Susannah McCorkle

Thank God for beautiful songs about feeling despair when you yourself are in despair. They really get us through.

Please believe that I do this because I am convinced that my illness cannot be helped for any length of time and I cannot bear to be a burden on anyone any longer.

It may be that my most helpful contributions to music aren't my compact discs but my articles about other great singers of the past for American Heritage magazine.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.

My first career ambitions involved turning into a boy; I intended to be either a railway guard or a knight errant.

I am happy to the spokeswoman for this French youth that tomorrow will be spearhead new hope in the shape of the National Front.