I think the analogy with wanting to protect your children extends further than Harvey allows it to. You do want to protect your children, and you do need to, and it's nothing to do with vanity or egotism. But you also have to stand back at some time and let your children go their own way. And I think that happens with songs.

Here is what Sydney Carter wrote: "There is nothing final in the songs I write, not even the words, the rhythm and the melody. This is not an oversight; I would like them to keep growing like a tree. They have a form, I hope; so does a tree. But it is not fixed and final. It must develop according to the time and place, it must adapt itself to soil and weather. In time, if not in place, a tree is always travelling."