If it weren’t for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song.
I didn’t know how to play guitar until I was 21, but from the moment I was good enough on guitar to even put one song together, I kind of billed myself as an artist.
A true friend is someone who is always there during the ups and downs, I actually have a song called ‘True Friend’.
It was a privilege to direct the music video for Adele’s beautiful, heartbreaking song, ‘Hello.’ When I first heard it, all the images appeared clearly in my head – and her trust and generosity allowed me to work with abandon artistically and emotionally, like she always does. It made me extremely proud.
To me, there is nothing more soothing than the song of a mosquito that can’t get through the mesh to bite you.
Let’s get with it, guys: You don’t need to hear a Ministry song to get political. You should be political on your own. We’re just a side project to society. So do I care what people think about me personally? No. I just do what I do.
To this day I get mail from women who say, I went to law school because of your song. But I would hate to think out of the wide spectrum of things I have done in my career, that’s all I would be remembered for.
Sometimes, the songs that really affected me were not from the artist catalogue of their music, like the song ‘Thunder Road’ by Bruce Springsteen. I never got into any of his other music, but that song, to this day, is in my top three lyrical masterpieces of all time.
A song has a life of its own. It’s an autonomous thing, separate from your own experience, almost. And the mere repetition of it means it’s subject to change; it means approaching it differently, expressing different emotional aspects of it. It doesn’t feel like wallowing.
I get on my porch with my guitar, look at my trees, and write a song.
I always tell up-and-coming DJs you have to really love what you do and find that interest to drive you. It requires so much attention to detail, and it takes up a lot of your time. You hear a song, and there are so many little pieces that make that song work. It requires a lot of patience, diligence and resilience.
After a dark, violent age, the Piscean, we are entering a millennium of love and light in the words of the popular song the ‘Age of Aquarius,’ the time of the mind’s true liberation.
There’s no separation between electronic music and acoustic music. It’s all one thing. Each song has its own heartbeat. Each song has its own soul.
It’s of course important to mention that when DJing, I’m building my own story through the music. I’m figuring out what song to play next, what song to play after that, and how the two will blend together. How the emotion is going to develop from one song to another. So I first build that storyline.
It is a very serious consideration for a lyricist to step in there and suggest the meaning to a song. The music is speaking for itself.
When I was a teenager, my dad used to call me ‘Hollywood’ because I wore sunglasses all the time, even at night. Cue song.
New York sounds like something that I could really listen to. It’s like a vibe; it’s a hit song. It’s a song that you could listen to in five years and still like.
Even Crazy Horses is a good song, by the Osmonds. I’ve known many bands who have covered that. It’s just a great song. I bought it in a brown, paper bag because I didn’t want anyone to know I had it.
With technology now, you can go in and sing a song, and for $100,000, you will sound flawless.
I don’t think a song should be put in a category.
I think a good guitar solo sounds so much better within the context of a good song.
When I get into the studio, it’s not about trying to get a good song, it’s about whatever comes naturally.
I listen to Helmet – and I love Helmet, they’re a great band – but every song sounds the same.
I think most bands probably peak on their first album. We peaked on our third album. On the first album, I feel like I wish the production was a little better. I’ll always hear a song I don’t like. I look for what I could have done to make it better. It’s always difficult for me to listen.
We met Ferg at one of our shows in L.A. She gave us her number. For the song ‘Shut Up’ on Elephunk, we needed a vocalist. Someone said ‘yo, remember that white girl – we should get her in the studio.’ Since then, we’ve become friends. She’s one of the guys now, she isn’t just a girl.
Music is the language of the angels. You can hear just one or two chords, one or two notes of a song, and bam – you’re right back there, you’re right back in that moment, you’re back in that day, you’re back at that prom, you’re back in the car.
My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.
I have struggled for decades now with the fear of and resistance to change – mostly in the realms of technology, transportation, and the ways people choose to communicate. If I had a theme song, it would be that lovely song ‘I’m Old-Fashioned,’ as sung by Ella Fitzgerald.
I grew up in a time when the only musicals were animated musicals because nobody wanted to see people to break into song.
I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can’t sit down and play this and get the song over, I don’t take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar.
I barely listen to the radio, to be honest. I don’t want anything infiltrating my ears that I don’t want to possibly put out in my song.
I’ve never written a happy love song.
The emotions in a song – the anger, aggression – have got to be legitimate.
At the Muddy Waters thing, I played the first song by myself on an acoustic guitar. I thought that was great that y’all did that tribute to Muddy Waters. I had a real good time.
I’ve woken up from dreams and the whole song is there. I’m listening to it in my dreams. I consciously have to wake myself up and get a tape recorder because I hear it like a record.
I’m 18 in this album. I’m not losing fans, and I’m not disrepecting women, but you reach the maturity of taking it to the next level with a girl. It was only necessary for me to have at least one song like that.
If I had a walk-up song in 2019, it would be ‘Baby Shark.’ It’s haunting. It’s mesmerizing. It’s catchy.
I knew ‘Ojuelegba’ was a good song, but I didn’t expect it to blow up the way that it did.
Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail.
My first gigs were at university: I’d dress up as Jesus, jump off a cross and dance to a Mick Jagger song. I don’t know if it was funny or not, but it was a start.
Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.
I wrote a song on the record called ‘Flawed Design’ and it’s basically looking at that, and it was just exploring how everybody obviously has flaws. I think to embrace those flaws – enjoy them, embrace them – and actually be a real person is something that a lot of people struggle with, myself included.
In my opinion, I think sarcasm and humor in a song, without turning it into a novelty song, is really charming.
There are times pop music is the end result when I’m in the studio, but I don’t really go in and say, ‘Today I am going to make a pop song,’ but it can happen.
A DJ can’t just play one song. It’s about playing a set, or how you connect songs in those two hours, and where you place them.
Item song dancers like Silk Smitha and Jayamalini have become irrelevant. The heroines are doing those dances themselves.
I’ll watch a highlight tape of my kicks and I’ll play a song that I like the night before the game and then I’ll sing that song in my head to visually get myself ready and have positive thoughts.
It was a kind of siren song that called me out to the front lines.
Right from day one, you know when you’ve written a good song.
‘Wrecking Ball’ is a great song.
If I get a song – a good song – I just sing it the way I hear it in my head. If anybody else wanted to add whistles and bells and chains rattling, that’s fine. Just not too much. I actually just do things as straight ahead as possible.
In karaoke, you don’t choose the song; the song chooses you.
When I did ‘1,2,3,4’ on ‘Sesame Street’ they’d rewritten the song and made it about counting. At first, I balked. I was like, ‘Counting to four? That’s where we’re going with this?’ Then they sent me appearances by other people like James Blunt doing ‘You’re Beautiful’ as ‘My Triangle.’
I have a younger brother and sister who actually play in my band, and we were always into Disney music, big time. The first time I heard myself sing was when I recorded myself singing a Disney song. I remember it because it was awful, and I didn’t expect to hear that. I think it was ‘A Whole New World’ from ‘Aladdin.’
Songwriting is actually a really great outlet. I kind of recommend it. You get to sum up whatever is going on in your life in a song, then perform it really passionately.
You can make a hit song in 15 minutes. I don’t know about someone else’s song, but songs that people like of mine, I’ve created in 15 minutes or less.
Dance music cannot compete with a really great rock n’ roll song. There ain’t no DJ that’s gonna play something that can take ‘Mr Brightside’ or ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger.’
