Song Quotes - Page 378

My songs are my hookers. I can't worry about how they are going to be treated; they just need to bring home the bacon.

I always tell people I write songs, but I'm a writer. It's a difference. I can write songs to music, but I can write a story. I can see ideas spark in me.

I'm a songwriter who just wants to bring people great songs.

I started writing an album on flights to Africa and Brazil, but it was crazy because I left the notebook on the plane. It had seven or eight songs in it. After that, I'm not writing any more songs on notebooks - and I keep my Blackberry close!

I went to New York and Miami and hung out by the beach, and I love the American boys, so I wrote a song about it.

My truth is relevant and my songs are relevant, but I have to recalibrate myself and speed up my vibrations so that I can communicate with the voice of this generation.

I imagine that when I am creating a song or a project or an album or putting some clothing together or cooking a meal, whatever it is, I don't really have a recipe. The fun part is to throw that big piece of clay in the middle of the table as hard as I can, and whatever shape it takes, that's what shape it takes, and then I start to carve away.

I just love expressing my joy and my mind through what I wear, or how I cook, or how I dance, or how I write or perform a song - how I move.

When I'm recording something (especially because I produce my own music) I might consider how hard it would be to replicate a song on stage.

When I began writing songs, there was a pretty direct line between what was happening in my life and what I wrote about. So my first album was really all about my failed attempts to make a particular relationship work.

I learned how to have a little bit of distance when I explained songs and a little bit of distance when I wrote them. I think this is more interesting any way in art.

I am really pleased to hear each of my songs described as a total surprise. This is what I want!

It's funny because my main awkwardness around writing the song had little to do with the method.

Really, everything for me comes from "Manifestra." It was an incredible gift of a song; it really describes an important moment in my life.

I started to understand what the song could be about. The ache of nostalgia even for things we don't like, the commitment to keep moving despite that ache. It made me think of how I relate to my privilege - as a white person, as someone who grew up upper middle class.

I always write from rhythm first, so if I need a song fast, I have to start there. Then I just threw some electric guitar at it.

I have a constant kind of soundtrack going on at all times. I almost always have a song in my head. I'm very musically inclined. It feeds my soul. It definitely helps me get into a mood or get out of a mood. Or inspires a mood. Honestly, it is one of my therapists - cheaper and always available.

You can always accuse my records of being harrowing or dark or bleak. There is processing of trauma on my records and they contain a lot of healing. As a person who has been watching other's rage for years, instead of having my own tantrums, I keep the feelings inside until I can find a way of making them into music. The songs are like healing spells and it really works for me. When I really do a good job on a song, it gets rid of a weight. As far as hope goes, there is hope that you can heal through processing stuff and make it through to the other side. That's all I can hope for.

I've always used Old English in certain songs.

Everything has it's own vibe. Every song has a different place, I guess, of where and when and what was going on and things of that nature.

There are songs and artists now who are trying to do the same thing: be honest to their experiences.

All the songs are pieces to the puzzle. They each represent something different. So it's really difficult to say one song represents the album.

I stumbled into soul music at a very young age. It had something that really spoke to me. Nowadays it's not only American gospel or soul music, it's whenever somebody decides to do music in a way that's honest and passionate. I got into the Motown songs. It had to do with where I come from - we don't really have that where I come from, the sense of mystery and the pain. Sweden has been a wealthy and happy country for some time now. I think I got really drawn to that.

Growing up female in America. What a liability! You grew up with your ears full of cosmetic ads, love songs, advice columns, whoreoscopes, Hollywood gossip, and moral dilemmas on the level of TV soap operas. What litanies the advertisers of the good life chanted at you! What curious catechisms!

To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best.