Right, have to admit it. I am absolutely pants at writing lyrics. Poetry? Well, give me a while to work out what I’m trying to say and I might deliver something vaguely resembling a decent verse – but lyrics? You’re having a laugh!

I must have spent hours of my life on buses, on trains, on planes, waiting inline, on the tube, in the queue scribbling lines and lines of verse which seem to make sense at the time but end up looking extremely stupid when you revisit them later. I mean, words just seem to carry you off and if you’re not too careful you’re trying to rhyme ‘transgalatic’ with.well I don’t know!

If anyone tells you it’s easy then they’re either lying or they have an extremely large fan base composed entirely of members of the opposite sex who aren’t exactly scrutinising their Shakespearean swagger.

The thing is, it’s the white paper you see. Not so much blank verse but a blank bloody piece of paper that you’ve been staring at for the last two hours trying to figure out how to kick it all off. Are you going to make a political statement? Maybe you’re aiming for a scene from a movie? Or a new movie in your head? Perhaps the song is a gesture, or a provocative dig, or maybe you should act dumb. I mean all the really good songs sound really dumb when you actually take time to read the lyrics don’t they? So maybe I should write something really simple, simple and repetitive. Just got to find the right starting point.

Is it a love song? Is it a funny song? Is it a funny love song? Should I start at the beginning of the relationship, or at the end? Or in the middle thinking about the beginning of the end? It’s enough to go make you go completely potty, just like Syd Barrett. Now there’s an idea for a song.

Truth is, being a songwriter means you’ve got to be a bit of a salesman. Not only have you got to sell it to the other guys in the band and the punters that come and see you – you’ve also got to sell it to yourself. And, I’m no mug!