I remember where I was when I first heard ‘Boyz N The Hood’ – 126th Street and Normandy, South Central, Los Angeles. I remember that I was on my porch. What they described in that song was so vivid and so clear to me because it was the kind of life I was used to witnessing and partly experiencing in my neighborhood.
You’ve got a song you’re singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you’ve got to make them think that you’re one of them sitting out there with them too. They’ve got to be able to relate to what you’re doing.
Recently, I had some powerful magnets glued into the lower horn of a few of my guitars. This holds a metal slide in place so I can easily get to it and put it back, even in the middle of a song.
I wouldn’t go so far as to make ‘You Don’t Own Me’ a tango or ‘It’s My Party’ a hip-hop thing. Believe me, those things have been suggested to me. But I thought if I could stay true to the song, the arrangements would work. I’m really enjoying singing them.
I’ve never done anything so political before. I’ve spent years shouting my mouth off about serious issues over dinner tables but never really had the confidence to express my views in a song.
A lot of people say ‘Boo’d Up’ reminds them of ’90s R&B. It has that feeling, which is why I think people take to the song so much.
I probably take about a month to write a song, depending on how much time I can dedicate to it, and it depends on how many hours a day there are and how many days in a week and weeks in a month.
My daughter, who is 7 years old – I have no idea where she learned this – she made a video where she’s beat-boxing. We have no idea where the beat-boxing came from, but all of a sudden, there it was. Now we’re launched into lyric sheets for every single song that is current. They’re all over our house.
I’m just looking for that one song that I know everybody’s going to be like, ‘Damn, that’s a good song.’
It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?
When you write a hit song, and you know it when it’s done, it’s one of the best feelings in the world.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, I wake up with a song in my head, and I have to finish it so I can fall back asleep.
Usually, when I’m rappin’, I’m creating a big story or a concept song that sounds like a movie to me.
It’s likely that taboo words are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Massive left hemisphere strokes or the entire surgical removal of the left hemisphere can leave people with no articulate speech other than the ability to swear, spout cliches and song lyrics.
I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn’t been broken, but I don’t know of anyone whose heart hasn’t been broken.
Not all lies are harmful. Sometimes we’re willing participants in deception for the sake of social dignity, maybe to keep a secret that should be kept secret, secret. We say, ‘Nice song.’ ‘Honey, you don’t look fat in that, no.’
Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I think the ordinary guy has just as much right to say ‘This is a good song’ as somebody who is in the music business.
If you can’t play it on an acoustic guitar or a grand piano then it’s not a song.
Of course, ‘I Will Always Love You’ is the biggest song so far in my career. I’m famous for several, but that one has been recorded by more people and made me more money, I think, than all of them. But that song did come from a true and deep place in my heart.
You must pass your days in song. Let your whole life be a song.
I auditioned for a solo in church and got it. I was about seven and I sang a song called, ‘Jesus, I Heard You Had a Big House’ and I remember people standing up at the end and me thinking, ‘Oh, I think I’m going to like this.’ That’s how it all began. Sounds funny to say you got your start in church, but I did.
‘Allegiance’ is pretty much a book musical. You know, people talk and then they burst out into song.
Today, I’d like to talk to Bob Marley. I’d just like to ask him what was his method. Bob is one of the greatest songwriters ever. I don’t know if people understand how powerful his songs are and the simplicity and genius behind them, from ‘Redemption Song’ to ‘Is This Love?’ and ‘I Shot the Sheriff.’
My favorite song that I wrote is ‘Love Line.’ This was my first song that I wrote lyrics for, and I really wanted to express the feeling when you’re in love and hoping the other person feels the same way.
To me, a song is new every time I sing it.
I would never purposely sing a song about someone I love, I wouldn’t want to embarrass them. But for someone I don’t like… I would definitely do that.
I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.
There’s a song called ‘My Faith’ that’s kind of my spiritual song on my record. It’s a little bit of my softer side of me, comin’ out of left field a little bit.
I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first.
‘So Icy’ is always going to be one of my favorites because this is a song that blew my mind. I was just making beats for the fun of it. I went to the club and heard the song being played, so I asked the DJ to stop playing the song, and the whole club started rapping word for word.
In the Stephen Sondheim song, when something bad happens in the circus, they send in the clowns. In America’s political circus, they send in the lawyers.
In an age of incompetence, I’ve been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That’s my job.
What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
It’s hard to really articulate what the parameters are that make one song parody-able and another song not, but if I can come up with a good enough idea for it, I go for it, and if not, then I have to move on.
The autumn wind is a pirate. Blustering in from sea with a rollicking song he sweeps along swaggering boisterously. His face is weather beaten, he wears a hooded sash with a silver hat about his head… The autumn wind is a Raider, pillaging just for fun.
I wanted to make ‘Mexicana Hermosa.’ It’s a love song, but it isn’t. It’s more like a song as if Mexico was the Maria, the beautiful woman that I love.
You never know what little idea or joke, what flame flickering really quickly, will become a song. That first idea, it can come any time. If it’s in Spanish, you go on in Spanish. If it’s in French, French. If it’s in English, English. Or Portuguese. I’ll try to do my best. I like Italian, though I don’t speak it much.
I remember watching films in my teenage years, and you’d be in love with Leonardo DiCaprio, and then a song would come on. You’d love that song forever; it changed your life.
The first song I wrote was called ‘Here I Go Falling In Love’ I wrote it in the sixth grade.
I feel there is a song for every occasion, and India is a land full of music.
What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing. You see, it used to be that if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now, you need a laptop.
It is a part of us, film-makers and audiences; what we can’t say with dialogues, we say with a song. We tell stories through songs, look at our folk cultures.
In karaoke, you don’t choose the song; the song chooses you.
I feel like no matter what I write about, I try to end up being the stronger person in the situation. Even in heartbreak, I feel like I’m a much stronger person because of that. I don’t want to just write a sad song and still feel sad after that. I want to feel stronger and better.
I think ‘Lovin’ Feelin’ was probably one of the most – probably in ’64 and ’65, one of the more dramatic love songs for these kids to grab hold of. I mean, they had been listening to, you know, kind of cute songs, and ‘Lovin’ Feelin’ was just a strong, powerful song.
I have a music video I was in coming out for M83 for their song ‘Claudia Lewis.’ It’s directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, and I play opposite Lily Collins. It’s a pretty edgy intergalactic music video.
Honestly, are we ever going to get over ‘California Girls’ by Katy Perry? I know it’s old, but that song – I love that song!
Usually, one of us will bring a song to the group that they think we could arrange and perform well. If the group agrees, we arrange it. It doesn’t always work out though. We’ve tried to arrange a few songs that just we ended up canning in the end.
Before the camera, you only had secondhand takes – someone had to tell you what they saw or draw a picture of it or sing a song. Because of the camera, sometimes to our horror, we now know everything that happens in the world – things that before we were sheltered from.
I know every note in every song, the whole history of it, even parts that were there and are gone.
I’m the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that’s horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.
