I had this talent for these stupid little teenage songs.

My demographic of people have been very supportive.

I believe in criticism.

The thing is to be able to outlast the trends.

Canada is a good country to be from. It has a gentler slower pace – it lends perspective.

Things began to pick up for me record-wise when in 1971 I wrote ‘She’s a Lady’ for Tom Jones.

If you’re in pop music, you’ve got to deal with the changing of the guard every few years. By the time the ’70s arrived, I was well aware of the cyclical nature of the game....

I wrote ‘She’s a Lady’ on the back of a TWA menu, flying back from London after doing Tom Jones’s TV show. Jones’s manager wanted me to write him a song. If I have an...

I just couldn’t get anyone to sing my songs, so I had to sing my own tunes.

My father, my mother, and then my father was always on top of me – ‘Keep your nose clean. Do you love what you’re doing?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then be aware, or you’re going to lose it.’

For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who kneels.

When I’m writing, I generally toy with an idea until it manifests itself – meaning a phrase or a tune comes into my head and eventually begins to jell. When something hits me, I write...

I respect Jay-Z. I like him.

My family was a good family, I had a great Canadian education and I came up in a great, little town like Ottawa.

As long as you’re growing in your profession and you’re respected, you’re going to stay as clean as you can, because you’ve got something that you love that you don’t want to lose.

Once you realize that you’re in something that you’ve always wanted and you don’t want to lose it, you behave differently. And that means the integrity, the professionalism, and knowing what’s right from wrong and...

I learned a lot about what I do with my craft, how I present my music. A lot of things about him were very much an influence on me and everybody else. Once you get...

I’ve always believed that if you don’t stay moving, they will throw dirt on you.

The technology is good and it’s bad. You know what you’re dealing with out there musically, but my head stops at this electronic stuff. I don’t quite know what I’m dealing with out there yet.