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" If I fall into a city, I fall into a scene, and I just don't want to get distracted and enjoy myself too much. There's too much work to be done. "

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" I was never academically driven in English, but, again, Tom Waits is a perfect example of an influence. He writes so immaculately and paints so perfectly a world and the characters within it. There are writers like that who are my influences: vivid and gifted storytellers. "

" I know I'm not the kind of music that's going to have tons of screaming fans, and I'm not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. I just want to do as good a job as I can. "

" I try to face things without regret, or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can. "

" It's a surreal experience filming promotion with Ryan Seacrest and meeting Top 40 pop artists. "

" There's not a lot of room for thinking in popular culture; there's not a lot of room for being conflicted. "

Popular Culture

" My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me. "

" I love a lot of Irish folk music and Irish folk songs. "

" I spent quite a bit of time in choirs, growing up, and in the world-touring music group Anuna. "

" I will play around with an idea for a very long time until it's found it's feet and it's good enough to become a song. "

" If I could, I'd sing old French songs or American folk music, but I sure as hell can't do it as well as Mississippi John Hurt - no way in hell am I getting near that! "

" I have very strong feelings about a lot of things. I am sometimes reluctant to come straight to the forefront with it. You know, first and foremost, I'm a musician. I'm a songwriter. "

" Religion wasn't imposed on me. I dabbled with faith, and I explored religion quite thoroughly. "

" It's funny: Your relationship changes with a song over time. After a year or so, you're a different person, so your songs, you don't connect with them like you did. "

" I am a politically motivated person, and that will come through in the music. "

" There is no singer I can think of who can touch Ella Fitzgerald. And when Billie Holiday sings, she's merciless about it. Her voice has just this immaculate sadness - even in happy songs, there was something that was so broken about it. "

" I think it all started with Nina Simone. When I was maybe seven or eight, I used to listen to one of her albums every night before I went to sleep. For me, her voice was everything. "

" It sounds like I'm joking when I say it, but when I wrote 'Take Me To Church' and a lot of these things, I didn't think they would be hits. I thought I was writing for a potentially smaller audience. "

" I had a fascination with the roots of African American music. That would have been my first education in music. I had a real passion for it. I wanted to play it, sing it. I could sing at a young age, but I started to teach myself bass guitar and started writing when I was 15. "

" Blues is a very physical music. "

" The myth of fame and the myth of success is cultivated because it is monetisable and it is profitable. "

" I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anuna. It's a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together. "

" I would love to get in trouble with the Catholic Church. I'm not religious myself, but my issue is with the organization. It's an organization of men - it's not about faith. "

" Growing up, I always saw the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. The history speaks for itself, and I grew incredibly frustrated and angry. I essentially just put that into my words. "

" When I first started to sing, I just swung at it with an axe. "

" You grow up and recognise that in an educated, secular society, there's no excuse for ignorance. You have to recognise in yourself, and challenge yourself, that if you see racism or homophobia or misogyny in a secular society, as a member of that society, you should challenge it. You owe it to the betterment of society. "

" I hate nightclubs, and I get fed up very quickly in crowded rooms. I enjoy being around people I know. "

" I tried to avoid anything that caused me frustration or grief or duress. I played FarmVille and procrastinated like all teenagers. "

" By the time I was in my teens, I was listening to Delta blues and jazz. "

" Social media is an advertisement for the superficial extroverted self. "

" I remember writing lyrics for 'Take Me to Church' for a long time before I even had a song in mind for. It's not that I was trying to write that song for a year, but sometimes you just kind of collect lyrical and musical ideas and don't actually complete the song until you feel like they work together and have a home. "