Van morrison

My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that's what I'm doing.

My records do not require a lot of thought of 'What is this?' and 'What is that?' That would be too contrived for me.

You learn to read the audiences after a while, and there are all different kinds of gigs.

What you see is what you get.

I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.

I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.

I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That's what I do. That's my job. Simple.

I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn't mean anything to me.

A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared.

Large audiences did not suit my low-key approach.