William Shenstone Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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It's always a live experience - anything that happens around you. It's so easy to just put it to a song.
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As a songwriter I hate this whole, 'If it's a sad song, it has to sound like a sad song thing.' And that goes all the way back to my days with the Format. I'm an insane narcissist, so if I have to get something off my chest, I'll get something off my chest.
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This whole tribal loyalty seems to have gone.
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'Make You Miss Me' is an important song to me. Having it go No. 1 as the fifth single off of my first record is the cherry on top of a chapter in my life I'll never forget.
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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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We never thought 'Say Something' would be a holiday song. I'm still surprised that it's resonating at this time of year. Maybe that's why it's working so well - it balances out all the joy.
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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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There was this song I was working on called 'Swing.' It was almost finished, but there was something missing, and I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. And then this little piece of information - this little tweet - came to the forefront of my mind.
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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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My first songs were about animals and shoes. I wrote one song about PF Flyers, and one to my fish.
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When I first start writing a song, I usually write the title first, then the song, and I'll sing the song in my head and think of a visual of the song. If I can't think of a visual behind the song, I'll throw the song away.
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If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.
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It was a privilege to direct the music video for Adele's beautiful, heartbreaking song, 'Hello.' When I first heard it, all the images appeared clearly in my head - and her trust and generosity allowed me to work with abandon artistically and emotionally, like she always does. It made me extremely proud.
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There's a lot of craft that goes into achieving a hit song - at the beginning of your career, you're usually more inspiration than craft, and you get great when those intersect. A skilled songwriter can get you to that intersection.
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If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song.
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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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I could tell it was a popular move as a writer to walk down the bass lines while you were writing a song.
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As a songwriter you have an umbilical cord to the song and it's hard to expand on your understanding of the lyrics. Whereas when you cover a song you can create your own reason why you're attached to it.
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I've always gone into the studio with a very clear understanding of a song, of the words or, if it's an instrumental piece, of the melodies, and that never changes.
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When I wrote the song, The Way It Is, I wanted to move people to take a stand on civil rights in this country.
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Mindfulness is natural when you do not need to think about minor daily problems like making a living!
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If someone's being less than courteous to you, I don't think you need to pay any attention to them.
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Science starts with preconception, with the common culture, and with common sense. It moves on to observation, is marked by the discovery of paradox, and is then concerned with the correction of preconception. It moves then to use these corrections for the designing of further observation and for more refined experiment. And as it moves along this course the nature of the evidence and experience that nourish it becomes more and more unfamiliar; it is not just the language that is strange [to common culture].
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There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.
