Men, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.
When it comes to independent music albums, you cannot put in 50 lakhs or a crore in each and every song to first make a video and then even promote it. It’s not possible for a musician or a singer to promote each song. It’s not possible for musicians to do that independently.
Most of the songs I write are full of power, and I’m suspecting it may come from my love for grotesque Renaissance art and the Eurovision Song Contest.
If I love Etta James, it’s not just the voice, and it’s not just the song, but it’s the energy that connects me to her, so if she is strong, I can be strong, too, and if she is sad, I know I am not alone, or if she is joyous, I can connect with that joy.
You go to a studio with a guitar, people are like, ‘Oh this girl’s going to write this song on a guitar.’ Or wants to, or whatever. You go with a ukulele, people are just like ‘Eh, well, whatever.’ They don’t really care. It’s a very non-threatening kind of instrument.
I could really make a song of hurt, because I’ve been hurt by a lot of men. I’m talking about, like, how sad I be when a dude curves me. And I never talk about that because I refuse to let people know that I get sad because when a man don’t answer my calls.
Never hate a song that’s sold a half million copies.
When we was making a song called ‘Bring Da Ruckus,’ we took the snare, and we put it in an elevator shaft and recorded it.
Sometimes when you get in this game, you think that you’re going to take off if you do a song with someone big. But that’s not the truth. Everything with you got to be good – the visual, the push, the production.
I always had a standard of, back when I was doing the country music I always told people I would never record a song that I wouldn’t sit down and sing in front of my mom and dad.
I don’t listen to music. I very rarely listen to music. I only listen for information. I listen when a friend sends me a song or a new record.
I think I’m alright as a lyricist, you know? But then what will happen every couple of months or so is that I’ll hear a song I’ve never heard before and feel I’ve gone right back to square one.
If you write a hit song for Britney Spears, it’s worth several million dollars. Just one song! And it might have taken you two hours to do it. It’s like mining for gold. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of technique.
I call it sacred geometry. When everything’s just right and it feels really balanced, so that when it unfolds to the next part, you feel totally familiar and at ease within the song.
A lot of country music is sad. I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. It applies to music. Three chords and the truth – that’s what a country song is. There is a lot of heartache in the world.
I love the song ‘Into the Night.’ It’s Roy Orbison meets David Lynch meets Iggy Pop on amphetamines. It has a punk edge that is not HIM, per se. It is super melodic and super ’60s, and that is very new to me and it is a sense of achievement to me.
It’s hard enough to sit at a table and talk to most people as it is. But we can go to some town, and there’s 300 people we’ve never met before, and by the third song, we’re connecting with everyone in that room.
‘Peace Train’ is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions. There is a powerful need for people to feel that gust of hope rise up again.
One of my favorite albums in the world is Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska.’ Each song has this very distinct character who has something profound to say.
To feel not only submitted but willing to be anything or nothing as the Lord wills it – this is, in truth, to sing a song to our Well Beloved.
At art school, a teacher said: ‘The best paintings are when you get lost in a piece of work and start painting in a stream of consciousness.’ I wanted to do music, not art, so started writing lyrics that way. The first song I wrote was called ‘Ice Cream and Wafers.’ The next was ‘Holding Back the Years.’
The first song that I had that went platinum was ‘Keep Your Head Up,’ which was a long time ago. Then, you get ‘one-hit wonder’ with that.
I’ve always loved the song ‘It Might as Well Be Spring’.
When you’re a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you’re writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you’re an artist, you can sing whatever you want.
My mom is a very religious woman. So when I began recording music, I was afraid she wouldn’t accept it. But when I played her a song, she loved it.
Just like using an instrument, a song calls for different things.
Black people lived right by the railroad tracks, and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy, and I thought: I’m gonna make a song that sounds like that.
A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer – you put a great song on top of that, you’re really in great shape!
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture!
When it comes to song creation, I throw in my ideas and have it discussed with the producer. The song gets its own characteristic as new ideas are incorporated.
I was the first Indian music composer to win the China Gold Award for ‘Jimmy Jimmy’ from ‘Disco Dancer.’ Adam Sandler repeated the song in his film ‘Zohan.’ ‘Disco Dancer’ is historical, as are ‘Sharaabi’ and ‘Namak Halal.’
I wanna do a song with Adele! Nobody gets Adele as a feature, so maybe I can. I hope she knows who I am!
Once you have an established song, you can really come out of your shell and experiment with the sound you want to make.
My biggest song in the world is ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You.’ All over the world, it’s number one on the whole planet.
If you hear a good song, it makes you hopeful like, ‘That is out there.’
Sending greeting cards to aliens is hardly a new idea. In 2005, Craigslist solicited messages for broadcast to space by a transmitter in Florida, and in 2008, NASA beamed a Beatles song to the North Star (Polaris), on the assumption that any putative Polarians would appreciate the Fab Four’s 1960s-genre compositions.
I like to interpret ‘Call me a River’, as if I’m saying, ‘Now you’re telling me you love me after all that, and I’m telling you to shove off.’ That’s my interpretation. But I would never ‘say’ that because somebody else might interpret the song in another way.
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.
To look for some kind of insight or meaning in pop songs is not really – well there’s plenty of other places where you should probably look first before you start looking for it in a pop song.
I don’t listen to a lot of new stuff. I just like the old stuff. It’s all quite dramatic and atmospheric. You’d have an entire story in song. I never listen to, like, white music – I couldn’t sing you a Zeppelin or Floyd song.
There’s nothing worse than being stuck with a bad song.
A composer like me finds it impossible to work with today’s producers. They want to tell you exactly how to compose, which notes to play, which rhythms to put in which part of the song.
My story is a freedom song of struggle. It is about finding one’s purpose, how to overcome fear and to stand up for causes bigger than one’s self.
If Paul McCartney tells me that so-and-so song is his favorite song, what do I care? What do I care what anybody else says?
I don’t have a favorite song that I’ve written. But I do have a favorite song: ‘Always on My Mind,’ the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.
Da Pak was a group out of Chicago. It was a put-together group. We actually met for the first time at this showcase. They were like ‘Yo, you should do a song together.’ So we did. It just so happened that the name of the song was ‘Wolf Pak.’ They said, ‘Y’all should be a group called Da Pak, and here’s a record deal.’
I always loved that old song ‘Banks of the Ohio’ – it was always such a man’s song, so I’ve always wanted to record it.
I love Future. ‘Turn on the Lights’ is the best song ever. You can cry to it. You can relate to it.
There aren’t reasons why you like this song or this piece of music, or don’t like it. It’s just, it’s either right or wrong, you know?
My goal is to get my music out to as many people as possible. That a song of mine is being played on the radio so far away from home really, really pushes me. It’s everything I’ve dreamed of.
I sang ‘Your Song’ by Elton John, and Silva Screen Records were watching. They got in touch with my agent then had the idea of the Christmas album.
I wrote ‘Love Foolish,’ and when I heard the music for the first time, it felt like this was a song that Twice hadn’t done before. I thought the song and music had a very mature tone, so I wrote the lyrics to match. I was inspired by the music directly.
I wouldn’t have a No. 1 record or song if I wasn’t a hardworking person.
A song without music is a lot like H2 without the O.
The song ‘What Goes Up’ was inspired as I was playing the piano and reminiscing about the Spaceship One launches I witnessed in the Mojave desert. It is an awesome thing to comprehend the magnitude of what a human being dreams and imagines can be realized.
