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I found it was really impossible for me to write songs when I couldn't sing.

It's not that I have resisted songwriting, it's just not something I felt I have had to do. I've just not woken up and thought, I must do this. But I have often heard music that I have instantly felt 'I have to sing that song'.

It's a gift that I have and I became good at it. When I heard my first song I didn't even know that I could write songs.

I was just writing songs because, if a song shows up, you've gotta write it. I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't have any faith in my voice.

I am a songwriter. I do get to put my personal experiences in song.

More than anything, that's been the thread through my life - the desire to write, the impulse to write. I mean, it's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing.

Very often, writing a song is a process that happens to me rather than one that I instigate. I feel a song coming on and, like a sneeze; I wait for it until it comes.

But when you get to a song, not only do you have to do a vocal melody, you have to write words and not be redundant and make some semblance of a story.

I usually don't write songs by people calling me and saying, 'Write a song about this.' Usually I'm just going with what I want to write, so you never know.

I never tried to sing like anybody else, fortunately I didn't sound like anybody else. It just happened.