Song Quotes
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Country music is the song that speaks to the American condition. It's middle America. Eight out of 10 people. Maybe it's not the No. 1 choice, but they listen to country.
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What I saw in the record industry is it's just getting more restricted, more restricted, more restricted to where everyone's trying to figure out what kind of song to make to get on the radio: that's researched and where advertisers are telling you what to play.
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He was annoyed 'cause I didn't say that he'd written one line of this song 'Taxman.' But I also didn't say how I wrote two lines of 'Come Together' or three lines of 'Eleanor Rigby,' you know? I wasn't getting into any of that. I think, in the balance, I would have had more things to be niggled with him about than he would have had with me!
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'Shooting Star' started out as the arrangement on the record, and it's developed into a real audience-participation song, just from playing it.
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Sometimes you can gauge the excitement of the rest of the band. If I'm bringing a song in and they're excited, then I'll hold on to that one. But there are times where it's like, 'Eh, I don't really like that one,' and we have to send that one on.
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I never have any problem getting enthusiastic with a good song and a good band.
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For us as writers, it's really important to have songs we believe in - even before sometimes we shoot a scene. If we have a song that's so perfectly designed for a scene on 'Rescue Me,' we'll play it on loud speakers during the shooting. It helps the cameraman and it helps the director, and it helps the actors know what the feel is.
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And if you're horrible to me I'm going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That's how I operate.
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I never walk into the studio and say, I'm going to write a song called... 'X' or called 'Slow Me Down.' I write a ton of lyrics, often the title is somewhere in those 10 pages of... I call it brain vomit. It's kind of like whatever comes out of my head and I'm unabashedly just writing it down.
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Sometimes in the middle of the night, I wake up with a song in my head, and I have to finish it so I can fall back asleep.
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It's funny because as a composer, you want to hear your songs live on. I think a lot of times people will create a song and it becomes stagnant or something that they're no longer interested in playing, and they leave it alone.
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People listen to music with cavemen ears: Is it a bird song or the call of a lion? The audience at a musical is dancing in their hearts.
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My intent for EPs - and, really, my philosophy on my music - is that every single song has to be worth it.
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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.
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We've gone further on this album, where we have a Big Band song, kind of a Sinatra-type song; we have a couple songs that have electronic music on them. We've got a couple rock songs, maybe a little heavier than what we've done. So the title 'Jekyll & Hyde' really covers the breadth of the record.
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If you're talking to an architect, he can look at a blank piece of paper, and once the initial design is there, the formula kicks in. Each room should have something unique and different about it - much the same way that in a song, every eight bars or so, a new piece of information should be introduced.
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When I write a song, it is to fill a niche in people's lives. To have a song for every experience if one hadn't been written yet.
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I think the song itself, 'Smoke and Fire,' is just a metaphor for the feelings that you feel in a relationship.
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If they want to party and do all the things I say brought me sadness in my song, with my song as the soundtrack... so be it.
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The real danger of writing a great song when you're on something is that it might get you thinking that the only way to repeat that is by only writing when you're high.
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When we were doing 'Live at Benaroya,' the song 'I Will' was hard to get through. I've always get a big lump in my throat when I sing that song. And also 'Before It Breaks.' So I'm just a different songwriter now. And the older I get, the more difficult it becomes to deliver those songs casually.
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I come from a very musical family. My dad taught me to play guitar. I play violin and drums as well. Violin, I started in elementary school. Drums actually came when I was in a program called 'Rock Star,' which was really awesome. We were doing a song by the Ramones, so I thought, 'Why not play the drums?'
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I'm not a folk or jazz singer, more a hard-edged pop singer - with some rock, and song hooks.
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What I say is from my heart. You must be sincere. So when I sing a song, people are supposed to feel it.
