"""It’s a cliché, perhaps, but I can’t say this about any other song: I can literally remember the first time I heard ‘Lithium’. I remember being in the room when my sister put it on, almost in the dark and I remember thinking ‘What the hell is this?’ Much like any other kid really. But it properly blew me away in one sitting and that’s never happened since. And with the people in that room, I started a band within a few months. We played together till I was about 17 or 18. “How do you even talk about Nirvana? Everything about them is so perfectly packaged, but in an accidental way - the way they look, the way Kurt sings, the way Dave plays. It’s a ‘lightning strike’ sort of band, and you can’t really copy it, you can’t really take anything from it except attitude. “The lyrics are kind of awful if you actually sit down and go through them, but when you’re 14 they’re absolutely amazing. All of it works really well for a really specific time in your life. It’s absolute dynamite, and still is, I see more Nirvana t-shirts now than I did when I was a kid."""

"Is this the ultimate in production? It’s probably one of them. I think you’ll find The Beatles might say that! They were always in competition at that point. You know, I’ve obviously spoken to The Beatles a lot but I like every track on Pet Sounds; I think they’re all equally as good. I couldn’t even pick one out if it because the arrangements were so unusual at the time. I remember it was ’66 and in some parts it sounds like an old dance band. I’d think, ""wow""! That’s so old fashioned yet so brand new at the same time. The arrangements were weird with these big harmonicas and funny, deep saxophones and plain little paper cups and playing the drums on them. What the hell was that? Brilliant! Brian [Wilson] was absolutely marvellous. Luckily for me, I did get to work with him and we wrote a song together called ‘Let It Shine’ on his album, Brian Wilson, in about ’89 or something. I got to know him quite well and he was a lovely guy and we wrote this tune and it was very nice and I’m really glad that I did."