Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
But I don't have a very good track record with royalty. My dress fell off in front of Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust, so I'm just living up to my reputation.
Music is like comedy in that you can enjoy a very - for want of abetter word - sophisticated classical piece as much as you enjoy something that's very simple pop.
I've read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don't think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time.
My father was always playing the piano. He played all kinds of music - Gershwin, all kinds of stuff. He was really a hugely encouraging force to me when I was little.
When you'd buy vinyl, you'd have this lovely-sized object with a lovely picture, and you'd read the lyrics and usually there was something artistic that went with it.
Sometimes when I look back on myself on those earlier records, there was so much effort going in, so much trying. With this, I was trying to make it much more laid back.
I have a theory that there are still parts of our mental worlds that are still based around the age of between five and eight, and we just kind of pretend to be grown-up.
I think in some parts of our English history we've had huge amounts of almost too much great comedy. You kind of wonder how so much great work could come out of one country.
I don't know about hiding away, but I really only like to present myself when I'm working on something - it's more my work I like to present to the world rather than myself.
I don't read newspapers, and I've said I don't watch the news. I love books, but I don't read much. What I do is I get people to read to me, and I put the stories in my head.
I suppose the worst case scenario is that people will get to the point where they can't actually afford to make what they want to make creatively. The industry is collapsing.
You have a different audience. Your personal energy is different because some days you're energized, some nights you might be tired so that affects your memory and your emotion.
For "Running Up That Hill" we had worked with a drum machine [in 1985]; the basic rhythms of "Running Up That Hill" happened because the whole track was built on a drum machine.
It's not that I don't like American pop; I'm a huge admirer of it, but I think my roots came from a very English and Irish base. Is it all sort of totally non-American sounding.
I feel like I have to do some promotion to let the people know that the records are out there; but I kind of like the idea that it's my work that does the talking rather than me.
It wasn't that we were afraid of the Church or the Vatican. The record company thought people might find the title offensive. They asked me if I would change ["A Deal with God"].
I think it's almost a law of nature that there are only certain things that hit an emotive space, and that's what was always special for me about music: it made me feel something.
We have a female prime minister [Theresa May] here in the UK. I actually really like her and think she's wonderful. I think it's the best thing that's happened to us in a long time.
Originally, when I wrote the song 'The Sensual World' I had used text from the end of 'Ulysses.' When I asked for permission to use the text, I was refused, which was disappointing.
I love the whirling of the dervishes. I love the beauty of rare innocence. You don't need no crystal ball, Don't fall for a magic wand. We humans got it all, we perform the miracles.
For me, having a child is a really great responsibility because you've got something there that is depending on you for information and love until a certain age when it goes to school.
When I was singing "King of the Mountain," it was a pivotal point in the show. That's the song that took us from this concert setting of individual songs into the theatrical narrative piece.
It's not that I don't like American pop; I'm a huge admirer of it, but I think my roots came from a very English and Irish base. Is it all sort of totally non-American sounding, do you think?
I suppose I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person, and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world.
I have to say I find it totally astounding that my albums do as well as they do. It's quite extraordinary, and it's actually very touching for me for the albums to be received with such warmth.
When I'm writing I've been playing something for a couple of hours and I'm almost in a trance. At two or three in the morning you can actually see bits inspiration floating about and grab them.
I was writing from the age of 10, and I was never really into going to discos and dances and stuff. I never told anyone at school that I did that because I feared it would alienate me even more.
When I'm writing I've been playing something for a couple of hours and I'm almost in a trance. At two or three in the morning you can actually see bits of inspiration floating about and grab them.
We have such little mystery in our lives generally because of how we live now. I mean, of course, mystery is all around us, but the way we live our lives now, we're too busy to be bothered with it.
When I started music, I think it was responsible for keeping me sane, because training as a dancer really kept me in good spirits amid all the crazy stuff that happened when I first became popular.
I'm not sure there are a lot of things I'd want a manager for. I suppose I feel that at least the decisions I make are coming from me, and I'm not put into a situation that I wouldn't want to be in.
I'm a very strong person, and I think that's why, actually, I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature.'
Even just making albums - which was more within the structure that I've worked in for years - you have no idea how people will respond. You don't know if it'll be any good whatsoever. It can be terrifying.
The whole positioning and atmosphere of the song ["King of the Mountain"] was to build up this thunderstorm that would take us all onstage off into a story where we were suddenly in the middle of the ocean.
[For Before the Dawn] it was in the hands of a fantastic drummer and percussionist and who drove it into another moment in time. It's such a poignant song and it was transformed into entirely different beast.
The only person with you all your life is you. Your parents die. Things inside you die — illusions, gushes of personality. Only you can sort yourself out. Yourself may not be all you need, but it’s all you’ve got.
I like to work with a combination of analog and Pro Tools. I love the sound of analog tape, but there's so many things you can do with Pro Tools that would be incredibly difficult and very time-consuming with analog.
I think we're all a party to this information all the time. It's every day, in a way we probably weren't a few years ago. We're more informed, which is a good thing because war is always there somewhere on the planet.
I understand that people want to just listen to a track and put it on their iPod, and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but why can't that exist hand in hand with an album? They're such different experiences.
Apart from the first set - which used high-level concert lighting - once you stepped into the two narrative pieces, we were working with lower-level theatrical lights. In most cases, people were really respectful of that.
Touring is an incredibly isolated situation. I don't know how people tour for years on end. You find a lot of people who can't stop touring, and it's because they don't know how to come back into life. It's sort of unreal.
I just try to put myself in the sense of being a character, sometimes male. I suppose I just like the idea of trying to be different people coming from all kinds of different angles. Most of it was just from my imagination.
I love being a mother. I think it's the best thing I've ever done, and I personally feel that it's had a very positive effect on my work. I think it's an encouraging force for creativity, it feeds creativity - it did for me, certainly.
The more I got into presenting things to the world, the further it was taking me away from what I was, which was someone who just used to sit quietly at a piano and sing and play. It became very important to me not to lose sight of that.
Artists shouldn't be made famous. They have this huge aura of almost god-like quality about them, just because their craft makes a lot of money. And at the same time it is a forced importance... It is man-made so the press can feed off it.
I saw Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, which I thought was a masterpiece. Not that long ago, I listened to Blackstar by David Bowie and thought that was a masterpiece. Those are two incredibly talented people who've left their mark with us.
I love words, I think they're fascinating and incredibly wonderful things and part of the joy of my work is that I not only get to work with music but also with words. Sometimes it's a difficult process but a lot of the time it's really fun.
I think each album does have a different energy, otherwise you'd be doing the same thing again and not experimenting anew... Albums are such autobiographical material, not in the material but as an expression of what you're like at the time.
If ever there's been somebody to hold as an icon of sheer determination and willpower, it's that guy [Stephen Hawking ], let alone any of the things he's done scientifically. I'm sure that's his driving force, but he's a miracle and an aspiration.
The thing with 50 Words of Snow is that it was literally back-to-back from Director's Cut [also released in 2011]. It was more or less that I got to make two albums in one hit. I was already in this space in my mind to be writing and making an album.