"My grandmother was a complicated woman—angry, loving, gossipy, and vibrant. She lived a country’s length away from me, and we were never close, even though I was named after her. The truth is, her mercurial moods scared me a little. One Christmas morning when I was 10 or so, I unwrapped a heavy package and discovered a beautiful hardcover book complete with illustrations: Little Women. On the inside was my grandmother’s inscription in handwriting as bold as she was: For Sarah, with love. I devoured the book that day, then read it again and again. When I was immersed in its pages, I felt more connected to my grandmother than I ever had before; it was as if she truly saw me as the shy, book-loving girl I was, instead of the confident, outspoken one she perhaps wanted me to be. My grandmother died long ago, but I still have the worn, beloved copy of the novel she gave me, with her faded handwriting gracing the opening page. I cherish it still."

"’She’s Always a Woman’ is a good complement to ‘Something’ I think and lyrically they compare to each other. For me, Billy Joel is hands-down one of the best lyricists of all time. He came up singing in bars and he’s about to have his 100th sold-out show in Madison Square Garden, which I hope to go to! “When I listen to this song I obviously think about the closest women in my life, the people that I respect the most, but especially my Mother. Me and my mom would listen to this song together when I was growing up. It’s one of those songs that I can remember the exact place I was when I first heard it, and it was in the kitchen with her. “Thinking about my mom when I was a kid, she would go through all the different contrasts described in the lyrics - she’d be hot and cold and angry, but then soft. For me, the title lyric reflects how she’ll always be amazing in my eyes. It’s a really respectful but playful song."

"This whole album Live Through This is probably my favourite record of all time, I feel so empowered by it. I love Courtney Love, she’s a very unique, kind of controversial character who’s very outspoken, who does wild, weird things and has that guttural voice. And it’s still pop, the melodies are very singable. “It got me through a horrible break up. I listened to the album on repeat and I was ‘I can get through this, because Courtney Love has gotten through some crazy shit.’ I was angry for a lot of reasons, relationship stuff, music industry stuff, and it became my armour or something. ‘Violet’ was the song on that record that first made me go ‘Whoa.’ “Sometimes I think ‘Miss World’ is my favourite but ‘Violet’ broke down the door of how to be a screaming woman, I learnt to scream and sing differently from that. She opened up that world of ‘fuck off everyone and fuck what anyone thinks of you, I don’t care.’"