This was the first record I ever bought when I was 14 years old. It became like a theme song to my teenage years, I could never stop playing it. I connected to it so much, that I dared to record it, which is possibly a somewhat audacious thing to do, but I was so earnest about it. I thought some people say, "She has no right." I hope Procol Harum didn't mind me covering it. No one wrote to me to say that they objected, so I guess they were fine with it!

This is one of the favorite songs I've ever written. Obviously as an artist there are going to be some recordings that you like more or less than others. I don't know where it came from. It has such dynamic range, it's incredibly powerful. I can't explain it. I love singing "winter has frozen us, let love take hold of us." 'Now we are shivering, blue ice is glittering" I wanted the imagery to describe the exquisite quality of the glint of ice, the sheen of hoarfrost, as a metaphor for those internal feelings of unrequited love and longing.

The "dark road" is yet another metaphor for life's journey, almost like the Pilgrim's progress. Anything can happen...you could be led astray; you could lose your way. There's a future ahead, but you don't know what it is, or where it's going. It's going to be a dark road at some point. It is what it is. There's a point where you have to accept it's going to have its high points and its low points. That is all part of what it takes to live a life.

This beautiful song was written by Tom Chaplin of "Keane," and actually had a different title, but for some sort of kaleidoscopic reason, I felt it just had to be this way, so "thank you" Tom for allowing me to make the change!

I first discovered this song by "Ash" about six years ago, and I simply couldn't stop listening to it. It's so exultant that it virtually "shimmers". ..."I've seen you dressed in an electric veil shrouded by celestial light" Brilliant and ecstatic!

Francis Ford Coppola was going to make a film about vampires taken from "Dracula" by Bram Stoker, but then I went and read Anne Rice, and really discovered a whole other side to the mythology. I was fascinated by the vampire in psychic and psychological terms, and I wanted to write a song which could contain something of the essence of that dark place. The vampire is the ultimate metaphor for compulsive addictive behavior. Vampire and victim are the ultimate co-dependents, doomed for eternity.

It is a very personal, sweet song. I lost my first baby, and when you lose a child you have to carry on in life without them being a continuing part of it. It changes the entire way you see everything. Further on down the line, my daughter was safely brought into the world, and I wrote this song for her, because I was just so profoundly grateful for her existence. Now I have two daughters, and the dedication extends to both my girls, so now the title is plural because I love them both equally with the passion of a mother.

This is another song of gratitude. I was coming through a dark period, desperately trying to find some joy but not finding it, and trying to remind myself what happiness means. I was grasping at straws trying to find a reason to be cheerful, and then that song arrived. There was some beauty after all. It was like a little mantra, to remind myself to live, breathe, sleep, to try to make your life complete. Beauty is everywhere... in a sunrise, a drop of dew, the warm breath of a child, or a flower opening. That is the sacred gift of life, even if we don't always acknowledge it.

I wrote this song to launch the SING campaign. I wanted to create an anthem for women and HIV AIDS. I intend to come back and write more SING theme songs, to use as vehicles to give focus and raise awareness. People talked a lot about the 23 internationally renowned female artists who recorded their voices with me. SING is an expression of solidarity. The issue of HIV/AIDS is surrounded with so much stigma, and people are ashamed and afraid to speak up. Singing is a metaphor for speaking up. We must break the silence about AIDS. Women need to express themselves and let their voices be heard for protection, for treatment, and for human rights.

This is another song from the "Bare" period. I was deeply down...Just trying to get through one day at a time, on the point of desperation on a regular basis. There was a feeling that all the color had gone...faded to black. I know the world is painful, but you have to try to work with pain so that it doesn't destroy you. I've moved on now. The color came back again.

When I was about to make the video with Sophie Muller I was seven months pregnant, so for that reason I came up with the idea of finding look-alikes to represent some of my different "personas", so I wouldn't exhaust myself by having to perform the entire thing by myself. We held this audition that was probably one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Sophie and I were in the darkness of a theatre, while people queued up to present their version of what they thought could be a potential "Annie Lennox" performance. It was the maddest thing. I was literally curled up in a ball with stifled hysterics on the floor of the theatre.

This was a wonderful video to create. There were some wonderful people involved-- John Malkovich and Hugh Laurie (before he had an American accent)! That was tremendous fun. The idea of it being a period piece, like Les Liaisons Dangereux. The alternative title for "Broken Glass" could easily have been "Hell hath no more fury than a woman scorned". The video is very wry and tongue-in-cheek. People can take me a little seriously sometimes, but I do actually have a rather radical sense of humor.

I absolutely love interpreting other people's songs. This one was written by "The Lover Speaks", and is a small piece of genius. I actually think the video is one of the best I've ever made. The scene is set in a late19th Century French bordello, where strange individuals are playing out some kinds of bizarre fantasies. I'm constantly fascinated by human behavior. We all seem to be wearing certain kinds of masks which cover up a whole bunch of other hidden agendas and existences, especially with regard to sexuality versus romantic love.

I think this song expresses something of a sense of "I need to take a stand, and say this." It's almost testifying, like "My Way", or something. The world can be so baffling at times, so you find yourself constantly trying to figure it out.... It's also about looking at the aftermath of things. After all this darkness and disappointment with the personal battles you've gone through...Contemplating the ashes of experience, and questioning what it was ever all about. It's like the remains of a building that's crashed and burned to the ground.