmick - no gimmick. Just singing straight with not too much background.

It's part of the calling to at least do a few songs in the show that give people some hope. There's so much hurt in this world and... music is such a great healing balm and a great way to forget your troubles.

Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.

My vocal ability is very limited, but I'm fortunate in that I can write the songs around my vocal limitations.

I've written many extra verses to songs that I learned to sing - an extra verse about a friend, or just add some verse - and that led to writing my own songs.

When I heard his first songs, Dylan was answering certain questions that I had all my life been asking myself.

The bands that wrote the big, heroic rock songs - I really wanted to make a record like that.

Every time the guys were knocked out by my guitar playing and the girls were knocked out by the type of songs I did. That set us apart from the average blues band.

This is an album of songs that I've always loved, tunes that I heard. For the first time in 53 years of recording, I really had control over an entire album, start to finish.

All my songs are where I am.

That's what I like to do, I like to make songs.

We would turn everything into songs in those days.

Sometimes, but the year I lived in France I started to write songs.

Writing songs has a therapeutic effect, and it either kills off love or wins the heart of the lover.

I had deeper, more reflective songs on the first album.

I don't think you need a record deal to write songs. You don't need any other reason than you want to do it. It's a far cry from why some people do music today. They make it to order, which is pretty horrible.

The process depends on the situation, and I don't think there are any two songs that have gone exactly the same way... well, actually, that's not true.

I didn't want my last chapter to be the guy who sits at the piano and sings love songs.

We had been working. We had a bunch of songs written and it came time to make the record, so we had our lawyer make the call to Elektra and ask for our advance. Then, we got dropped. It was actually exciting.

People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.

If you only do little clusters - three or four songs by one, and another, and then yet another - you lose the opportunity to think your way into the composer's mind, since, after all, most of these pieces are quite brief.

I remembered their songs but I had never owned a Beatles album.

I was growing up listening to Queen. Freddie Mercury threw those incredible melodies into his songs.

It can get a little costly if you try and leave it until then to write songs. But you're writing all the time. You're collecting songs. I've had songs that have been collected over a two-year period for my next record.