It was always important to me that I made a record where I really sang well, and I don't think it's happened yet. There's always a possibility with each album that I might not record again, and I wanted to produce one that I could feel was mine.
The money has always been wasted on me. I don't care for beautiful things, funnily enough. I am my father's daughter. The things that excite me are the smell of a wood-burning stove, uncultivated fields. My house is decaying and falling to pieces. It's not had the love it deserves over twenty years.
My soul desires a pre-industrial world, and since I can't have that, I don't really care for anything material.
My big chip is that I never had an education. I wanted my children to get one so they didn't fall into the same trap as me.
It's really irrelevant, but I wouldn't want to be stick thin. It's better to have bit of fat on your face when you get older.
People always had something to say about the fact I was odd looking, bigger than other people, that I was awkward. When I discovered punk, I bought into it. That look, combined with being fat, made me even less of what people thought a young woman should be.
I love being middle-aged in general. I'm more at peace with myself now. I still have tormented times, but they are few and far between. You don't feel you have to be the centre of your world when you get older. Becoming a mother had been a turning point which stopped me from being the centre of my world.
My strength as a singer is my versatility. I find it really frustrating when I'm only expected to show off. The music industry is awash with female acrobats. What happens to the song, and treating it for its sake and not as an ego example?
I went through a string of A&R men who all thought I should be doing something different. One thought I should be a dance diva; another thought I should do Rock n' Roll; and one thought I shouldn't even be singing at all!
I was socially awkward for many years. I stuttered, stammered, talked rubbish. I never take up invites to parties, and I've been invited to very glamorous things, but I never go.
There are very few record companies who will entertain a middle-aged woman coming to them with original material.
I was always an odd girl; I managed to alienate a lot of people. I felt like a square peg in a round hole in the music industry and created a lot of neurosis for myself.
I'm a bit multifaceted in the sense that I've got many more than one musical taste. If you think about it, I started out playing in a punk band and ended up doing electro-pop. That was more an accident than a plan.
I just think that when you've been singing for 30 years, which I have been, you just want to find different things you can do with your voice. It's a constant journey. It's not like any one album that you make is who you are. It just reflects that particular day.
I think with all records, it's the starting out that is the difficult stage.
