Quotes from Paul Young

I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing.

When I was given a tricycle, aged eight, I'd disappear for hours and do my own thing.

I wanted to do music at school but they discouraged it. If you did music you couldn't do technical drawing, which meant you couldn't work in engineering and as Vauxhall was the local employer that's what we were all being groomed for.

The journey is the destination. The process you're in is the goal. Success is never defined by the outcome but by the process.

I've always liked Iggy. He did an album, 'New Values,' in the punk days that I played to death. When you see him live, the way he moves, what he does - nothing is planned.

I don't mind people talking to me as they are only ever nice. Although I had one frightening experience when I had a stalker who thought he was the son of God and thought I was, too.

I don't think you can be as successful as an artist like Robbie Williams unless you're thinkin' about yourself 24 hours a day.

My mum said I used to sing on the bus. I was about five and would simply sit, staring out of the window, singing to myself. When I got to the end of the song and everyone gave me a round of applause, it scared me because I was in my own little world, but I obviously loved singing even then.

We were far from being the kind of band that threw TVs out of hotel windows. In fact, we carried our own toolbox with us so that if anything got broken, we could nail it back together and not be charged for it.

We once employed a girl in Texas to produce a fanzine, and after meeting her there she seemed fine. Then the letters started and they got strange and she began to claim we were an item. She also sent me a rhinestone cow bone sprayed silver and mounted on a plinth. Don't ask me why.

For every musician there's a certain point when your kids get to 13 or 14 and you become an embarrassment. They don't want you to drop them off at school and they don't like that you are different from the other parents, but thankfully mine are over that now, and are pretty cool with what I do.

One of my better qualities is that I accept what's in front of me and deal with it.

Even as a child I knew I wanted to be a singer, and in 1976, at the age of 20, I quit my job at Vauxhall Motors in Luton and became a musician.

I'm a musician and I go places and perform to people that want to listen to good music.

I led a sheltered life. I didn't know how to book a flight.

When I was younger, every time I stopped work and had a holiday, I'd break out in a rash. A dermatologist put it down to stress, but it never seemed to affect me when I was busy.

The Prius does about 55mpg and it always amuses me. I love it when you pull up at someone's house and all you can hear is the gravel crunching under the tyres. I don't have to pay the central London congestion charge, either.

There was that 'anything is achievable' attitude in the Eighties. Everything was very positive and gung-ho. Well, 'hedonistic' is the word they use a lot. We were all confident bordering on arrogant.

I was a dreamer. When I was on stage I didn't have to think about whether I could pay the rent. I was just having a great time.

Generally, musicians find that as they get older, their popularity starts to wane. Pre-Covid, however, I was going through a good phase and finding my live shows were really well received.

It doesn't pay to get too familiar with your songs. Going off to do other things in between recording sessions gives you a chance to think.

Since I'm known for recording other artists' material, I'm absolutely deluged with mail from all the publishing companies. They take all the songs that've been lying around the office for months and throw them at me. Most of them are terrible, but you have to listen... just in case.

Recording everything with analogue equipment, as we did with 'No Parlez,' left space for the sorts of happy accidents that can make the most interesting sounds.

Music was always a big part of our family life. My dad's brother used to play the harmonica at family parties, and my mum was in the Luton Girls Choir, who did lots of radio broadcasts and performances in the 50s. I have older cousins who used to play me their soul and ska records.