My favorite thing is coming up with titles. The majority of the songs I've every written I've always thought of the title before I've written the song.

Early risers catch the world waking and see its true colors.

My Mother set me on the right track, Marty Robbins made me want to write songs, and Jesus Christ did the rest.

I am a simple vessel with complex overtones, opinionated on occasions but willing to listen. Comfortable with reclusiveness and devoted to privacy and family. Patriotic to a fault and allergic to cruelty, ignorance and bad music.

Basically it takes me very little time to write a song. If I find myself taking more than an hour to do it I usually forget it, and try something else. I like to work quickly; I never like to waste any time. I never write half a song and come back to it later at all. It all has to be done at once. I lose interest if it doesn't.

The worst thing about me is that I'll buy albums and put them away on the shelf and forget that I've got them.

Elton John's home is laden with trinkets and books relating to Satanism and witchcraft.

'Captain Fantastic' was the first album in history to enter the (American) album chart at number one. We did it for a second time after that. Now that's not a boast, that's frightening...The process of doing it was unique because I wrote the songs in the order they were recorded, so it was written like a story.

Read books, discover the blues and don't Tweet.

We may have limped onto Broadway as the underdogs, but underdogs bite back occasionally.