"I guess I probably knew Dylan before I knew about The Band and kind of found The Band through Dylan. But I like the way that all of them sing. The three of them in particular, they've got really great, really characterful voices. And they do that thing of switching voices so you get the first verse with Rick Danko and then the bridge will be Robbie Robertson and that changes the perspective and stuff. And that's something that when Gang Of Four started, by the time we got to Entertainment!, one of the things we wanted was different characters. I kind of saw songs sometimes as being a little play, a little drama, so you have different characters. You have the main protagonist and maybe the other voice would be making comments about that character or somebody else would be a different character. To a certain extent, some of that came from The Band, I think. They're a weird bunch, they came from Canada, ended up in America and they kind of drew parallels between themselves and North American history and the way a lot of Canadians ended up in New Orleans and they called them Acadian driftwood. And they kind of sing about aspects of the Civil War and stuff like that. And also they've got a sense of history. It's very much not standard rock & roll subject matter, you know. It's not cars, girls, guitars, and I love that. And they're emotionally touching. They didn't have easy lives, things didn't pan out brilliantly. I'm touched by the way that you can hear their struggles through life in their music and what they're saying."

"This one's not quite as contemporary as Electrelane – in fact, that's putting it mildly! It's an old folk song that dates back to the seventeenth century, so it's been passed down through the generations. “This is the version that fits the mood of this collection of songs the best I think. It's another one about losing somebody; it's about a young woman who's lover has been kidnapped by a press gang and taken out to sea and she's not going to see him again - it's a terrible, terrible tragedy. “Steeleye Span are a funny band; they came out of a scene that's not too far removed from Kevin Ayers and that electric folk movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. They evolved into something that perhaps wasn't so cool later on - there's a record called All Around My Hat that's a bit Alan Partridge - but those early albums are really great. “I definitely have a personal connection to ‘The Lowlands of Holland’. It's an unusual song, actually, in that I can never figure out whether it's Scottish or Irish in origin. It doesn't really matter, but it has significance for me because I live and have my studio in Dumfries and Galloway, and in the song, Gabe Woods is singing about the man from Galloway. “So I imagine it's where I am and when I'm hundreds or thousands of miles away from home, I hear that song and I imagine being back in Scotland. It generates a degree of homesickness and wistfulness and it's good to feel that, because it reminds you of what home is, and why you should return there.”"