I took my better nature out, drowned it in a babbling stream/took the blossom of my youth and blew it all to smithereens. - Elvis Costello

My sense of history in music is much greater than a lot of people's. I listen a lot further back in the whole history of music. It's not just pop music of the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years. I'm listening to stuff from hundreds of years ago as well, because you can learn from everything.

Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rock'n'roll, but it was already a little past rock'n'roll when I started listening and making my own choices about music. I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.

There's a girl in this dress,
there's always a girl in distress.