Morrissey wrote a really gorgeous song for me. I'm crazy for that man. And he thinks I'm hip!
I remember so vividly the first song I ever wrote. It was called 'Different People.'
I wanna be able to stand on the stage and hold out the mic and people sing all the lyrics to my song.
I think that lyrically, 'Safe' is a very positive song: it's very strong; it's about keeping somebody safe and protecting people. I think everybody anywhere in the world can relate to it. I think everybody wants to feel safe; everybody wants to feel protected.
Well, Neighbours wanted to do a song on the show, and they asked me what songs I had. I told them I'd just written this song, called Born to Try, and I had just gone overseas and spoken to some people from Song about it.
I got really hooked on this riff in the middle of this song called 'Minor Miracles' by my friend Eric Johnson from Fruit Bats. I got the tracks for that from him, and that turned into 'Here in Spirit.'
Even if you're specific about the character of the song, it's more exciting to place them, juxtapose them in such a way as to make an adventure out of the sequence of the songs.
I wrote a techno song after I was deported. I was in America for a little bit, but then I was deported back to Germany. I was very sad.
I wanted to write a battle song for the Judeans but so far I can think of nothing noble and weighty enough.
When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.
If I love a song, I make it mine.
People don't always realize that as a performer, you've got to relive those moments. Memories crash through your brains, and you've got to think about your past and the reason why you wrote the song. All that emotion comes back.
There's a song called 'All We'd Ever Need,' which is actually the first song that the three of us wrote together on our first album, and when we wrote that song I didn't have any real experience to pull from.
A kid now can practically record a song or edit a short film on his way to school. I think that will produce, perhaps, more less-interesting things - or you'll have to search more to find the interesting things. But I also think it's exciting.
The song Dakota was first written in Paris. I was doing a promo trip. It was snowing and the hotel room was really cold and boring and for some reason I just had a go of the guitar and the song came pretty quick.
I would love to get Rihanna on a Khaled song. That's my friend, but every time I'm around her, I get shy.
The album is a definite departure. I haven't written original material before, except for one song on my first album, but Elvis and I did six songs together on this one.
We wanted to take as much time and effort making the video as we did the song.
When I'm up on stage, I don't think about anything except the song I'm singing. Anyway, the majority of my audience is female, and I can't think that many of them want to see me a French maid outfit somehow!
As a horn player, the greatest compliment one can get is when a person comes to you and says, 'I heard this saxophone on the radio the other day and I knew it was you. I don't know the song, but I know it was you on sax.'
I think it's important to really press on with the song writing and just go with it. There's no code, there's no craft... it's just let yourself shine through your music. If it's meant to be loved and heard, it'll happen.
When no one's buying your records, it's easy to justify selling a song. But once you start selling records, you can't really justify having two songs in Cadillac commercials. It looks greedy. And it is greedy. This whole music thing should be about music.
I was half asleep lying there writing this lyric in my head at about 3:30 in the morning. I woke Steve up with this idea and then we went into the living room where there was a little upright piano and finished the song. I wonder where that piano is now?
Well, as a songwriter, it's really dangerous to use the word love in a song. It's a word that has been used in songs so many millions of times before, and it's the most popular topic to ever write about.
Everything is Song. Everything is Silence. Since it all turns out to be illusion, perfectly being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, you are free to die laughing.
Several record companies had rejected my song 'Owner of A Lonely Heart' on the grounds it was 'too left field.' I never create to make a hit just to satisfy some record company executive's quarterly profit statement.
I made a point when I made the Ugly Casanova record to not write a song and then say, 'This is a Modest Mouse song' or 'This is an Ugly Casanova song.' The people who were open to it not being a Modest Mouse record liked it.
The New Deal exists principally on an emotional plane for Obama. To him, the New Deal is something you play like a song, to make you or your constituents feel better.
I wrote and recorded a song that I highly doubt I will release. The lyrics are somewhat risque. I may have to create an alter ego, and she can be the 'singer.'
If you're sitting in a place like Martha's Vineyard, I don't think you're going to write a song about a ski resort.
I really didn't think about song writing.
I will not promote other people's songs big time. I will just mention that I produced the song to get the credit I think I deserve.
I wrote my first song when I was six or seven, a silly little song. But I used to write poems in high school - not songs.
I don't have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.
'Halo' I wrote with my grandpa in his nursing home. When I went to visit him, he'd often comment on my halo. But of course, I couldn't see. And he always - he had pictures of Jesus with these beautiful halos. And so I asked him if he'd write a song with me about Jesus' halo.
The blues is nothing but a story... The verses which are sung in the blues is a true story, what people are doing... what they all went through. It's not just a song, see?
