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.

Our songs touch people and take them back to a time when there was no threat of terrorism when you didn't have to lock your doors and when Mom and Dad took care of everything.

My mom's a concert pianist so she started teaching me when I was around seven. When I was eight I started writing my own songs and kinda started putting piano and singing together. But I'm trained classically which is a big influence on me I think.

My mom played the recorder. But not having electricity we had minimal exposure to music. As I got a little older we had Walkmans and things that were battery-powered but it would have been nice to be growing up in the iPod era. A tape only has six songs on a side.

'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?

It's the best marriage of songs and production. But I have to say I have an affinity for Bossanova.

And I ask why am I black they say I was born in sin and shamed inequity. One of the main songs we used to sing in church makes me sick 'love wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.

If there's not drama and negativity in my life all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

I'm not claiming divinity. I've never claimed purity of soul. I've never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can... But I still believe in peace love and understanding.

Pop songs are not as graceful as they used to be. Performers today haven't gone through the regimen of learning how to write. And of course everyone wants to own copyrights.

I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.

I was just learning to play guitar when Tracy Chapman came out. She wrote these songs she played them by herself and I so admired her for that.

Part of the joy of music is listening to lots of different kinds of music and learning from it. Specifically for me I like writing songs that move me and what moves me are beautiful songs on the piano or the guitar and really really heavy music.

It's interesting to do other people's music - that's how I learned to play by learning other people's songs. It's nice to delve into how other people got to where they are.

For me the most difficult thing is that I am learning melodies on guitar from some songs whose melodies were not meant to be played on guitar. Ever. They were intended mostly for keyboards or melodic percussion.

That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar.

I'm an obsessive hiker and I do it every day for two hours and it really helps me when it comes to learning songs or scripts.

I do remember actually learning chords to Beatles songs. I thought they were great songwriters.

Hollywood and the recording industry argue that current law permits the copying of songs and movies and sharing them on the Internet. This enables young people to grow up learning how to steal.

When I was first learning songs I'd have a favorite song and I'd take the chords and twist them around. I'd learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.