I continue to believe, contrary to the given wisdom, that it's more interesting to have an album - or, indeed, an individual song - which has variety rather than homogeneity.

Being used to scientific terminology and theory it was always natural for me to push this stuff into songs.

I continue to believe, contrary to the given wisdom, that it's more interesting to have an album - or, indeed, an individual song - which has variety rather than homogeneity.

It costs so much to promote something these days that almost always safety is the preferred option, reference back to things which have been successful in the past. Also, people are simply not given the time to develop and find themselves and their audience as we were.

Actually I think Art lies in both directions - the broad strokes, big picture but on the other hand the minute examination of the apparently mundane. Seeing the whole world in a grain of sand, that kind of thing.

Seriously, these days I tend to shut up in terms of external analysis and DO try to let things speak for themselves, while still trying to get some depth into them.

So I, for one, didn't feel alienated by what happened in 77.

Marc Almond has done a couple of covers, a few people in Europa have done them. I own all the publishing. It's never really been addressed, as I haven't had the time to go out and tout the songs.

I had then and still retain an interest in science for its own sake and as a metaphor for our current lives.

The crucial question one comes back to is the examination; without that experience is meaningless. And I think it's true that society is becoming more and more passive, less and less fired up with enthusiasm, in many spheres.

The passage of time is a continuing thing. At 18, you're going to live forever, and you are definitely not at 52, so that is a recurring topic. I still think it's the main stuff.

I do flip between being chatty and argumentative - and being a psycho-loner werewolf.

I had a vision of myself as a novelist because that was where I could be serious. I couldn't with music.

I suppose, in a way, one could say I may be less interested in my career than the audience is. Not to mean that I'm disinterested in my career, but I don't see it in terms of one stepping stone or, 'Now I'm going to go into my blue phase,' or what have you.

I'm not sure that Jesuits ever produce faithful Catholics. Because they're too fierce. It is Sturm und Drang, and it is guilt - it is all that battlefield stuff.

If you're going to have a heart attack, mine was the kind to have. I'm thankful that it hasn't affected my output or my capacity to perform. And it has given me a lot to think and write about.

More people seem to know the Van der Graaf Generator material than my solo work - thanks, I suppose, to their parents' lingering vinyl collections.

My dictum has always been: 'This show is happening just here, just tonight, with these people who are in this hall, and nobody knows what's going to happen until it's done.'

My mother was from West Bromwich; my grandfather was Pakistani. I had an aunt who started trying to trace the family tree and stopped when she saw what turned up.

There's always a Van der Graaf audience that wants to hear the band's sound. And totally fair enough. Why not? It's a band. You like the band, you like the band.

To be honest, I don't know really what I do on stage.

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

I guess a good song is a good song is a good song, ya know.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.

The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.

Peace Train is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions of human beings.

I love listening to Radio Head's 'Everything in its Right Place' because it's all major chords, it makes you feel really good. It's soothing, it's got a beautiful voice, crazy textures. When I'm down I listen to that song and it really makes me feel good.

I've always wanted to sing, just as I've always known that one day I would have my own niche in the annals of song. It was a feeling I had.

I have eighteen titles in the German language. I had a number one song in 1965.

Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold half a million copies.

There's a lot of rage... you have to express it somehow. If I didn't express it in song, I'd become incredibly violent.

I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high d is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

It's like, it's up to the people to fall in love with the song. The record company can only do so much.

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.

I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken.

A song has to become as much a part of you as a tailored suit.

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

In an age of incompetence, I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job.

The only thing that's a little tricky about it is sometimes people assume that if it's a new song, it's a reflection of what you're feeling or going through now.

When I write a song, it's all about the riff - the riff first, then the words come later.

There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

Song Sung Blue took a lot of compressing and refining, and it has one of my favorite lyrics.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

Each member does whatever they want with the song and it totally changes it from whatever idea I hear around it. It turns it into a Sonic Youth song and completely away from it being a solo song.