Song Quotes
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Through my years as a writer, I've learnt how to simplify the message and pen songs that have a more specific quality - it's not just about my ego and trying to meet girls.
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It's very hard to teach someone how to write a song if to begin with there's no creative crop to harvest.
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There's not a whole lot to do in Athens. When I was 13, I just started entertaining myself by writing songs. I'd sit in my room for 10 hours playing the same song, stacking vocals, trying out different drum beats, realizing no one would ever hear this but having so much fun. I guess I got my voice from just doing that so often.
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Once I come up with the concept, the rest of the song just comes.
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Every leading lady I work with, I'll see if I can get a song out of them and put it on an album.
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I can play a song for somebody, and when certain parts come on, I cringe. I might not like my vocal or the way I sang a certain word. Playing intimate shows is when I feel the most vulnerable; you can hear and see everything. Those are the most rewarding as well.
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Barriers have been broken: rappers are singing, and singers are rapping. You might catch a rapper on a rock song, a pop artist on a hip-hop song - there are so many different things that are going on today. That is the same way in which we live our lives; we're all over the place. I like to try different things.
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The very first song I wrote was about a boy that I was obsessed with.
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I remember the first single I ever bought. I think it was a terrible song called 'D.I.S.C.O.' by a band called Ottawan. It's a really fearless disco track from the '70s or early '80s.
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Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.
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My brother had written 'Ocean Eyes,' and we recorded it, basing all of the production around contemporary and lyrical dance. I think of most songs that way - if you can't dance to a song, it's not a song.
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I've always felt that to deliver a song successfully, you have to be an actress. A good actress becomes the part, just as a good singer becomes the song.
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Sometimes being an actor is being a song in someone else's mixtape, so I really understand why more and more actors are making films of their own.
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Rather than writing about my experiences with other people, 'Ugly Cherries' is the first song I've ever written about myself. It's a confrontation: an attempt to unpack my own queerness with humor and self care.
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I love Miranda Lambert; I think she's wonderful. I love the song 'Love Letters' and 'Famous in a Small Town.'
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If a song can't be written in 20 minutes, it ain't worth writing.
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Every song you write you think is the last one you're going to manage. You put everything you've got into the song, and you've twisted it and pulled at it and dug in and found a way to complete it. To get another one is the trick.
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Never hate a song that's sold a half million copies.
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I always feel like I want to write a song when I'm really upset. And when I'm in an argument with my family, I go straight to the piano and just kind of take it out on the piano and get all emotional.
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Both my grandmothers had upright pianos, and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up, and then I learned how to read music. I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the notes. She'd make the mistake of playing the song once, and I could play it.
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I wrote the song For A Dancer for a friend of mine who died in a fire. He was in the sauna in a house that burned down, so he had no idea anything was going on. It was very sad.
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I feel like, when you turn on the radio and you hear a great song, you know it's a great song, and you sing along. We all know what a great song sounds like, so we all have that instinct, it's just being able to accept your own instincts when you write that song.
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Doing a scene truthfully is very similar to doing a song truthfully. They're really parallel.
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One of my favorite things is when people will ask for a song that I hadn't planned to play. It is really fun to see if you can remember something, and you don't always. I mean, sometimes it's just crash and burn.
