I don't know if there are artists out there who love their own records. I haven't met any, and I'm kind of extreme in the other direction, but therein lies the impetus to keep working and keep making new songs and new records.
I noticed with older songs that I perform that I'm coming from a different place with them now...it mutates the vibe and even the meaning of the same words when you have a different spirit, if the person singing is different. I like that, to be able to sing an emotionally wrought song from a more centered place, or to sing an eager, youthful song from a more experienced place. It kind of colors the songs differently, and it keeps them fresh.
Since my tour (in Japan) just finished, I started writing songs. I was inspired a lot while on the road and I have a lot to say and feel. I want to process those and write it down on paper and put my hands on the keyboard before they become the past.
I learned how to be more theatrical and have more fun, and to take a song and sing it over and over again in different ways, and make it different each time. I'm not just singing the song - it's this thing that's affecting me.
I'm sure that the meaning of the songs that I've written will change for me over the years, the same way that I can't even say what inspired some of the songs that I've been singing for a long time anymore.
Music is the first thing I ever cared greatly about. I've been singing and writing songs since I was six or seven.
My family life, my adoption - it could be related to the songs, but I think the songs are deeper than that. They're not just about this experience.
I've been writing a lot of songs in twos, songs that are like twins in my mind.
I'm letting the songs breathe and change and become what they are without force.
I like The Smiths - I would love to do a song with The Smiths, because they are so sonically different.
I don't feel super attached to a certain time when I hear the music. Some of the songs I still play live and, through that I feel like I've been able to have it move with me through my life as opposed to being just a little piece of time.
I know where my heart is and I know that I can make people feel something with my music. I'm quite confident in what I am doing, so if I can also make a song that people want to put in ten times during a party and makes them happy, then I think that is also good. I feel that playfulness is something that has entered my life a lot more in the last couple of years. I'm not taking everything too seriously. I think that is something that comes with age - I hope. I feel that music is much more fun for me than it has ever been.
I have written quite a lot of songs about dealing with my feelings surrounding the disease. I have written songs about the fear and anxiety I have around my disease, and the fear of it coming back. Some of my songs might seem like relationship songs, but are more about my relationship with that struggle.
Some things need to be a song. Some things need to be a play. Some things need to be a painting. Some things need to be-though I'd never be a choreographer-some things might ought to be a dance [laughs]. I've found that exploring an idea in different ways, it gives you different opportunities.
I find on songwriting, I really have to work at making sure I'm not imitating myself. You know? Which happens to all of us. When an artist becomes really famous, you'll start listening to songs and saying "Wait...I've heard that before" and it'll be one of theirs. We all fall into that rut. If you don't have something to force you out of it, then it's kind of a dangerous business.
So I realized when I was successful in a piece, it was because I didn't abandon a notion early on what it ought to be, and I let it take me along. So I've had songs that started out as being about the environment and ended up being love songs and love songs that ended up being about the environment. I've had things that I thought would be a poem and realized that it was just too big for that. I've got to do something larger and it became a play. I wrote one poem that started a whole play.
I say to my students that I can't teach them how to write a good song, but I can teach you how to write a better song. Talking about this idea of it being a process. By going back and not settling for something and find a way to step back from your songs-which is a very hard thing to do-but when you're stuck or you can't move forward, start doing some polishing.
As an artist, I move along in my life, into whatever things I'm doing, and I hear things where it's like, "Oh, that'd be a great [song] title! I'll use that!" So I keep a running list of titles on my computer. I've got these words and phrases that just sustained my interest. So I'm a step ahead, really, with the titling!
But the first time I had to stand up and sing with them was when we did the pre-record for the movie and it was that moment where I sort of said to myself: "S**t, now I actually have to do this and I have to stand up and do my stars in your eyes moment!" Wake Up and Make Love With Me was the first song and I thought: "Here we are with Chaz and all the boys..."
I listen to my iPod as I walk on. If I'm winning I'll listen to the same song, that's like a good luck thing - usually The Black Eyed Peas' Let's Get It Started.
There’s little kids on trains coming up to me, singing my theme song, and they can barely walk.
I love whenever they downgrade a hurricane to a tropical depression, because I always think of a tropical depression as how I feel three songs into a Jimmy Buffett concert.
It's funny: not only with the title of the album but also the song [It's Decided]. I kind of felt nostalgic. The beginning lyric is, "There's almost a sentimental feeling to another time," and when I got together with Kevin, he just absolutely, in his own fashion, just pushed me to go deeper than I usually would want people to know. That was the most difficult part for me was to bring someone in.
With Kevin [Drew], as I said, in his own way just told me "You gotta find that person that talks to you in your songs." I think we succeeded. I feel relief, to be quite honest with you.
To be part of Kevin's [Drew] world, "Who Came First" is just kind of a magical symphony. If you're asking me what that emotional timbre what is my favorite, my favorite "why" is the question. The other songs also have a revealing quality, but it started with "Sister OK".
