In '68 I was 13 years old, so I was a child, but I felt a lot of excitement in listening to things, looking at the pop art coming over from America. My father was an art collector, and he was coming home with these strange pieces of art that weren't exposed in museums. At the time, it was quite revolutionary, very adventurous.

I feel a vocabulary in my music that is coming from popular music. Popular music is like the mother of all languages.

I am very happy to be able to cross borders to go to China, to Mexico, to America, everywhere, and there is an instant understanding of what I do. This is incredibly beautiful because you've suddenly communicated with everyone without speaking the same language. The language of music is able to go anywhere.

I always get excited by the idea of adventure, of doing something different.

But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns.

I had the opportunity to be around my kids a lot. I guess I could have kept working, but I had them when I was 47. You only get to see all this stuff once. I just chose to work at home and watch them.

When I came out when I was 18, and I graduated from high school, and I felt like that was the time to officially say it, I surprised zero people in my family.

We always blame other people when things go wrong. For example, family to friends, you think they'll stay by your side, and you realise they never do. But that's life.