'Johnny Tremain,' Paul Revere's Ride, today's Tea Partiers - you have to tune all that out to get at the real story.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A British pressing with a compilation of the best stuff really, I mean actually not only that but, these were all kind of semi hits for the people on it in America.
I think it was John who really urged me to play sitar on 'Norwegian Wood,' which was the first time we used it. Now, Paul has just asked me recently whether I'd written any more of those 'Indian type of tunes.' He suddenly likes them now. But at the time, he wouldn't play on them.
I'm kind of a mash-up of taste - Graham Greene and Jane Austen; W.G. Sebald and Alice Munro.
When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.
'Back In The Saddle' - I never realised what a good riff that was, or at least how much it satisfied me. And when we play it live, it comes across much better than I ever expected it to.
'Finnegans Wake,' 'Alice and Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' live on my bedside table back home in London.
The way I look at it, they're all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.
I used to get into the government car and switch on Chopin or someone I liked to hear at the end of a parliamentary day.
For 'The Lobster Kings,' I listened to a lot of Johnny Cash. And it makes its way into the book.
When I was doing 'Beau Travail,' I listened a lot to Benjamin Britten.