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It's not my style to be thinking about what a record is while I'm making it: I just write songs.

I really just tried to make a record full of great songs, which is the goal I always have.

Either you write songs or you don't. And if you do write songs like I do, I think there's a natural desire to want to make records.

I don't have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it.

The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

Some amazing records have this power to leave you with inspiration; you're left with the urge to write something. And some records are totally overwhelming, because they are so good, they burn the bridges behind them.

When you do a record like 'Talk,' and you're happy with it, and it reaches your ambitions and then doesn't sell as well as you wanted, it kind of takes the wind out of your sails a little.

When I first got my record deal, I was like, 'I just want to sing,' and I never put much thought into what really goes into a record. But as I got older, I developed a passion for writing.

When you're young, the goal is to have a hit. You get a little older and the goal becomes to get to make another record.