Song Quotes
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My father writings stuff was always his personal stuff, like about the day we had to put our dog down, or finding old photographs of his father, or passing a guy he went to boarding school with on a street in New York. Very specific, detailed, descriptive columns that he wrote. I think in a way, it could be argued that my best songs are that way too. They're almost journalistic in that they're very clear, and very specific, and they describe things.
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I just find that with music I've always felt a sort of comfort."Paranoid Android" was the saddest song I'd ever heard in my life, but it felt so good - it was like, "Oh, you understand where I'm coming from." I was at a weird age at the time, in a hardcore band that had no melody, no chance of finding any success, and I was just trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. And that came out and changed my life forever - on an artistic level, and a lyrical level, for sure.
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My musical background in Tyler, Texas was quite outstanding. Uh, I grew up with, uh, with high school teachers who were in bands, they could play music. And we had a nine piece band there in Tyler, and I joined them when I was about, oh, 15 years old and traveled all over Texas in that band, playing for the elite oil people. Hah. And um, I was making about 50 bucks a night, and uh, it taught me, they taught me how to find my timing and to learn the songs that I wanted.
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Music's staying power is a function of how timeless the lyrics, song and production are.
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You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry, I read Patti Smith's autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.
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The first song that most people picked up on, particularly in America, of mine, was a ballad, not a rock'n'roll song. It was 'Alison', and that's an R&B ballad. I don't think there's any other way to describe it.
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Lord, kiss me once more, fill me with song Allah, kiss me once more that I may, that I mayWear my love like heaven Wear my love like Wear my love like heaven.
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A song like 'Heartbreaker,' it's a song about learning - it's not necessarily a song about heartbreak. It's more than that. We write those songs to relive how we got over something.
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I feel like 'Next To Me' is a great introduction because it's a simple song that has a simple message for me. I wanted to introduce something that lyrically I'm proud of and introduces me both as an artist and as a writer.
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I wrote a techno song after I was deported. I was in America for a little bit, but then I was deported back to Germany. I was very sad.
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Most of our stuff was trial and error. You live with a tape recorder, you turn it on, you play the song and you listen to it.
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The Song Remains The Same is not a great film, but there's no point in making excuses. It's just a reasonably honest statement of where we were at that particular time. It's very difficult for me to watch it now, but I'd like to see it in a year's time just to see how it stands up.
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Maybe if I was a neon light I’d lead your car right back to my door. Oh, maybe if I was a jukebox needle dropping on a drinking song you’d want one more. If my name was Whiskey maybe right now you’d miss me.
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I go through cycles with my writing. I have cycles where I'm up all night and lose track of time, and then I go for months without a thing to write about. My song 'So Good, So Right' came to me while I was washing dishes after a dinner party.
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My feeling is that, and I've been writing about my family over the years, although it might make them feel uncomfortable, people generally like to be written about. If I've written a song about the family, they enjoy being mentioned in the songs. Nobody's confronted me and said 'don't write any songs about me.
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I'm not a trained musician or singer, but I can turn out a song.
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You can either make it come around or you can't. By the time we would be ready to record a song, we would know for sure that it was the best way we could do it.
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The easiest way I can describe what makes a pop song a pop song is that it's a song you want to hear over and over.
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Keep in mind, you can use Auto-Tune and you can know how to work it perfectly, but you still have to know how to write a good song.
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One of the things that I'm dying to do is to sing the hook on a big rap song. No one's ever called me to do that.
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If you want to say you got to take a woman out to a fancy restaurant, I write songs about hey I'm not taking you to a fancy restaurant, I wanna take you to McDonald's.
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I was about to walk on stage at the Kansas Speedway - I was playing a NASCAR race - and I said to Scooter Carusoe, who was standing side stage, 'I want to write a song called 'Wanna Be That Song.' Then I put my earphones back in and walked right out on stage.
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It's like, it's up to the people to fall in love with the song. The record company can only do so much.
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In order to actually have a touchscreen in front of me and somehow still be connected to nature, I needed to be able to incorporate natural elements into the song structures. Because that's always been my song-writing accompaniment: nature.
