When you hear the first five seconds to a song and you've pretty much heard the whole song, that's kind of a bummer.
I think if you're writing from the heart, very often, the subject matter will adjust as you age... but you try to write the best song you can possibly write. For us, we have the same basic elements that make up the America sound.
I like people, and I like listening to them because something that'll happen out of that conversation could be the title or the subject of the song.
I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I'd written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.
Some songs depend heavily on the character, but, for the most part, a great song begs for reinterpretation every time it is sung, even when in character.
When I write a song, it's all about the riff - the riff first, then the words come later.
Just this morning, out of a large memory for songs, and having been obsessed by them since childhood, suddenly, at the age of 84, I thought of a song I hadn't thought of in over 50 years. It came into my head unbidden.
When I'm singing a song, I picture somebody in particular. A lot of it is to a guy.
Sometimes I'll sing the same verse through the entire song, because the other verses aren't clicking. And when they do come to me, I'm in the middle of that same verse!
I've been reading about the idea of cyclical lives - it matches up to the idea of string theory and a multiverse. So I wanted to write a record about that instead of another song about broken hearts and drinking.
I have yet to have a successful outcome of sitting in a room with someone and trying to write a song. The way that I generally co-write is that someone else writes the music or part of the music.
A song without music is a lot like H2 without the O.
Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston, I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, 'Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.'
I have yet to write that one song that defines my career.
For a person as obsessed with music as I am, I always hear a song in the back of my head, all the time, and that usually is my own tune. I've done that all my life.
I think Sam Smith's dad got a huge loan or something to help his career. Those things can help artists get attention, but I guess my song 'Say You Won't Let Go' proved it's about the song.
Honeymoons are great, but they don't last. And I think the same is true with success on the screen - today, I am all over the place; tomorrow, I may be gone - I may have to make room for someone else. So why make a big song and dance about it all?
I don't think I approach my songs differently from other artists. You get a big picture of it, and you imagine the song and hear and feel it, and that big picture is like a snapshot, and it comes to you as fast as it takes to click a camera.
There is a formula that allows you to write a decent song. But a song like 'You're All I Need to Get By,' it just writes itself.
When you write a song, a song has longevity.
Every redneck's dream is to write a song and have it go on a fishing show.
I've just put my heart and soul in a song and need at least a week to recover.
It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.
A song has to become as much a part of you as a tailored suit.
While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song.
Chelsea Morning is a great Joni Mitchell song and I guess I'm partial to her lyrics because they show me a slightly different perspective on life.
Just by nature, we're always filled with so many ideas and want to cram as many ideas into a song as we can, and I think that gave us a lot of our signature sound.
You can say a lot more with a poem than you can with a song, but with a song you can really be more powerful with it. You can express it a lot more powerfully.
When you're making music, it's meant to be shared with people. Sometimes, even if I'm writing a song, someone else brings a vibe. There's something different about it. If someone can play a better bassline than me, I'll let them do it. I'm just here to fit in and see where it goes.
That's a song about reaching deep inside yourself where you can completely be who you are.
If I can reach the guy in Alabama that hunts, and he hears that song, and he sees me - like, he's comfortable with me, my image as a person, as an artist - he's willing to sit down and give that song a chance.
Revising a screenplay is much more frustrating than revising a song because you have to read through the entire work again while you are changing stuff. It is a lot easier to edit a song.
When I go to a gig and I hear a song that I really like, a song that hits home to me or hits an emotional nerve, if I could ever recreate that for someone, that would be the ultimate goal.
I always felt I was scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get a song together.
I write songs about stuff that I can't really get past personally - and then I write a song about it and I feel better.
I don't want to be somebody who stands still and sings pretty. Each song is a world. Each song is a story. I don't achieve nearly what I want.
