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The first hit from this album was "Here Comes the Rain Again," which you and Dave wrote after another fight.

We were in the Mayflower Hotel, near Columbus Circle, overlooking Central Park. We were in our 30s or approaching them. Our relationship creatively, it wasn't tempestuous -- not at all -- but when you get two strong-minded types together, you're going to have strong ideas and maybe the odd clash here and there, and there was a lot of tension. It was more about tension. I think any married couple, unless they're very unusual, has tension. And when you're in a group together, everyone knows it's 50 times worse than being in a relationship. There's just pressure, pressure, pressure all the time. I was very angst-ridden that Dave always wanted to do a million things at once.

There are songs on that album -- throughout your career, actually -- that are autobiographical. Like the jealousy you felt in "Who's That Girl?" Did you ever think that you can put too much of yourself into a lyric?

Oh, I censor myself a lot. Sometimes people will say, "Who's that song about?" It can be about that person and that experience, but another time it's another person or another time or it's directly about this. But also, when you're dealing with writing songs, you're dealing with rhyme and phrasing.

"Right by Your Side" is one of your few songs that is just an unabashedly nice song.

Well, there's always got to be one [Laughs].

"Be Yourself Tonight," released in 1985, marked a move away from the synthesizers.

We were really on a roll with live performances then. We knew this music was going to be performed around the world.

You are a fascinatingly compelling person onstage. It's impossible to take one's eyes off you. Yet, you don't like the experience. What happens between the time you leave the dressing room and get onstage?

It absolutely feels like I'm going to die before I go onstage. Every single time, every single time. And I'm trying to do whatever it takes to overcome it, to stay with it, to stay on it.

Obviously you have to have a ritual, and the ritual starts from the minute you get up. You think: "OK, you've got a concert to do that night. Sit down, say hi to everybody. Check it out, look at the stage, look at the venue. Go in the dressing room, read a book, do some yoga, do whatever you have to do to be physically calm, fit, tuned in. Watch the time go on, eat, check out other people's dressing rooms." The walk from the dressing room to the back of the stage is scary. You can hear this silence. I'm terrified through the entire concert. You've got to get through those next two hours and be super-special for the audience. It's like a race: It's not until you get right through to the very, very final encore that you can relax.

A highlight on "Be Yourself Tonight" is "Would I Lie to You?," which features one of your best vocal performances.

I love to sing in the studio, because you get that sound that's a lot better than the ones you could normally make, because they're just gloriously enhanced.

I don't rate myself as a singer. I think that when I hear wonderful singers like Mary J. Blige or Alicia Keys, there's great singers on every street corner and they really are great singers, and they can wail and they can go and they can do. I have my own sort of thing that I made. If people like me, if they connect with it, it's just that it's particular to me. You know what I'm saying. I'm not being modest.

You've got two of your heroes on this album. Stevie Wonder plays harmonica on "There Must Be an Angel (Playing With My Heart)."

Oh, that was astonishing. To be in Los Angeles and have the idea that Stevie Wonder would be on your record, you must be off your head: "He's not going to come play for us." But he did! Very late at night, about 11 o'clock, he came in. People like that are just on another level. Just to be in his presence. Everybody I know -- I'm not being facetious -- they go bananas over him. And he just radiates this incredible warmth. Not only with his extraordinary musicianship, but the fact that he's a human being.

Then there's Aretha Franklin on "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves."

Well, I'll tell you the honest truth about that. In my mind, that song was written for Tina Turner. Aretha didn't know who we were; she didn't have a clue. I was quite intimidated, because how can you sing with Aretha? It's just, "Try to stay on the bicycle." I just wanted her to feel comfortable.

Did you expect it to turn into the female manifesto that it did?

I still feel that women are the unsung heroines: mother, housekeeper, housewife -- it's the most important thing in the world, and it's not given the reverence that it ought to. [It is] by women. We know.

It's funny, because I woke up that morning and I had the whole song in my head, and that doesn't happen very often. "Now there was a time," [Sings] and I could see it. It used to be like that and now it's like this, and what's happening is we have to do it for ourselves, nobody else is going to do it for us. It's not about masturbation, [but] it could be.

Did anyone think it was?

I thought everybody thought it was: "Doing it for yourself . . ." Listen to it again. "Ringing their own bells." But it was never intended that way.

Let's talk about "Missionary Man," from your 1986 album, Revenge. I read that you, Dave Stewart, and Bob Dylan were sitting in Dave's kitchen, and you were so inspired by what Dylan was talking about that you went home and wrote the song.

That might well be. It might be true. The trouble is I have a terrible memory for these things. I have met him on a couple of occasions and was in Dave's house, and we were sitting in the kitchen. So it was plausible that it did happen.

See, [if] the thing is about famous people and meeting other famous people, Dave is your man. You've come to the wrong person. One time, Bruce Springsteen apparently came backstage and I was so enamored and so kind of nervous and shy about meeting him, I wouldn't come out of my dressing room. And I regret it to this very day. It could be misinterpreted as rudeness, but I was just terribly shy. I would meet people now, but I was very shy and very, very intimidated.

I'm going to switch to "Thorn in My Side," which musically has a very fun, girl-group vibe going on. You even have a girl backup singer on it.

I did most of my backups myself. I just enjoy it. Harmonies come to me, and I liked taking on different personas. It's not because I don't want to sing with other people.

I remember making the video for it, and I remember having the Hell's Angels come in to be on it and being honored to have them come in.

That was during your leather period.

And to be honest, that was a fashion problem: when you were in a place like Texas and you were wearing that outfit. Can you imagine? It's over a hundred-and-something degrees. You've got the lights, you've got the leather, you've got the heat. I just remember having a gallon of Gatorade by the side of the stage and just pouring water over the top of my head, because it was all you could do. Ridiculous. How ridiculous.

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