If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, fire next time.
My songs have always had hope and perseverance in them - I never write songs that have no escape hatch, no positivity.
I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively-and there were a lot of choices-writing songs was king.
The songs I write should only be gauged by what other writers or peers are doing today. If the barometer for all songwriters was to match his body of work, then anyone you might mention alive or dead is a failure. But I've learned to not be too hung up on what's fair or not fair.
I don't want to sing songs and write songs that need to have images behind them that are of a specific time. The times we live in today - I mean, there's a lot to work with. But I think that if I was my age in 1975 or 1985, I would have felt the same way because that's what I gravitate toward.
There are certainly a lot of people - and I won't name names - who are getting by simply on expression. And I guess that's valuable in some sense. But songs are not better just because they're emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out.
I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively... writing songs was king.
I started putting down my own pen and spending some time searching for the best songs out there possible. It doesn't matter if I wrote them or not.
I believe a No. 1 song starts happening when it's believable and validating.
Some artists will tell you that's all they want to do is write their own music, and that's great, but George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, they didn't write everything they recorded, and they've had major, major careers. I think it's all about the best song.
There's always going to be life experiences that find their way into my songs.
If I'm happy with the song and it's a hit song or not, for the rest of my life, I can hang my hat on knowing I did the best I could, and I'll enjoy getting out there and doing it. That's all that really matters for me. The icing on the cake is people actually enjoy it and sing it back to you. That's when you know that you've done something great.
I throw down a lot on paper and on tape. Sometimes while I'm practicing on the guitar, I'll think of a song.
'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,' if you go through the lyrics, is such a haunting melody, and the words are, for a pop song, pretty deep and dark.
Three thousand people singing back your songs is an incredible feeling.
I don't know anyone who has described that terrible yearning for ecstasy and immolation through music as lucidly as Sean Madigan Hoen in Songs Only You Know. Only a thorough initiate of the scene who also had some genius with language could summon the demotic yet electric voice for the job. If there is ruefulness, now, for the way he treated his body, his girlfriends, and his family, he wisely reprises in his book, in neon detail, the fever that once placed him in the same drunken boat with Iggy Pop, Rimbaud and Artaud.
I used to not be really honest with girls and then I dropped a song called 'Starry Room' and then I started turning over a new leaf.
Willow [Smith] started making music first. I was like, "My younger sister is, like, 4, and she's making all these fire songs. What's happening?" Willow was doing all these things, about to have record label deals at like the age of 6, and I was like, "I feel like I'm underachieving."
To just write one song to then go and play huge festivals all around the world it's exciting and it's never really been the case.
I'm listening to so much. I looooove Alicia Keys' song, "Unthinkable." I'm blasting that all over the place, but I'm also listening to Sade, and I always have my Heavy Metal, Mastodon.
No matter how tired I am, when a great song comes on, I'm full of energy.
You always gotta reach the people who feel bad about themselves or insecure about themselves, and I think 'Like 'Em All' was just a perfect song for all the girls, and I think that's why it blew up like it did.
When you love what you do, you just really fall in love with it. Sometimes you record a lot more songs than the album will even hold. You record like 300 songs and only 12 songs go on the album. It takes time. But if you love what you do, it works out.
Though a song may race by in a minute and a half, every aspect of it is calculated and intentional.
I love Frank Ocean. I think he's so talented and his music is so great. So, I would love to do one of his songs like 'Bad Religion' or 'Pink Matter.'
