In our
interview with Dave Stewart, he spoke about the difference between writing with his Eurythmics partner Annie Lennox, and writing with Stefani, who he had just met. Says Stewart: "Well, it's kind of weird. Because if I walk into a room to write with Gwen, Gwen comes with a lot of stuff attached to her, and I also come into a room with that. So the first 15 minutes usually is getting past that stuff. And then very quickly, and usually due to a certain courtship, you know like how a certain chord can change the temperature in a room? It evokes a certain emotion in me or in Gwen, and then it'll suddenly make us think about something that happened in her life, and something that she might want to talk about, something she might not want to talk about, but you can kind of hear what it is in the lyric and the melody. And soon, within an hour and a half it's as if you've known that person for years. And often, then, people start talking about all their private thoughts, and everything that's going on in their life usually comes rolling out."