Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band. Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man. Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in… - Elton John

The next morning found me pacing around the house, trying to work out what was the earliest you could call someone who’d been out the previous night at a Halloween party, without looking like the kind of person they’d eventually have to get a restraining order out against.

I couldn’t strut around like Mick Jagger, or smash my instrument up like Jimi Hendrix or Pete Townshend: bitter subsequent experience has taught me that if you get carried away and try and smash up a piano by pushing it offstage, you end up looking less like a lawless rock god and more like a furniture removal man having a bad day.

when she was pregnant, so Nan was born in a workhouse. She never talked about it, but it seemed to have left her as someone nothing could faze,