coping with fame

I guess I was lucky in that I became a public property in Iceland when I was 11, so I had 15 years of hardcore rehearsals before all this hullabaloo. I guess at the end of the day what you realise is that this hullabaloo is not about you, it’s about that person you’ve created. It sounds cold and horrible but you feel very lucky that the person that you are - the relationship you’ve got between you and yourself - is different than with some person who’s never met you. It’s good to have that distance, because when you get Brit Awards and front covers, it’s not about you, it’s a symbol for what you do. And when it comes to what I do, it’s got so little to do with myself. I’m writing songs about other people, my favourite things, whatever, and it’s the most unselfish thing you can imagine.

Q magazine, may 1994