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Growing up in Dumfries, I got no sun - I spent all my time in my room making records. When I came to America, it made me recognise the benefits of sunlight. Oh, and I also got a good haircut. I used to have a terrible haircut.

As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time.

Because I was traveling a lot during the '70s, the only thing I could do on the road was take photographs, so there wasn't much painting during those years.

I couldn't wait for the sun to come up the next morning so that I could get out on the course again.

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world.

When I finally finished the 'Two Suns' tour, which went on for quite a long time, I felt like a bit of a husk. And I remember thinking, 'I need to spend some time in one place, and just be at home.' So I guess the first year of that three and a half years was spent just trying to kind of get back to normal again.

I never thought I wanted to write about the '50s, because I thought it was the most boring and bland decade to grow up in, and I never wanted to go back there.

You couldn't have fed the '50s into a computer and come out with the '60s.

I love the romance of the '40s. It was the perfect time to live. Technology wasn't so advanced that it made life more difficult, but it was just enough that you can send a phone call or a telegram. And people still took pride in how they looked. The men got dressed up and the women got dressed up and they took care of themselves.