Song Quotes
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The last name is pronounced Jill-en-hall. It's spelled with two l's, two a's. We have a song in my family; G-Y-Double L - EN - HAAL spells Gyllenhaal. It's a Swedish name. It's a family heirloom set to music.
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If I found out some gal was trying to steal my guy, I'd want to give her a black eye! Instead, I wrote this song. At the time I was writing each song [on this album], you could figure out the frame of mind I was in by listening closely. With every song I've ever recorded, I'm in it. I wouldn't write about it if I wasn't in it.
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I feel like I always have to have a song on my album that people can use in their weddings.
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You think it's all written, but it's not. There's always another way to twist those three chords around.
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I've come to appreciate how special a song is compared to other art forms, because you can carry it around in your head and your heart, and it remains part of you. It just comes as natural as a bird to me, always did. It's the way singer-songwriters make sense of our lives.
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'Wanna Be That Song' has everything I want to say about love and about what I'm trying to be. I wanna be that part of your life, that song that means so much to you, the one that takes you back to that special place... the song that makes you laugh, the song that makes you cry when you need to cry, that makes you dance when you need to dance.
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The first song that I had that went platinum was 'Keep Your Head Up,' which was a long time ago. Then, you get 'one-hit wonder' with that.
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I always tell up-and-coming DJs you have to really love what you do and find that interest to drive you. It requires so much attention to detail, and it takes up a lot of your time. You hear a song, and there are so many little pieces that make that song work. It requires a lot of patience, diligence and resilience.
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When you work with a band, obviously you've got to present them with something they can get a hold of, so it has to be a little more fleshed out as a song. And then where it goes is more collaborative, obviously; it's more political possibly, certainly more a conscious process than a subconscious process, which the painting can be.
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When I write, I don't really focus on duets or anything like that or whether I'm going to feature this or that rapper. I just focus on just making a great song and figure out the rest later.
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I like The Smiths - I would love to do a song with The Smiths, because they are so sonically different.
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I can sort of will that stuff to happen to me if I put myself in the right headspace. Then I can actually get to a space where it won't just be one song that comes through, but a series of them.
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That song ["Money to Burn"] is me being a fly on the wall in situations in LA. I mean, I've seen the way a lot of people operate and I've seen that sort of thing go down. There's a lot of rich kids with a little bit of extra money.
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Our perception of songs that we've written... the meaning changes from day to day... to whatever stage we're at in our life and careers.
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When 'Hide Away' first started gaining a bit of momentum, I was visiting at least two radio stations per day - sometimes in different cities - to spread the word about the song. It was a hustle, but so worth it.
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In every song, there is a vocal element that doesn't have any words. I wanted to play around with how emotive and expressive my voice could be.
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I really love that I'm giving myself the opportunity finally to not have the pressure of every single song you do having to be "political" or whatever. I'm just making what I wanna make.
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I'm always imagining some sort of story behind the song, even the ones I haven't written. I'm actively engaging in playacting.
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We can't forget what happened on May 4th, 1970, when four students gave up their lives because they had the American constitutional right of peaceful protest. They gave up their lives. And to sing that song in that spot on that anniversary was very emotional for us.
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The big thing that everyone forgets, you're famous and on TV and everything, but I think there's something very rewarding to be able to write a song, record it, and have it turn out as you heard it in your head, or even better.
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I used to practice piano for hours, and now, with a synthesizer, you can input the music and the machine perfects the song. That's why we have so many people in the music business who should be plumbers. They don't really understand music because they haven't been trained.
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I remember people telling me that at 5 1/2 minutes long, 'Lightning Crashes' would never be a hit song.
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I see everything as creative material. If I pick up a shell of a song that I wrote 10 years ago, all that matters is the reality of that material as it's living today.
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Cobbled streets and no shops open past six o'clock, a communal life that seemed to revolve around church, and where you could often hear bird song and nothing else: Gaia felt as though she had fallen through a portal into a land lost in time.
