50 Words of Snow just didn't seem to have the complications that quite a lot of albums have. It felt to me like it had this very good flow of energy.
I have intentions as a writer, but people - when they're listening to a track - will take from it what they interpret.
That doesn't matter. If it speaks to them and they get something positive from it, it's great.
However, if I ever were in a position to choose who would play me, I think I'd choose Johnny Depp.
Disappearing act? That's a magic trick, isn't it? I like magic tricks!
With some of the songs, we brought the pitch down to alto.I'm older, so naturally my voice is lower now.
For "Running Up That Hill" we had worked with a drum machine [in 1985]; the basic rhythms of "Running Up That Hill" happened because the whole track was built on a drum machine.
[For Before the Dawn] it was in the hands of a fantastic drummer and percussionist and who drove it into another moment in time. It's such a poignant song and it was transformed into entirely different beast.
Apart from the first set - which used high-level concert lighting - once you stepped into the two narrative pieces, we were working with lower-level theatrical lights. In most cases, people were really respectful of that.
I think we're all a party to this information all the time. It's every day, in a way we probably weren't a few years ago. We're more informed, which is a good thing because war is always there somewhere on the planet.
We deliberately chose a small theatre so that the show was still intimate and the audience would become a part of the show.
The more I think about sex, the better it gets. Here we have a purpose in life, good for the blood circulation, good for releasing the tension.
I suppose in some ways doing some of the songs in the show felt a bit like I was doing cover versions. I was covering myself. Not that they didn't feel like my songs, but the way I was approaching them was from a place so outside where they were written. The fact that these songs were in the context of a live show was a new thing.
When I was singing "King of the Mountain," it was a pivotal point in the show. That's the song that took us from this concert setting of individual songs into the theatrical narrative piece.
It wasn't that we were afraid of the Church or the Vatican. The record company thought people might find the title offensive. They asked me if I would change ["A Deal with God"].
I think I was just lucky to be brought up in a very musical family. My two older brothers were, and still are, very musical and very creative, and music was a big part of my life from a very young age, so it is quite natural for me to become involved in music in the way that I did.
I suppose my biggest concern would be if the planet is going to be in good enough shape for the next generation to have the privileges that we've had.
You have to try and embrace it all and everyone who represents that change because it is happening.
Whatever is going on in your life when you're writing has to somehow seep into your work.
I split it up into working on the two narrative pieces that can tell a story. The scariest thing was whether I'd be any good performing live again. It was such a long time since I'd done any live work. It's so different for me than recording. Every night my audiences were what I would dream of. You could just feel their support.
I think what is great is that if anything that I do is interesting to somebody else, then I really don't think it matters at all what I had originally intended.
I just try to put myself in the sense of being a character, sometimes male. I suppose I just like the idea of trying to be different people coming from all kinds of different angles. Most of it was just from my imagination.
I love comedy. I like to think that there's a sense of humor in some of my music - obviously not all of it.
I think comedy and music are both things that we need as human beings. I think that both art forms can touch people.
Comedy is a very big part of the English culture, the sense of humor; it's a very dominant trait.
