Song Quotes
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There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.
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I played some shows, but I'm disappointed it didn't do better. I wish all my shows sold out, I wish I had sold more copies, I wish that a song was picked up to be in a TV show - whatever these little benchmarks are. You always want something more.
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There are two things John and I always do when we're going to sit down and write a song. First of all we sit down. Then we think about writing a song.
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I used to sing songs and write with my uncle, Bill Owens.
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I went to New York and Miami and hung out by the beach, and I love the American boys, so I wrote a song about it.
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This idea has been in my heart for a long time. One always dreams of recording a song when they finish writing it.
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But I'm able to just keep going, and that's the challenge. It's the next song. And then just enjoying the shows and people who come out to the shows. It's pretty organic, really.
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Sentences are not different enough to hold the attention unless they are dramatic. No ingenuity of varying structure will do. All that can save them is the speaking tone of voice somehow entangled in the words and fastened to the page for the ear of the imagination. That is all that can save poetry from sing-song, all that can save prose from itself.
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You could hear a song, and if you didn't like it, well, you didn't listen to it.
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It's funny because my main awkwardness around writing the song had little to do with the method.
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I wanted to write a battle song for the Judeans but so far I can think of nothing noble and weighty enough.
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I don't force it. If you don't have an idea and you don't hear anything going over and over in your head, don't sit down and try to write a song. You know, go mow the lawn...My songs speak for themselves.
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When I write a song, the music comes from my spirit, which is very playful and optimistic, but then the lyrics come from my head, which is in a different space.
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I love originating shows and originating songs - there is nothing better than being the first one to get to do a song.
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If you were to say to me that you needed a romantic and sentimental song in four hours, I would have that song written in four hours.
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I know the words to, like, every song. Hoobastank, whatever.
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There are some bands for whom that works very well and it's no disrespect to them because I'm sure there's something honest and natural about it, but for us I feel like it would be dishonest and kinda disrespectful to that artwork to do that. To be like: "Okay, we're going to go back and only play these songs, even though we have an hour to an hour and a half set and we gotta play more songs, but we'll skimp you on your extra half hour." That's just silly to me.
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My philosophy for producing a record is for everyone involved, including myself, to get out of the way of the song, and at the same time, listen to it as closely as you can, and listen to where the song wants to go.
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Most of my songs are pretty sketchy. There's not a lot of bass sections. I don't write big bridges. Sometimes I'll try. But it's hard for me to focus that way, because I always think it's more interesting to just see what will happen next.
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So you can be about your business, and then on it comes again. And this time you're ready, and you've got a wine glass or something. And you put the glass up to the wall, and you can hear through the wall a little bit more of the song - maybe just the middle bit this time. You know, you managed to get in a little bit of the end. And so it goes on until - because you just got to - you really just want to sing it.
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The perfect pop song is a 20th-century creation; it's not a sonnet, it's not an opera, it's something short - three and a half minutes by nature - and has this ability to travel and to defy class and economic structures.
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One song will launch you, but you don't want to be a one-song artist.
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To die, so young to die. No, no, not I, I love the warm sunny skies, light, song, shining eyes, I want no war, no battle cry, No, no, not I.
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That song helped make me a world citizen. It allowed me to live, work and sing in any city on the globe. It changed my whole life.
