But the West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind.
When you're used to playing with people, when you're in a band, then you're used to playing with each other. People nowadays aren't used to playing with each other because they don't have to.
Even if you're only wearing trainers and a vest, eyeliner will instantly transform you. People always look put-together when their make-up's on and their eyes are popping - just ask Amy Winehouse!
Growing up as a chubby kid with a ton of imaginary friends and a Cyndi Lauper obsession, I learned about rejection early on and was constantly trying to avoid it.
I mean, if I was living to please people, I'd have never been in a band at all. I wouldn't have anything awesome around. I'd just be bored.
I can take care of a house, and some people I meet, I think, 'You don't even know how to make a bed.'
I always was really confident about myself, about my voice, myself as a person, my body, all of those things, but as a songwriter - I just didn't identify as a songwriter at all.
The only shibboleth the West has is science. It is the premise of modernity and it defines itself as a rationality capable of, indeed requiring separation from politics, religion and really, society. Modernisation is to work towards this.
For my part, I make this pledge to all of you: The politics of division, of pitting east against west, urban versus rural, region against region, and people against people will have no place in my Administration.
Something often neglected in popular accounts of the Wild West is the extent to which its dramas were colored by the politics and personal resentments left by the Civil War.
What's gratifying about West Wing is that everybody told us that it couldn't be done - that the man or woman on the street didn't care about politics. But if you set things up correctly, people don't have a problem with it.
I think Gadhafi is on the mark. And up until this point in time, I think they truly want to turn this around and become a positive player with the West after years and years of terrorism and stagnation.
I've worked with producers who have told me to lose weight, and I'm not overweight, but they want you to look strange, anorexic, horrible. It's odd. It's like they are exerting a power over women, that they want them to look really frail.
If someone says, hey, you know, this long weekend, let's go skydiving - I would say, no, are you nuts? I'd just as soon sit down and have a cup of tea.
And in English Canada, no one really knows where the support is coming from, but Conservatives would assume that it's bleeding from the Liberals. So we have a divided left in Canada.
I play a couple basic folks songs and break them down. I did that on a six string. I can't recall all the songs on it. There's some finger picking on it.
I've got an electric little motorcycle that I go to the supermarket with every day, and it's powered by the solar panels, so it's really got a zero carbon footprint.
Now I know what it's like to be a rock star. No, I didn't sleep with 5 groupies at once. But I was interviewed about 45 times in 5 days in 3 cities.
Public protests against globalization - protests that occur by and large in the prosperous West - denounce free trade and the mobility of capital as instruments of exploitation and oppression.
We had our unhappy moments but they got channelled into the kind of sadness that was necessary for singing a song about going nowhere. So it worked out very well I think.
Talking Heads, for me and Chris, was a very personal thing that we shared with a lot of people. In a way, I'm glad it's over, because it allows us to move beyond the restrictions that followed.
