Tobias Jesso Jr. Quotes
I've been in love since I was 14; it's always focused on someone or something and it's always unrequited. It's led to a lot of cheesy lines, but it's also the way I am. I want to be romantic, and songs are a good way to do that.
Quotes to Explore
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Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song.
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When you're in a songwriting class, and you write a song, and you hand it in to a teacher to grade, I'm still going to say that it's a really awesome song whether I got an A or a D. I learned to stick to my guns and take the tools as tools and not as rules.
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I wouldn't want to cover a Hank Williams song in a country-western way. It doesn't occur to me instinctually to re-create productions. I'm interested in re-creating songs. Putting different clothes on them.
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I'm all about telling stories. I like people to picture the music video in their head when they're just listening to the song.
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A lot of my friends send me Snapchats of when they're in the club, and they're like, 'It's your song!'
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I really like Ariana Grande, Jessie J, and Nicki Minaj's song, the 'Bang Bang' song. It's the new 'Lady Marmalade.' So good.
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I have breakups that I can credit to every song. In my twenties, I picked people who would create that dysfunction and drama, so I could draw upon it.
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The first album I ever bought with my own money was 'Ten.' Every single song reminds me of my childhood.
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Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.
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When I was driving home after registration, I heard this song on the radio, a guy singing about not ever going to class in college and always hanging out and singing for his friends. I laughed and said, I can relate, because it was so much like me. I realized right then I would pull out of school and pursue a music career.
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I made a point when I made the Ugly Casanova record to not write a song and then say, 'This is a Modest Mouse song' or 'This is an Ugly Casanova song.' The people who were open to it not being a Modest Mouse record liked it.
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But once you've made a song and you put it out there, you don't own it anymore. The public own it. It's their song. It might be their song that they wake up to, or their song they have a shower to, or their song that they drive home to or their song they cry to, scream to, have babies to, have weddings to - like, it isn't your song anymore.
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I like when the song starts to take over and you feel like you have to dance more than write.
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We're so very focused on ourselves and on self-promotion. It goes on all day with Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.
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It might crush a lot of people, but I've never been in the room with an artist that I've written a song for.
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'Whiplash' was always the song I hated the most because it's a song designed to screw with drummers.
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I wrote a techno song after I was deported. I was in America for a little bit, but then I was deported back to Germany. I was very sad.
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One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
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'Shooting Star' started out as the arrangement on the record, and it's developed into a real audience-participation song, just from playing it.
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Listen to the Song of Life.
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When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.
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Surreal can be exciting and good, and it can be like living inside an alien landscape, and it can be completely interesting, or you can be alienated from your own life - inside your own life, it doesn't feel familiar any more.
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The answers you get depend upon the questions you ask.
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I've been in love since I was 14; it's always focused on someone or something and it's always unrequited. It's led to a lot of cheesy lines, but it's also the way I am. I want to be romantic, and songs are a good way to do that.
