I met my wife Anne who was a sociology student and her influence together with activities associated with the student movement of the time opened up my interests amongst other things into the theatre art music politics and philosophy.

Yeah exactly you can talk about politics in music you can talk about something else but that's always going to change and love is never going to change.

I was really lucky that I came to puberty at a time when music and politics were completely intertwined.

Music is what I must do business is what I need to do and politics is what I have to do.

I'm not really involved with politics... I'm living in my cocoon with my classical music around.

I don't like to talk about things where you're going to gt one side or the other unhappy. My music has no politics.

Music has a poetry of its own and that poetry is called melody.

What does that represent? There was never any question in plastic art in poetry in music of representing anything. It is a matter of making something beautiful moving or dramatic - this is by no means the same thing.

Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language or music without atmosphere.

I found that it wasn't so oddball to like music and poetry and visual arts they're kindred spirits.

I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music. I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock'n roll.

All I knew about Ethiopia was from a few records that I like as well as what I read about the famine. But you get there and it's another world. It's filled with art and music and poetry and intellectuals and writers - all kinds of people.

Publishing the lyric books poetry or comics of other musicians I know. That's the thing I really want to break into!

Music is more emotional than prose more revolutionary than poetry. I'm not saying I've got the answers just a of questions that I don't hear other artists asking.

In rap music even though the element of poetry is very strong so is the element of the drum the implication of the dance. Without the beat its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.

I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.

I'm hopefully touring with Colin Baker next year in Perfect Strangers. I have performed with Sylvia Simms in poetry and music evenings. I would love to do those for the rest of my career - they are so fun and witty.

To be born in Wales not with a silver spoon in your mouth but with music in your blood and with poetry in your soul is a privilege indeed.

The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception and he translates the expression of that perception from the terms of poetry into the terms of music.

Music is my thing. It's my thing it's what I love. It's what I do. It's football to me it's Christmas to me religion to me poetry to me.

I thought we were gonna open up the world of poetry and music to all kinds of things and yet I can't really think of anyone who's done anything like it since.

If we ask a vague question such as 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer such as 'Poetry is the music of words ' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

That is what I did with Jack and that's why he liked to do the readings with me because he knew I was there for him and for our ability to blend the poetry and the music.

Poetry teaches us music metaphor condensation and specificity.