Quote

It was kind of easier for me to do records that didn't take a year or two years of my life to write and to make.

My first was in 1994 and it's ten years ago already. It's been ten years and I'm still around. I won a stage again, like I did last year and the year before.

They developed a platform for me to put up another 12 years, and that was my ticket to Cooperstown. Those were the best years of my life. It was like magic.

I wanted to make a record that people could put on year after year after year, and it would never feel dated.

After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published.

My first record was made in Termonfeckin, which is a small town on the north-east coast of Ireland. I had been in London, but it didn't click. So, at home, I didn't think about making something, just whether something could be made. There was no grand plan.

I started in 1957 when I sold my first story to a magazine.

In next five to 10 years I probably would have done my best work, but I was afraid of having another 10 or 15 years ahead of me and feeling stale, so this was an opportunity to reinvigorate myself.

The first record I spent five years writing and it was an amalgamation of all the things that happened in my life from the time I was fifteen to the time I was twenty.