Song Quotes
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Shortly before she died Janis Joplin gave me the Gibson Hummingbird she recorded "Me and Bobbby McGee" on ... Janis was a good guitar player, for her purposes .. she just wanted to play along with her songs, and she had a real pure and nice style for that.
Sam Andrew
Big Brother and the Holding Company
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It's what I like to call the horizontal Jesus. Vertical Jesus are the songs that say 'Lord I love you, Lord I praise you, Lord I thank you' and horizontal is 'I'm in a situation. This is the problem. How can I apply that now horizontally?' There are more problems in the world because he's not being applied horizontally.
Kirk Franklin
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But the greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out. You want the listener to find the song on their own. If you give too much away, it takes away from the imagination.
Diana Krall
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I source images and ideas from different parts of my experiences, and sometimes they are things that are made-up, or just appear out of nowhere, like out of a dream or an image that I've seen in a book, or even the title of a book that I'm staring at on a shelf. It's a good way to write songs, just stare at a bookshelf!
Julia Natasha Stone
Angus & Julia Stone
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'Sweet Dreams' is such a dark-sounding song, but it's about not taking anything for granted; share yourself with others after you have first spent some time with yourself.
Angel Olsen
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If you listen to the first, second, and third chorus of a song, they don't sound the same. It's the same melody and all that, but what really happens is that the energy changes. It's all about getting the listener to keep his or her concentration.
Max Martin
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Creating a decent pop song is a challenge - and occasionally, once in every decade - it's kind of fun to do that.
David Sylvian
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I think our songwriting has evolved. We can show that we have continued to branch out and do different stuff and incorporate different instruments. When it comes to writing, I think that we have pushed the envelope. We can do whatever we want to try - a longer song or a shorter song, some different instruments, some piano, an intro with just vocals, something that's scathing. Whatever. However we feel the song should go, that's what we will do. With that mindset, I think it's made us better writers.
John R. Bush
Armored Saint
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A band has a certain responsibility to work songs for years and stick to rules more. A solo artist can just do whatever they want, and also present themselves as somebody who's just singing about their life.
Chris Owen
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I grew up listening to all kinds of music, everything from country to rock, pop, R&B and even rap, so for me, music is music and a great song is a great song.
Jason Aldean
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The music usually occurs to me as a complete sound, and then I have developed the skill of being able to translate that into a fully realized song.
Ariel Pink
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It's hard enough to make a good song and a good recording of that song. But to try to tailor it to some outside force is just like - It's never been a factor in what I've done or what the band's done.
James Iha
The Smashing Pumpkins
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If you can whistle the melody, then the song will stick. But if you need a bunch of machines to make it sound good, you're probably not writing anything that's going to last a long time.
James McBride
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Facing inward, join hands so as to form a small circle. Then, without moving from their places they sing the opening song, according to previous agreement, in a soft undertone.
James Mooney
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I know there is an eye that watches all of us. There is a judgment that weighs everything we do. And before this great force, which is greater than any government I stand in awe and I kneel in respect and it is to this great judgment that I dedicate this next song, 'Hallelujah'.
Leonard Cohen
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Whenever I'm writing a song, if I have an idea for the music video, that's how I know it's a good song.
Charli XCX
