Bonnie McKee Quotes
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I think the key to writing hit songs is simplicity.
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I've always had a teenage thread running through my music. On my first album, I had a song called 'Confessions of a Teenage Girl.' It's about using your feminine wealth to get what you want.
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I wish I wrote 'Don't Speak' by No Doubt. I mean, that is a classic heartbreak song; it gets me every time.
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I was writing songs as a kid about leprechauns and Catwoman and teapots - whatever it is that little girls wanna sing about. The first song I wrote was called 'Kitten.'
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There are some artists that don't like working with other females, which is fine. They have their own thing. I personally love being surrounded by other females.
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'I throw my hand up in the air sometimes' is when you don't get your way - when you give up, and you're handing it over.
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When I'm writing for other people, I have to play it safe.
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Try to say something familiar in a unique way so that it's sing-alongable, even if you don't speak English.
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I started writing my own songs from the time I was a little kid. I would write my own lyrics to other people's songs that I heard on the radio and take whatever song and make it about fairies and angels - whatever little girls sing about.
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I thought back to my middle-school experience of having slumber parties and watching Romeo + Juliet and staring at Leo and thinking about my first kiss and what I wanted it to be like. And when you have your first real love, it's an epiphany, you know? It's like a whole new world.
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There's a lot of little 'Bonnie-isms' in 'Teenage Dream' that I was hoping to keep for myself.
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A line has to have a certain number of syllables, and the next line has to be its mirror image.
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After struggling for so long in the industry and writing so many failed songs and hearing 'no' for so long - I'm so grateful every time I hear a song that I was a part of on the radio.
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I'm kinda famous for my barbecues - I'm always hosting parties.
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The original title was 'Waking Up Diagonal'. It's the first line of the song. I just thought it was more interesting than 'I Don't Care', which is such a boring title to me. When I hear that song, it breaks my heart a little bit because it's my story.
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One thing I'd tell an up-and-coming singer is to never rely on other people for anything. The more self-sufficient you can be, the better off you'll be.
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I realized there are so many steps from getting a deal to having a hit.
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I was discovered out of nowhere. I didn't have family that was in the industry. I didn't know anyone in L.A.; I didn't have any reason to have been discovered. Nowadays, you have YouTube, and people are scouting more, but I really was plucked out of obscurity.
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I was born in Northern California and lived there until I was about eight years old. Then my parents moved me up to Seattle. I lived there from ages eight to 16. When I was a California kid, I remember running around in my bathing suit and barefoot all the time and getting a suntan.
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I wanted to make a video for the holidays, but none of the traditional holiday songs were moving me.
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I was always super, super musical. So my parents recognized that and put me in choirs, piano lessons, and all that.
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When my parents were like, 'We're going to the Northwest,' I thought, 'You've gotta be kidding me.' I was so depressed. The cold weather really did not agree with me. When I moved back down to L.A. at 16, I felt like it was home - it was where I belonged.
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I like to think of myself as the people's pop star a little bit. I respect Lady Gaga so much, and I love what she does, but she has this kind of mysterious, out-of-reach thing. I'm just not that - as much as I'd love to have that sort of mystique, I think I'm kind of an open book.
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I've had a lot of successes as a songwriter, and I really have nothing to prove in that arena, so I'm just excited about the next challenge of pursuing this artist thing.