Phil Collins didn’t think too much about the lyrics before sitting down and writing some of his most iconic songs.

During an interview with BBC Radio 2‘s Tracks of My Years with Vernon Kay, the Grammy winner talked about his favorite songs from his own discography and how he came up with the ideas for each track.

“I suppose, you know, a lot of my lyrics come from somewhere. I very rarely sit down, very rarely sit down and think ‘what am I going to write about?’ I don’t ever do that,” Collins, 75, said.

“Normally, if I’m playing — something usually comes when I’m playing a piano — and something will develop if I’m lucky, and then what I’m going to sing kind of goes along with it or comes along very soon afterwards,” the Genesis singer shared.

Collins noted that “you only need a couple of lines, two or three lines, and you kind of know what it’s going to be about or what the feeling is, you know, and so a lot of the lyrics are kind of improvised.”

In fact, he went on to reveal that his hit “In the Air Tonight” was “pretty much 80% improvised,” noting that he was casually riffing when the lyrics for the ‘80s hit came to him.

“I had this chord sound on this keyboard that I had … and I had this lovely sound, which is the sound you hear on the record,” he explained.

He shared that the same version he played on the keyboard that first time is almost exactly what made it to the actual album.

“I might have done it once or twice, but I certainly didn’t labor on it,” he said, adding that he was by himself in his bedroom when he came up with the idea.

After figuring out the right chords, he then “programmed the drum machine just to make an interesting pattern, and then I played along with it, and that’s what happened.”

“When I’d done that, I sang along with what I had just to get the sound of a voice in there,” Collins shared. “And the words that came out on that first verse were improvised.”

Kay remarked, “Right there, you’ve created one of the most recognizable tracks of all time.”

“But that’s what you say. Do you pick them out of the air? I guess. Maybe it was that extra whiskey at lunchtime. I don’t know,” Collins joked.

“That started the way I started writing,” Collins added. “I mean, that was pretty early on in the writing process of what was to become Face Value. I thought, well, that works. That’s the way I can do it.”

However, he had to change his songwriting process for Tarzan, since the songs had to relate to specific moments in the 1999 film.

“Then I had to think, I’ve got a story to tell here, and this is what they want me to say. Then it becomes a totally different kind of thing,” Collins shared. “But still, even those songs came from spitballing phrases and lines that made sense in that format. It’s not crafting. It’s an element of luck, you know, and good fortune that comes with all this.”

Kay admitted that the interview was one of the first times that he felt “giddy” about an interview subject, since Collins “was the soundtrack to [his] life.”

Collins remarked, “I mean, for a singer or songwriter, you know, that’s the nicest thing anyone can say. I mean, forget about good reviews or bad reviews, if someone says that, that’s the highest compliment you can give someone.”