I sang a lot as a little girl and entered competitions. I loved singing in choirs, but it was as I got older that I really found my voice.
Making a Christmas album is looked upon by some people as the thing you do when you are heading towards retirement.
If I hadn't been a singer, I might have been a photographer or an artist. But it's singing I love. I sing all the time, and I feel really good that I've expressed myself.
I would say that although my music may be or may have been part of the cultural background fabric of the gay community, I consider myself an outsider who belongs everywhere and nowhere... Being a human being is what truly counts. That's where you'll find me.
When I look at the majority of my own songs they really came from my own sense of personal confusion or need to express some pain or beauty - they were coming from a universal and personal place.
My issue with the state of women became incredibly stimulated when I was visiting developing countries and it became obvious that women bore the brunt of so many things in society.
Anita Roddick was amazing. Her presence in a room was full of light, and everything she worked to achieve still resonates now.
I'm not intensely private - I talk a great deal about my life and my work - I just don't play the game to excess.
I am a communicator; that seems to be my natural place. And I'll always be passionate about the world, because it's so bonkers.
Our ancestors are totally essential to our every waking moment, although most of us don't even have the faintest idea about their lives, their trials, their hardships or challenges.
Music is a great vehicle for communications, and I have a certain platform. I have an opportunity and I have to take it.