She’s not Mozart or Ali Akbar Khan, but she’s very good at expressing the pain of what it is like to be a young girl. So young girls, and people who empathize with them, are deeply moved by her songs. I like to listen to her because it helps me to empathize with my students.

She is not a corporate product, like the Spice Girls or the Monkees. She is a talented young woman who plays music that expresses what she sincerely feels and thinks. She deliberately ignores marketing rules, and makes no attempt to please anybody but herself. Because her tastesare very similar to millions of other people, a lot of people like what she likes, and they buy it.

my own music is much more complex than hers, but there’s no injustice in the fact that she has more listeners than I do. There’s just not as big market for my sort of music, because I’m a weird person with weird tastes. If I tried to play what she is playing, I would be prostituting myself. That’s why no one would buy my music if I tried to sound like her.

if someone gushed enthusiastically about her music in my presence, I might feel the need to contradict or qualify. But if I listen to her on my own, when I think nobody is watching, sometimes I will get a lump in my throat.