Soulful English singer/songwriter Adele [ tickets ] does not consider her weepy song "Chasing Pavements" to be a hit, even though it has netted Grammy nominations in the Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Female Pop Vocal Performance categories. It is also one of 2008's most-played videos on VH1.

"I think I've been lucky enough to have a lot more success than a lot of other [British artists]," said Adele, who also is in the running for a Best New Artist Grammy.

"Even to be able to release my first record in America is a big thing for me because a lot of people don't from here [England]. I don't think it's been a hit. It's a very English song and 'pavement' is a British word. The string arrangements are starting to creep up in America now whenever I listen to the radio."

The 20-year-old admitted, however, she's "baffled" by the number of Grammys for which she was nominated.

"It's like the world I never thought I'd be included in," said Adele, whose surname is Adkins. "So I'm just, like, over the moon. I'm blown away. I hope in three album's time they still wanna nominate me for a Grammy. I hope this is not it. I can't believe it. I wasn't even expecting one. I was told we had a shot but it was a very long shot. So I didn't really get my hopes up. I'm really, really baffled. I had to lock myself in the toilet for an hour to come to terms with it."

"Chasing Pavements" can be found on her breakthrough debut, "19," an album she has been writing since she was 16 years old. It was released stateside in June 2008.

"The first song I ever wrote was 'Hometown Glory' when I was 16 and then I was 17 when I wrote 'Daydreamer' and 17 when I wrote 'My Same'," Adele said. "So [those] three songs made the record, but at the time I wasn't writing a record, really. I was just writing songs. [I wrote] the other nine after I had my record deal. When I had three songs, I had writer's block and couldn't really write much. Three months went by without me writing and then nine songs kind of fell out."

She initially had low expectations for "Chasing Pavements," but once it was secured on the album, she thought it had an "immediate pop sound to it."

"So, I'm surprised at how well it's done. I kind of guessed, especially here at home in the U.K., that radio would like it and stuff like that, but I didn't think it would do as well as it's done."

Adele is in the throes of writing new material for an album she expects to record this fall in Malibu, CA, with a producer she was not ready to name. She expects her new collection to be inspired by the T-Bone Burnett-produced Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Grammy-nominated release "Raising Sand."

"It's cliche and cheesy but, in the last year, I really have kind of grown up a lot and become really independent," Adele said. "Before, I was very immature and very much a mummy's girl. I relied on my mum and friends and family to a dangerous point really, I think.

"It's not so pathetic, the second record. The first record is me being really pathetic in a relationship and standing for a lot of s---, whereas this one is mainly, so far, about a relationship that I didn't really want to be in, particularly, anyway. It's a much stronger record in terms of the sound of it and in terms of subject. I progressed a lot on guitar and bass, so the arrangements are getting better. On the first record, I couldn't arrange a string arrangement but I'm kind of slowly learning, so hopefully I'll have a big input in the string arrangements if I have any on the second record. I've kind of grown up."