I think often sadness is a great place to get songs from.

For me singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light out of the darkness.

I must be careful not to get trapped in the past. That's why I tend to forget my songs.

I loved old black and white movies especially the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. I loved everything about them - the songs the music the romance and the spectacle. They were real class and I knew that I wanted to be in that world.

I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production just like most of my movies were.

I went to Morocco joined a band called Pegasus ran out of money went to Gibraltar and worked on the docks writing songs about the sun and the morning and the birds.

Just this morning out of a large memory for songs and having been obsessed by them since childhood suddenly at the age of 84 I thought of a song I hadn't thought of in over 50 years. It came into my head unbidden.

Prince used to call me up 3am in the morning and invite me to hear some of his new songs.

Of all the songs I've recorded 'Amarillo By Morning' always sticks out in my mind.

Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning you throw on your suspenders and you subvocalize and just think. They seem to form like calcium. I can't think of a story right off the bat that was that interesting. I write things on the back of my hand usually and sing into a tape recorder.