When women make their image about youth and sexuality, and not about intellect, that's kind of a dead-end road. So I think it's a combination of self-entrapment and entrapment by society.

As a songwriter you have an umbilical cord to the song and it's hard to expand on your understanding of the lyrics. Whereas when you cover a song you can create your own reason why you're attached to it.

My public image is so low-key, but I get to travel the world and still have an audience and it's really amazing. I don't take that for granted.

I started singing when I was five. I grew up the youngest of four kids who all studied classical piano, so you could say I've been listening to music ever since the moment of conception.