I do not want a personal relationship with my fans. Or to do anything that encourages them to think they have one with me. They can have a personal relationship with my songs. That's fine but they don't know me.

A lot of songs are empowering because everybody who has been through a hard time in a relationship or in their lives can relate to it.

I use God in my songs a lot but I don't have a relationship. I don't know what that means.

I've written a few songs that have to do with being in a relationship the bad and the good.

When I play live it's a conversation that we're all having with the song and the audience... their response and relationship with the songs is as valid as my relationship with the songs.

It was R.E.M. who showed other Eighties bands how to get away with ignoring the rules - they lived in some weird town nobody never heard of they didn't play power chords they probably couldn't even spell 'spandex.' All they had was songs.

Music and songs are written at different periods of time at different times in your life. They reflect the feelings you have and to be honest I quite like having positive emotions.

I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't they want that positive uptempo thing.

Those minutes that I'm on stage are the best! Being there and looking at the crowd and seeing their faces hearing them sing the positive words from the songs.

Music shouldn't be based around money or politics. Music should be a bunch of people that really do great songs together doing them together for the pursuit of having a good time.

It all has to do with art - writing painting things I've done for a long time but just never had enough time to pursue. I have poetry - things that are designed for songs but they're always poems first.

My mother carried on and supported us her ambition had been to write poetry and songs.

I heard Nirvana and discovered that songs could be like poetry but a little bit more refined: you didn't have to have 20 verses to get your point across.

I work on words mostly toward them being poetry or short stories and then some of those become songs. They all find their place in the world but they all start off in the same place. I'm always painting and drawing as well and it's an ongoing creative assignment.

I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings. Deep songs don't come from the surface they come from the deep down. The poetry and the songs that you are suppose to write I believe are in your heart.

You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry I read Patti Smith's autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.

I think there are things in my story that have helped my creativity. Your father being killed for instance is one of the best things that could happen to a kid if he's going to write poetry or songs.

I always wrote poetry and stuff like that so putting songs together wasn't that spectacular.

I have written some songs but I would really call what I've done poetry at the end of the day because I'll sit with my guitar for hours and hours on end for like a week and then I won't touch it for a month. I also just have no confidence. And you know what? I don't have time because I'd rather be doing other things like knitting.

You can get too bogged down in technology and you can sort of forget what it is you were trying to do. And with the Pet Shop Boys it's primarily about the songs it's about song writing.

In their heyday the Pet Shop Boys were the Interpol of the Eighties dressing up to sing really weird pop songs about lust and loneliness in the big city. They're low-pro now not retro-worshipped in the manner of Depeche Mode New Order or The Cure but you can hear the reason why - these guys are too sad.

I just can't seem to write songs about peace and love. Yeah right how do you get that?

Hearing my songs in public freaks me out a bit. There was one restaurant I really liked in L.A. but I had to stop going there when they started playing my music. It felt kinda awkward.

I tend to score with songs from Western pop music.