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It's nice if people ask to use your song. You have to make a decision as an artist how you feel about that.

But the greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out. You want the listener to find the song on their own. If you give too much away, it takes away from the imagination.

And you have a record company behind it, this is a key too, you need people to fight for your records, at least a little bit. So if you have a great song, it's catchy, and you've got a little bit of help, I think that's all you need. But there hasn't been that in music.

But I always held my music up and protected it from compromise. So I just do it for my friends. I've written hundreds of songs, and I'm sure I have a few albums worth of songs.

You can de-select the songs that you don't want to have on the record, but I hope we always put something out that has a lot of songs that the majority of people will love.

The great thing about a song is that no one has to know your story. But if you tell it in a way that has clarity and means something to somebody else, then it can apply to their story.

Hit songs are mysterious and slippery beasts; few artists have a lock on them. This means that many people, like me, have become fans of songs rather than fans of artists.

Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music.

If I love a song I hope to find a way to get other people to love it too.