OK, Martha, you have to choose: Smoking or drinking?

My MO is to be honest, but I struggle with both. I struggle to give up both. I've realised that it's very hard for me to drink a little bit. It's something that I wish I could do: to have two glasses of wine in the evening and call it a night. That would make my life a lot f**king easier. But I also love to party and have a good time so I don't know that two glasses a night is realistic. I'm built as strong as an ox, unfortunately, so I've been able to do a lot with a hangover.

It's great when you're having fun with friends but when you're escaping from something then it's dangerous because that thing's gonna come back and f**king haunt you, whether it's your husband, ha ha, or your responsibilities. I know I'm being boring but I also have a family of drinkers – Rufus was in AA for a year, and there was a reason for that. It can be messy.

I think smoking, for me, is the real culprit. Although I don't smoke a lot, I have trouble saying goodbye to it because it's so great. So I can go days without smoking now but I have trouble saying no if I feel like it. But as a singer it's terrible. My greatest fear is having a tracheotomy!

Morning or night?

I like to write in the morning. I don't write at night, because I don't drink and write songs. I don't want to drink and work, I just wanna have fun. And by the end of the night I can't play the guitar properly! I've never written drunk or on acid, or any of that shit. I've never wanted to get Tom Waits-ian or something. Morning is about new beginnings.

Rats or bats?

Rats. I kind of like the idea of scuttling around in the garbage and the decrepitude of it.

Jesus as a way of life or Jesus as a song subject?

I've never known him to be a way of life myself. You know, I think he brings a better way of life for people. I think he brings solace.

In the song 'Jesus And Mary' for instance… That song is sort of about being curious about becoming religious and the freedoms that could maybe come with being accepted by Jesus dying on the cross for our sins; the lightness that brings into people's lives and how they're consoled by it. To be faced with atheism all the time is exhausting and sometimes painful and scary. At the end of the song, I haven't become a religious person in any way, and I don't know what I believe, but for those that do believe…

'Want One' or 'Want Two'?

Want Two! There's less fast songs, there's stranger songs on it. It's the b-sides and I'm always for that.

And to borrow from your song 'So Many Friends', friends or memories?

Friends. Ha ha.

Thank you, Martha.

Martha Wainwright's new album 'I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too' is out now.

Read part one of our Martha Wainwright interview here.