Song Quotes - Page 358

This is a song called 'The Kill.' But don't be scared, it's a nice song. About losing your mind.

I had a vague idea of the song's impact in the '60s, but that was tempered by the hate mail and threats I was receiving. It was only about ten years ago, when I finally put it back in my show because so many people were asking for it, that I understood 'Society's Child' real impact.

Artists are taught to be humble about their impact, especially in folk music. It's so ingrained that I have a hard time even thinking I had any impact other than what a normal hit song would have.

Sometimes I would write something that was so private, people would say, 'Make it more universal.' I never liked that idea. I always thought the more personal a song was, the more people would want to hear it.

I've always gravitated towards songwriting that happens easily and spontaneously, because those have always been my best songs.

[Donald] Trump comes along and is singing a different song. He says, "I don't need your money; I'm rich enough on my own to run." And he says, "I think we need these programs." And, lo and behold, a lot of Republican voters liked what he said.

That's how it is with relationships, it's a part of life, and all the great love songs and poems and films have been written by people who were standing where I was that morning as Simon shut the door. Doesn't make it any easier though.

With all the innovation in music today it’s rare to find someone like Engel writing timeless songs that sound at home in the ribcage of rock n roll’s skeleton.

For they both were solitary, She on earth and he is heaven. And he wooed her with caressed, Wooed her with his smile of sunshine -Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's honestly every time that I'm doing something, and every time I visit a station and hear my song on the radio and people buying my stuff, I'm like 'Are you kidding me? This is insane!'

I never want to be too mean with my songs, but with I Hope It Rains it was definitely somewhere in the middle with being sassy but also a little class in there as well. It was a good blend for me and who I want to be perceived as an artist.

All the songs were written on guitar and then put into the computer, where I played around with different sounds I was hearing and what was available in the software.

I think if I could ever write with someone, I'd love to write a song with Loretta Lynn or Dolly Parton.

You have to sit with the songs until they start to live. Or do things straight-up spontaneously. I set up a beat just like I do in the live show, add the lyrics that I wrote in thirty minutes - I already had a topic in mind because I had this crazy experience with this girl who was trying to get close to me and it freaked me out because she was really close to another friend of mine, and I thought, "This is a story, I'm gonna make this into a song."

Improvisation is risky. I like that. Another practical reason for that is that you have to go out and play every day on a tour. I couldn't do it if I thought I was going to do the same songs every day in the same order, like a full-on robot.

I just wanted to have some songs I could stand behind, and when I'm on stage just be loving it. People ask me why I did that and I think perhaps it's because Berlin is quite a gray place and I needed to sympathize with a bit of sunshine.

Being in a rock band is about touring. It's about writing songs and it's about making records but it's also about taking a wonderful smile onto that stage and making the people feel good about themselves.

I'm a good collaborative writer. I can usually come in and add a couple lines to something, and add a riff or a B-section, or a bridge that will tie things together. I can do stuff like that. But to write a whole song, I don't have the patience for that, I guess.

As yet, the Negroes themselves do not fully appreciate these old slave songs.

I made a note in my head to be aware of things as they were happening, because they might not happen again. Up to that point, I was not really that appreciative of what was going on, or thinking about documenting life in a plainspoken manner. I was talking about my life and writing songs, but then I would go back and listen and they were about dreams, and legends, and metaphors and that was just not my life!

Its always important to fall back on your instincts and core beliefs and that was pretty hard for me to do but trusting in my self the way I trusted that if I were to sit at a piano for two hours and I was going learn something, that trust I'd put in myself really helped me get through it. For five to six months I just wrote songs and believed they would turn out to be things I could be proud of and be happy.

I feel the reasons my songs might seem dark is because of how I viewed the situations I was in and it was just something I always felt like documenting.

The hip-hop aesthetic and the way it's produced always motivated me. Alongside that I was still wanting to make great traditional songs because I've never had any desire to rap. My love of hip-hop is driven by my love of rappers, but it was built out of my love of producers.

I really wanted to get that dynamic on the record onto people and let them know it wasn't just a simple strumming along the guitar type of thing without ramming it down their throats so I kind of went the opposite way and sang some of the songs more quietly which allowed for the louder parts to sound as though there were more. It was the only way singing those songs made sense to me.

A song is what you fall in love with first, but then I think a band's ideals and a band's sense of fashion and a sense of how they treat people is what you fall in love with afterwards.