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I do not like people writing songs and then other people singing them. A lot of people don't even sing their own songs anymore. It's like producers these days have ghost producers; 'I don't produce, but I am a producer.'

I find that, maybe because I'm also a singer, I hear music in characters all the time, even if they don't sing. I hear what affects me in my heart.

When you write a song, it may come from a personal space, but it very seldom actually represents you. It comes out of a sort of mood of melancholy, somehow. It's almost theatrical.

You'll almost encounter a superstition amongst musicians, people sort of go through strange rituals, what they need to do to write a song.

I mean, whose songs don't focus on tragedy and loss?

Sometimes when I write songs, I don't know what they're about, and it just suddenly comes to me.

Normally, I don't like explaining songs. I don't want to kill anyone's interpretation or the story they want to make for themselves.

I'm the perfect amount of guarded. I don't reveal too much, and I never reveal who the songs are about. They are real life. People get that. I date a lot of musicians and they do the same thing. People that work with me - who I write about too - they get it. It's my creative outlet, my therapy.

If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them.

Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.