Song Quotes
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This 'Making Mirrors' album is far more personal, even if there's a character element to the sounds I'm working with. Every song on this album I stand behind; I feel like I have a close relationship with them. There are older songs where I can feel myself writing a story, so this is the first album where I'm proud of every lyric.'
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I was in my friend's apartment, and their buddy called us and was like, 'I'm in a car, and you're on the radio.' So we listened to the song. That was wild. I'm like, 'Is this real? How is this happening?'
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I usually don't share the music with the musicians until right before they have to record their parts, because I hate discussing it and just intellectualizing it on any level. I just want to speak from the subconscious, which knows way more about me than my intellectual side will ever know. Once I start doing the arrangements - what I call the architecture of the song - that has a lot of thought put into it.
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It's a different process for me, but it's really cool to hear someone else singing the song that you wrote.
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I do believe that a poet would possess a stronger intuitive sense of phrasing with a rock song. There is a way to tap into the emotions of an audience simply by the cross of a certain phrase, even a single word, against a certain chord.
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Pete Ham in the group was a very good writer. He wrote the Nilsson song "Without You", which is a seriously good song. But the poor fellow topped himself. He was a lovely bloke, I can still see him now. It was a terrible loss.
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Is there a bad song on 'Sign O' The Times?' There isn't.
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For my 23rd birthday, I received a nylon string guitar. I told myself that if I could play Eric Clapton's 'Tears In Heaven,' then I could play the guitar. I practised every chance I got, driving my housemates insane, until several weeks later I had a shaky version of the song down. I wrote my first song on the guitar a few weeks after that.
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Song ideas have come to me in the middle of interviews, in the shower, or while I'm writing another song.
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A lot of times when songwriters get together and write a song... somebody will come in with a hook and a lot of times they come out with something that sounds a little crafty.
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The last name is pronounced Jill-en-hall. It's spelled with two l's, two a's. We have a song in my family; G-Y-Double L - EN - HAAL spells Gyllenhaal. It's a Swedish name. It's a family heirloom set to music.
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I think the process of 'I Love It' becoming such a big song opened my eyes to sides of the industry that I'd never been aware of, which I wasn't so into.
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If you call attention to yourself at the expense of the song, that's the cardinal sin.
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I spent 80% of my time working on this, and 20% of my time working on music. Why do you think the song 'Niggas in Paris' is called 'Niggas in Paris?' 'Cause niggas was in Paris!
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You really only understand whether a song's good or not when you properly play it out in public for the first time.
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I think it's important to really press on with the song writing and just go with it. There's no code, there's no craft... it's just let yourself shine through your music. If it's meant to be loved and heard, it'll happen.
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Listen to the late Isaac Hayes covering 'Walk on By' by Burt Bacharach or Mayfield singing The Carpenters' vanilla-seeming 'We've Only Just Begun,' and you realize soul's insistence on transformation: Mayfield in particular makes the song not just about love but the start of revolution.
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I regard singing pretty much like acting. Each song is like playing a different role. I get very involved with my material. I feel a responsibility for the emotion it brings out in the listener.
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They couldn't do it if we didn't allow it. I feel like someone using your song is different than someone using your persona, like you as an individual. It's a bit different than going on the show. Though I never said we wouldn't go on the show.
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'Frayed Ends Of Sanity' off the 'Justice' album is a song that I really wanted to play with the band, and for years and years, I was always like, 'Let's play this song!' But I'll tell you something: I started working on that song almost from the very first time I joined the band.
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Our songs did not transcend being R&B hits. They were R&B hits that white kids were attracted to. And if people bought it, it became rock & roll. That's marketing. Why couldn't it still be R&B? The bass pattern didn't change. The song didn't change. It was still 'Yakety Yak' and 'Searchin'.'
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When you raise your voice in song to express what's going on deep inside of you, I think people just react to that because it's so truthful. It's so raw.
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Every single song that I've listened to is in my memory forever.
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When you're singing, it can be looked at as a monologue, in a way. If it's about telling a story and connecting with your audience, you can do that through song, through dialogue, or through a monologue. That's what's special about being an entertainer.
