Even though other people wrote my songs I put my stamp on them. I have a connection, but there is no truer connection than an artists and their own song.
I’ve never dated anyone in Hollywood – or anyone famous, for that matter. I don’t know that I’m ever gonna write a song that you will know who it’s about.
We’ve been able to have our cake and eat it, too. Every song, every T-shirt, is absolutely a pure expression of what we want to do. And it connects.
My favorite song is Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ because my brother used to sing it to me as loud as he could. Annoying then, favorite memory now.
Once you’ve been on tour six, seven years, you get an idea of what works and what doesn’t work universally. There will be some crowds that we just can’t play a song, but we’ve got 90% of a show that we know is going to be a hit with the Lupe Fiasco fan. I think the catering has already been done.
I’m a song and dance girl. I can act enough to get by. But that’s the limit of my talents.
If it’s a good song, it doesn’t really matter if it’s trendy or not. It will hit.
It’s always important for me to say something with my music, even if the deeper message is hidden inside of what sounds like a fun, upbeat song.
To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.
Although, my experience when I’ve been depressed, not only am I too depressed to sit down and write a song, I’m too depressed to pick up my feet. So if you can at least write about it, you’re halfway away from it.
Every moment of my life has a soundtrack, so I never know when some song is going to jump me by surprise and bring the memory alive.
The song ‘Laughing Down Crying’ is not a typical Daryl song.
A lot of times, somebody will say something and it will give you a good title. So you carry a pencil with you and jot that down. You don’t just write a song right quick, though. You fool around and work with it. You have to keep going over and over it and see if you can’t write a song that means something.
How we absorb music is unique. I know what I do. When I’m listening to music, I tend to find myself in a song. That’s what really makes you connect is if you feel what that song is saying.
I wanted to write a song about war and that classic ‘We want you’ recruitment style from the point of view of the recruiter.
I was telling people like ‘My Dawg’ gon’ be the song that get me out there. I knew it.
Morrissey wrote a really gorgeous song for me. I’m crazy for that man. And he thinks I’m hip!
Lyrics are important, but it’s hard, because English isn’t my first language – although it feels like it is these days! I grew up with amazing melodies, so getting that right on a song has always been the key thing for me, but there’s no reason why a great melody doesn’t deserve great lyrics.
When I sang in ‘Aashiq Banaya Aapne,’ I never imagined the song would be such a rage.
Music is a language in itself and the songs have their own soul, every song has its soul.
Every song that is a Hopsin song, I 100 percent made it. Nobody helped me. There was no producer to say, ‘Hey, put the beat like this… ‘ It was all me. If the song was wack, then the song was wack. If it’s dope, it is what it is.
I close my eyes when I sing so I can feel the song better.
I’m not afraid of being thought of as someone who is associated with film music. Why not? If it’s a good song, what does it matter?
Even if it’s a song I know isn’t gonna do that well, I’m dropping it as a piece of art, so I always want sick visuals to go with it.
Gunna ain’t never wrote no song for me. He just showed me how to rap.
The only tip I can give is just be yourself, you don’t have to copy another song to be popular.
Oh my God, if you’re talking terrible theme songs, you have to mention Matt Hardy. I can’t understand what they’re even saying. There’s a point in Matt Hardy’s song where it sounds like they say ‘I want to meet the cheese.’ I’m always like, ‘Meet the cheese?’ Just goofy stuff.
I admit I do have some drawbacks and limitations as a candidate. Although I am a professional comedian, some of my critics maintain that this is not enough. I cannot deny that I stand before you untested and inexperienced – I only spent two years in television, never as a romantic lead or a song and dance man.
The compelled mother loves her child as the caged bird sings. The song does not justify the cage nor the love the enforcement.
I think the humor, when applied in the right amount, only serves to intensify the other emotions in a given song; it highlights them, makes them stand out.
I’ve written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.
I’m a musichead. My favorite Gaga song of all time is ‘You & I’ – it might not be the popular vote in terms of charts or sales, but it’s my favorite.
Now, performing is second nature and I love every second of it. It is a very emotional thing when I can’t play a song; maybe I’m hitting on something that I don’t want to deal with. All of it is so personal. It is like therapy.
I could never be a country person, sitting around trees trying to write a song. I would rather be in the middle of society, whether it’s growing or crumbling.
In the old days, people shared music; they didn’t care who made it. A song would be owned by a village, and anyone could sing it, change the words, whatever. That is how humans treated music until the late 19th century. Now, with the Internet, we are going back to having tribal attitudes towards music.
Not every song has to be about love and tenderness, sometimes you have those strictly physical feelings for somebody and it’s okay to have those feelings.
I am passionate about singing, and I strive to improve with every song and keep getting better.
I can’t tell you how many things I’ve worked on where I sat on it for a few years, and then somebody else did something very similar. Whether it’s some weird vocal effect you hear on another record, or a drum beat, or even a song title, a subject matter, or a mixture of different kinds of music.
I always felt I was scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get a song together.
‘Helter-Skelter’ was the motive for the murders. Manson borrowed that term from a Beatles song on the ‘White Album.’ In England, helter-skelter is a playground ride. To Manson, helter-skelter meant a war between whites and blacks that the Beatles were in favor of.
Some people buy records just to dance to ’em. Some people buy records to listen to the radio. And there’s people that buy records ’cause they listen to every song.
The actual writing of a song usually comes in the form of a realisation. I can’t contrive a song.
When you hear me, you know it’s me, regardless of the song.
I think Bridge Over Troubled Water was a very good song. Artie sang it beautifully. The Boxer was a really nice record. But I don’t think I’ve written any great songs.
A song is a burden that you carry happily.
I don’t think I wrote my first song until I was 25. And then everything I wrote ended up becoming my first album. I put my music online, and from that, things just happened.
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?’
I like Fisher Price music, nursery rhymes, and the alphabet song.
In a way song writing can almost be detrimental, because suddenly you find an outlet that is a kind of cheating. You don’t need to have direct communication. You can say, ‘I can’t describe it to you, but I will record it and send it to you.’
I don’t ever have the pressure of making a hit, because I’ve never had a hit song, per se. The closest thing to a hit song was ‘Shiraz,’ and it’s not your prototypical hit song, with a catchy hook and all this other stuff.
Life is a song to me.
I find it really easy to write on the bass, because you kind of get straight to the point: you do lyrics and melody without thinking about decorating the song until after you’ve finished it.
I have found life an enjoyable, enchanting, active, and sometime terrifying experience, and I’ve enjoyed it completely. A lament in one ear, maybe, but always a song in the other.
At times I have a beat first and then I write. Sometimes I have a melody in my head and I pick up the guitar to develop the song. Other times I just write without any melodies, and I end up using those lyrics when I think I have the appropriate instrumental that would bring out and depict the emotions of what I have written.
Singing was probably my first love, and song writing. I write a lot of love songs and heartbreaking songs.
Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents’ garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they’re also practicing math.
I wrote ‘Truth Is’ with Julia Michaels during our first time working together. The song is about emotions we often think of but are afraid to voice – the feelings we try to convince ourselves we don’t actually feel.
