Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.
Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.
Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing. And you start talking yourself out of the bold melody and start wanting to arrange it in another key or something. Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.
I can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.
It's what I do. I don't deserve any awards for this, it's just music. It's just writing songs. You sit down, you write a song, you record it. You tour and play the songs live, dress them up a bit differently, or dress them down.
Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing.
I've always felt writing a song was a bit like going on location. That's true in an almost literal sense. Where you are seeps in somehow.
I get very frustrated by this term 'genre exercise.' I mean, what exactly is that? Genre is not really relevant when you are writing a song; hopefully you are doing it to explore something, to create something, and I don't agree that any of my albums are genre exercises.
Really the only thing holding a lot of records together is the personality of the singer, and the will to write all of these different things.
I think when I was younger I was not very good at writing love songs that didn't have a twist.
And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions And I'm giving you a longing look Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.
