Donovan

Coming from art school, I had a great sense of style - as did The Beatles and the Stones - and I enjoyed projecting that. Image, attitude, great music and great lyrics - that was the '60s.

In my time, we didn't know songs could last. All we ever thought of was next Tuesday. You never imagined a future.

I wasn't trying to sound like anybody else. Basically, I was just experimenting all over the place.

Poets have a sense of place. My place was London, and I sang about it.

I get plastic nails done in the salon. When I was younger, they were stronger, but now I get my nails built up. Then I can dance over the strings. I say, 'Okay, I need four nails; I'm a guitarist.' Sometimes if I'm in a strange place, the girl says, 'Yeah, all the guys say that.'

Bohemia isn't somewhere an artist runs to escape society. It's a place where like-minded artists gather to plot the downfall of dogma and ignorance.

My particular space has always been quite unique in popular music. I have a background in R&B and hard rock and straight pop, but I never went all the way with any of those genres.

Having had polio never held me back as I got older. Although having one leg smaller than the other isn't much fun, I could always get about without any trouble. Luckily, in the music industry, everyone was only interested in my singing and playing and not the size of my legs.

A man always has to leave his homeland, go to another time zone, another culture, to get a different recognition - to be accepted as someone who's following a different path, who's moving into a different mode.

I feel strongly that having a disability in one area makes you explore others instead.

The songs I write are about searching, and they're ambiguous - always to be understood in different ways.

My dad would always ask, 'How's the money?' but I was never interested. Millions came and went, stolen by the robbers in the music industry. But as someone said, 'You'll never be poor as long as you can pick up a guitar.'