Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The relationship between parents and children who live together is a growing one, and it shifts every day, especially during the teenage years.
If you look at the big rock hits I've had - 'High on Emotion,' for example - the songs I write have to have a real meaning. There has to be depth.
When you have children, you almost feel like you've made your contribution to the survival of the human species. It's your way of passing the baton.
I find it amazing when I get letters from people in Israel and people in Lebanon and they both love the music, but in real life they hate each other.
Being hydrated is a key thing for a singer, especially if you're spending three hours on stage five nights a week, and wine dehydrates me faster than beer.
After university, I set out to see if I could make a career in music. It was a tough journey at first, but by the time I was 23 I'd been signed by A&M Records.
I'm not a great meat eater - I eat it twice a week. But I can't stand fish - my mother says it's because I got a fish bone stuck in my throat when I was little.
The first confrontation I had with an Aussie wine was a well-known Cabernet/Shiraz and it reminded me of boiled sweets. I find a lot of Australian wines unsubtle.
I've 300 other songs, but 'Lady In Red' is just one of them. Funnily enough, in America, it is massive, but most people wouldn't have a clue who Chris de Burgh was.
Americans are much easier to please than Canadians. The American taste is less critical. Canadians are more cultured, they are more aware of the arts than Americans.
Songs don't just suddenly arrive like a taxi you have to work on them and you have to put a lot of time and energy and self discipline into creating that kind of thing.
When I held my first album in my hands, I tell you, there were tears falling down my face. I thought 'This is it. I've arrived. I'm going to be an overnight world star.'
I went to Bethlehem in Christmas 2015 to do a television show for German TV and we filmed in the Church of the Nativity, literally above the place where Christ was born.
I met someone in the West Indies who was not able to walk. I put my hands on him and he was able to get up. I know the tabloids will get excited by this so I try to play it down.
My dad had a dream of living in an Irish castle, even when we were in Argentina, and in 1960 he found a place without any heat or running water. We had no money, so it was tough.
People always try to pigeonhole you, especially the media, who are happy if they can label you as a particular kind of artist. But the spectrum of songs I write and record is vast.
You know what happens if I walk out on the stage in Montreal? They stand up and they cheer for three or four minutes. It just brings tears to your eyes, because it's a love affair.
There is an answer, some day we will know And you will ask her, why she had to go We live and die, we laugh and we cry You must take away the pain Before you can begin to live again
I'm a strong believer in the importance of energies - ley lines, energy streams, whatever you wish to call them - within a house. They can affect your health as well as your happiness.
You get pigeonholed. It's a kind of safety device for people who don't really want to look any further outside of the box, but I'm actually impregnable as far as what people say about me.
In an outdoor environment, you need to be more energetic. The attention of the crowd begins to wander - not like an indoor concert where the audience attention is riveted on to the stage.
I will never forget seeing Alien when it came out in 1979. I'm not that big a fan of horror, but I remember the slow build, the claustrophobic feeling on the spacecraft, this tremendous sense of impending doom.
My secondary schooling was at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, so I'm fond of that part of the world. It's quintessentially English, with village greens, pubs and cricket pitches, and resonates strongly with me.
My father fought behind Japanese lines in the second world war and it traumatised him. Everybody who knew him from before said he was the life and soul of the party - fun to be with - but after the war he was different.
As a song-writer I have always written with one instrument - either guitar or piano - because I believe that if a song is strong enough to be performed completely stripped down then it is a good one to go on and record.
There wasn't a lot of physical tenderness with my parents. There was plenty of love but we weren't into the hugging thing, which now I've totally reversed with my family to the point where it probably drives them crazy.
I spent a lot of my childhood saying goodbye because I went to boarding school. I didn't resent my parents for sending me there so young as I understood the limitations of the education system in Africa, where we lived at the time.
You see, when I go on stage I perform with just a guitar and you have to have very strong material to hold an audience from getting bored or restless. One strong way of doing that is the story because everybody will listen to a story.
I'd been to South Africa during the Seventies, when it was definitely not kosher to go there. I felt that the best thing to do was to be a missionary and tell people what was going on in their own country because censorship was so dreadful.
I've been to Australia, Russia and many of places I wanted to see as a child. But I've never visited India. I've had many invitations to play there but it hasn't worked out. People say it's beautiful, but I think I'd react badly to the poverty.
I remember years ago hearing a top band talking about a song of theirs that was a monster hit and they were really dissing it, saying that they hoped they'd never have to play it again. I thought: 'That's not right. If people love a song, play it.'
Music was my first love, and at Marlborough we put bands together and sang the pop songs of the day. Although I couldn't read or write music - I still can't - I taught myself to play the guitar and piano by listening to songs and working out the chords.
I remember talking to an architect and he said 'I am making so much money I don't know what to do' - I am in a business where you don't have an idea from one end of the year to the next how what you are going to earn and it is not like a salary that you can guarantee.
Canada was one of the first countries that took an interest in my career. Apart from a freak hit I had in South America, Canadians took my 'Spanish Train' album to heart and have stuck with me ever since. They've been very loyal, and it's been a long and rewarding affair.
You get tarred with the brush of 'Lady in Red.' I play Russia or China or places all over the world. They don't even speak English but they know the words. You get a big song like that, and people love it or hate it. And if they don't like it, they don't like anything at all by the artist.
I'm inspired to write songs in many different ways - it can come from a melody, a word or phrase or something I have seen on my travels around the world. It's one of the great bonuses of my job in that I get to meet so many people and experience different cultures and it would be hard not to be inspired.
You know you get a tube of toothpaste... such a bloody con. You squeeze and squeeze and nothing more comes out? Well, take a pair of scissors and cut it about an inch and a half from the bottom and it's absolutely packed with stuff! I do that, then cut off the top bit, so I can stick that back on and it doesn't dry out!
In my 20s, I got into giving people massages and realised I was able to encourage their bodies to heal by passing my hands over them. I'd never describe myself as a faith healer - it's just that if someone believes in this type of healing, I can help release whatever blockage it is that's preventing them healing themselves.