A lot of my early career, I wrote story songs that had narratives, that had plots.

In all my years of performing, no audience member has ever actually assaulted me. I consider this to be the singular triumph of my performing career.

The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I've performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.

I first had the thought about making a musical of 'Edwin Drood' as far back as 1971.

I don't attribute any 'luck' to 'Bol Bachchan''s success. It was an entertaining commercial film which was bound to do well, and I guess I have the knack of picking up such universally appealing, fun masala movies which turn to be successful.

Creation destroys as it goes, throws down one tree for the rise of another. But ideal mankind would abolish death, multiply itself million upon million, rear up city upon city, save every parasite alive, until the accumulation of mere existence is swollen to a horror.

If the death of Osama Bin Laden brings any peace to those who lost loved ones on that awful day in September 2001, that is a great thing. It is more likely, however, just a painful reminder of what was lost.

The late Seventies was the death of the manufacturing age in the United States. It was also a time when the Pictures Generation artists were getting started. They co-opted the language of advertising. The factory disappeared, and weirdly, so did the art object - it was the age of making gestures, not objects.