Elizabeth Fraser

“We make pretty uninteresting reading, I suppose. I mean, we're just another group making records, aren't we?”

“I'm very perfectionist.”

“I think basically we know how stupid we are, that's why we don't do interviews.”

“I was very dreamy. Insular. I'm always amazed I survived adolescence at all and wasn't squashed flat by a juggernaut. Gaping, I think was my main skill. Staring out of the window.”

“I've never written to a band since the Beatles. Since the Dave Clark Five!”

“I'm getting stronger as a person, but sometimes I just need to get over myself!”

“I suspect a singing teacher would have a fit with my diction. They'd probably think I was doing a very bad job.”

“I had always thought of myself as a sanguine person, quite light and airy. But for a long while, no one could have possibly made me laugh or smile. It was awful.”

“I guess my diction just isn't very good.”

“I've never had a highly developed sense of being female. The sexuality has either been stopped, or else it's been an exaggerated P J Harvey kind of sexuality.”

“Periodically, my mind is blown and I'm swamped in feelings I can't deny.”

“The lyrics tend to fascinate people, but for me, when I listen to a record I don't always latch on to the lyrics. I listen to the whole thing and it may be five or six days before I even realize what the song's about.”

“Of course, I go into the studio with all the words written down.”

“I can't act. I can't lie.”

“People tend to put too much focus on the lyrics. It's not the be-all and end-all of our songs.”

“I was able to make up lots of portementos, literally hundreds and hundreds of words... See, I find that mine don't have any meanings. They're not proper. Although I've got a great dictionary of them. It's like the Cockney rhyming slang or something.”

“I've always had a thing about sevens.”

“Lyrics are no more important than the music. There's no point in forcing them on people.”

“There were a few singers at home, one or two aunties. We did have a piano but I think that got put on the fire eventually.”

“I want to get better and take more risks. I need to sing with other people. I need to access parts of me that aren't being accessed in the Cocteau Twins.”