Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.
I notice that when I feel the most disconnected, once I'm done blaming the moon and everything else, I can see that I am so mired in identification with form and ego and story and identity, and that if I want to, I can read some scripture or read some spiritual book or pray or meditate or sit in the sun or hang around the birds and the dogs, and get a real objective sense of what's really going on here. That usually softens things.
I'm a bit of an alchemist sorceress. I've collected probably 1500 oils from around the planet over the last ten years. I'm kind of obsessed with the sensuality of it.
Anytime there's separatism going on. It happens all the time, because the illusion before us is that we are separate. It gives us this sense of egoic identity, which is lovely in its own way.
What influenced me was Tori Amos, who was unapologetic about expressing anger through music, and Sinead O'Connor. Those two in particular were really moving for me, and very inspiring, before I wrote 'Jagged Little Pill.'