Song Quotes
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Conservatives must avoid the siren song of schism, or all is lost.
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There is genuine healing in a beautifully crafted musical theatre song, like Stephen Sondheim's 'Losing My Mind,' or a pop music gem like Joni Mitchell's 'Help Me.'
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The way that we tried to approach every piece of music is, if the song had a brain, it would be aware of its catalog.
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I'm not somebody who carries around a notepad and writes songs all day long. I don't imagine everything I think of is worth being in a song. So I tend to collect notes, and I set time aside to go to work and write songs.
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Usually, if someone wants an inspiring-type number - patriotic, gospel, big love song - then I think you do think of me.
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I try to not go, 'I'm writing a pop song.' Music is inherently genre-bending.
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Things are very simple to be honest: when we arrive at the studio for a session, we just get going and let it go naturally and improvise as we go along, this is why it is always so magical when we go into a studio. It is just so natural for us to put a song together.
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Legions of young hip-hop fans are as against this as hip-hop's most fierce critics. There is a huge underground movement within hip-hop circles that against these representation. You can hear this message on tons of lyrics and rap songs produced by independent emcees. But they are fighting against a well-oiled and well-financed machine.
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People are consuming more than ever, but I think they want a bit of honesty and depth. Adele, Gotye, Janelle Monae - they're giving you a catchy song, but it's also a challenging song at the same time.
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Sitting next to Olivia Newton-John, I was like, 'Do not sing one song from Grease.' That's all I was telling my brain at all times: 'Do not sing Hopelessly Devoted. Don't do it.'
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I don't listen to the radio, cause I don't have a driver's license. But if I'm in L.A. or somewhere where we have to rent a car, I'll hear my songs. Sometimes I hear them when I'm in stores, and I'm still like a little kid in a candy shop: 'Oh my God, that's my song!' I don't know how that could ever get old.
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I like songs that go to different places and then come back.
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When I write a song, I tap into the emotion and the feeling and then I use the emotion to write the words. It's the opposite when I act. I use the words and tap into the emotion.
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When we were making the record, I just decided, at the last second. I thought, "This song ["Ordinary World"] makes a lot of sense, being on the album [Revolution Radio]."
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I'd like to do a song that I wrote today about our government's increasing infringement on our right to privacy, but the lyrics mysteriously disappeared from my guitar case.
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I also remember a line from a song by Smog [Bill Callahan], which seems to describe the experience of a town-dweller moving to the country: "I was raised in a pit of snakes/Blink your eyes - I was raised on cake."
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Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.
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Marylata [ Elton] introduced me to Hans Zimmer. Hans tapped me [to] work on songs for DreamWorks' animated features. I arranged Elton John's opening main title for The Road to El Dorado, I played guitars on Shrek for Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell, I co-produced "I Can See Clearly Now" for Antz.
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I think particularly in music, popularity os a very fickle thing. You're only as good as your last song.
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I feel like if you sit down and have an assistant engineer and a producer in a top-notch studio and everyone sets up all the mikes perfect, all of a sudden it's really hard to live that melancholy song. It's hard to really live it in the moment.
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When you finish a song, your first thought is going to be, 'Is this song a hit?' I hate that we think that way, because it kind of takes a little bit of the meaning out of the songs that are being written, but you're definitely going to think, 'Can this song be put on the radio?'
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I don't have certain kinds of fatigue. My focus stays strong - I can work on a song for six or seven hours in one day and not get bored or tired of it.
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As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that's what I do, too.
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Even when I was with Arista records, which was the freest part of my career, you still have to run a lot of stuff by committee whether it's a budget, or the album artwork, or how may songs you get to record. This was total freedom. We had nobody to answer to. We didn't have to get anything approved.
