Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs.
In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness as a childhood need is too often overlooked. Yet a child's need for quietness is the same today as it has always been--it may even be greater--for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.
I know a lot of actors who live with kind of a soundtrack in their lives, even to go to the market. I'm not that kind of actor. I don't listen to songs. I actually like quiet.
I was sort of like a kid in a candy store, realizing it was fun making beats without the perceived burden that every track I did had to be a some progressive sample masterpiece. It was nice to blow off steam and work on those songs. For me, that’s what 'The Outsider' was about in general: forget everything, I’m just gonna follow my own music, and make the music I want to make.
When I write songs, I try to write in a way to reach as many people as I can, to be a lighthouse versus a flashlight.
If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.
Time is an enormous, long river, and I’m standing in it, just as you’re standing in it. My elders are the tributaries, and everything they thought and every struggle they went through and everything they gave their lives to, and every song they created, and every poem that they laid down flows down to me – and if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to see, and if I take the time to reach out, I can build that bridge between my world and theirs. I can reach down into that river and take out what I need to get through this world
I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes.
I'm going to spend my life writing poems, turning them into music that will affect people and touch their hearts. I'm going to write the songs that people can't write for themselves.
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.
I felt really bad for someone who is swimming in so much hate. I just thought, that's someone who's in a really bad spot, and I am in such a happy spot. I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids who are mooning me and singing me songs.
Probably "Mrs. Potato Head" or "Training Wheels". "Mrs. Potato Head" because it was the hardest song to write and it took me a while to finish it and feel good about the lyrical content. But I've had that idea in my head for so long, especially the visuals - pulling apart a Mrs. Potato face and how that doubled as a meaning for plastic surgery. "Training Wheels" because it's the only love song on the album.
I always hate explaining away songs, because for me they mean something, and for other people, they'll mean something absolutely different.
Writing a song is actually quite easy. Writing a good one is very, very difficult.
Anybody that forms a group, writes songs and releases records and says they don't care if people like them are complete liars.
A song without music is a lot like H2 without the O.
As a busker, one thing that does not work is self-consciousness. A busker needs to be working. A busker needs to shed all ego and get down to work. Play your songs, play them well, earn your money, and don't get in people's way.
In nature everything is valuable, everything has its place. The rose, the daisy, the lark, the squirrel, each is different but beautiful. Each has its own expression. Each flower its' own fragrance. Each bird its' own song. So you too have your own unique melody.
You know, all my songs are relatives, brothers, sisters, cousins.
Your youth is the most important thing you will ever have. It's when you will connect to music like a primal urge, and the memories attached to the songs will never leave you. Please hold on to everything. Keep every note, mix tape, concert ticket stub, and memory you have of music from your youth. It'll be the one thing that might keep you young, even if you aren't anymore.
Comedy is the one absolutely self-aware art form. Actually, hip-hop's another one, I suppose. Because in your songs you're talking about how good a hip-hop artist you are. It's like a painter painting a panting of himself painting a painting.
I understand why some kid in his bedroom in Wisconsin thinks downloading songs couldn't hurt anyone. True fans will buy the CD or go see the movie after downloading, but to say it doesn't affect anyone - come on.
I don't work at being ordinary.
Being a good songwriter means paying attention and sticking your hand out the window to catch the song on the way to someone else's house!
I got one entire song from fortune cookies (Land of Sunshine). On another one, I took words from different Frank Sinatra songs and pasted them together. Another one, I was just driving around and there was a piece of paper on the ground, so I stole it.
