Song Quotes
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When you can touch the spirit, whatever that is, and when you can feel the love, and you can feel the song is cooking and it's in the pocket, you know, everybody knows that's the one that's grooving.
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When I go into a room to write, it's like I'm not trying to say, 'I need to write a song that sounds like Eric Church or Jason Aldean.' I just try to get the best song that's in the room that day. Whatever style or sound that may be, I'm not afraid to attack it at that angle.
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'Close to the Edge' is the album where we first attempted to do the extra-long-form piece of music, having one song taking up the whole side of a piece of vinyl.
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'As Long As I Know I'm Getting Paid' is a satire. Lyrically, I want to be direct. With my history in Fall Out Boy, there's some expectation that I'm going to be lyrically obtuse. But that song is a straight-faced satire of consumerism.
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I come to you defenses down with the trust of a child.
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I don't like giving names to generations. It's like trying to read the song title on a record that's spinning.
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Different people have different ways of doing things. For me, becoming a songwriter first and falling in love with the Nashville songwriting community and the process of songs and getting better and putting more in what I wanted to say, was absolutely vital in me even wanting to be an artist.
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I had been wanting to give guitar lessons to girls because I feel like women tend to use their voice as the starting point for a song and learn a few chords, and then it ends there because then they just use their voice to flesh out a song.
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Does it bother me that some people are burning their own System CDs and taking money out of my pocket? Not really. This has always been about putting the best possible version of the song in the fans hands. It was like selling an artist's painting before he had finished it.
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It's a blessing as an artist to express myself - whether that be via dance, via song or via speech - in so many different ways.
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I continue to write songs that are topically related to social, political and economic issues of our time, but I also recognize that onstage, I have a lot of fun and audiences have a lot of fun, so I'm trying to package the messages in music and sounds that are fun to perform and fun to listen to.
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If I make a song where I'm happy, I sound completely mad - I think my voice is better-suited for sadder songs.
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I like when the song starts to take over and you feel like you have to dance more than write.
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When I'm writing a song, it's just me and the songwriters. Then when the song is done, there are publishers that hear it, then people in my management, then my wife and my boys and my friends, and if they're all lovin' it, it's kind of withstanding all the criticism I need.
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My God is the green tide in the spring leaves the redness of cherries high in the air the excitement of shooting stars the song of birds in summer branches the sunrise on a winter's morning the name of everything we don't understand.
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Taylor Swift dates guys so she can write a breakup song about them. I don't think she's dating for love - I think she's dating for creativity. So let's get her off the market and put her in dating detox. If she really wants love, she has to stop writing music about them.
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Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.
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The first person that I ever heard sing a song I wrote was Jason Derulo. I was in the studio when he was doing it, and I mean, I've heard that guy's voice my whole life. When he was singing words I wrote, I started kind of choking up, but I tried to be all manly and puff my chest up and be all, 'Yeah, it's not a big deal.'
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I've just put my heart and soul in a song and need at least a week to recover.
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That's what I love about songwriting - that you can write something about your own experiences and think it's completely specific to you, and then people can take away a completely different meaning for themselves. I really love that. I think you've been successful at writing a song when it has a larger life than yourself.
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I think hip-hop is no more misogynistic than America is as a society. I just think hip-hop is a lot more brash, a lot more bold, a lot more loquacious. There are a lot more words that go into a hip-hop song than go into a regular song.
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I think Katy B encapsulates young London in a way I never could. She reps London harder than anyone song-wise since Lily Allen.
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I just wanted to finally release something that sounded really fun, and 'Must Be Love' is that song! I'm telling you, I went to the Philippines and sang that live for everyone, and everyone was singing along, and I thought, 'Wow!' Everyone was singing this song back to me because everyone loves love.
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I would be too self-conscious if I just thought of writing lyrics for a song. I have to trick myself into doing it.
