A rhyme doesn't make a song.
Whenever I like a new song, I play it on loop and dance to it. That's my therapy.
My mother taught me my first bhajan. My mother, Shobha Nigam, was a very religious woman. From her only I learnt 'Om Jai Jagdish' song and used to do puja along with her.
I grew up watching 'Grease,' and 'Grease 2.' I fantasized about walking through school halls and busting out in a song. At that time, I was too much of a chicken to do so. I'd love the challenge now.
I sang a song at my sister's wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.
The way to write really good songs is to write about the things that happen in your life and where you are in the moment, and writing about stuff that happens in your 30s is not the sexiest song subject.
'Honey, I'm Good' is a song about temptation, and we wanted to show what is possible if you can beat it.
The earth has grown old with its burden of care, but at Christmas it always is young, the heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair, and its soul full of music breaks the air, when the song of angels is sung.
I always bring my little ukelele along in my shopping bag which my dear, sweet father bought me. After all, you just never know when a song might come along.
The idea of a soulmate is beautiful and very romantic to talk about it in a movie or a song, but in reality, I find it scary.
I will say that I know Nirvana did a show and played a few chords from 'More Than a Feeling' before they did 'Teen Spirit,' and it wasn't very good. But in all seriousness, 'Teen Spirit' was a great song. If subconsciously or somehow I had any influence on that, I'll take that as a compliment.
When Billie Holiday sings a song, I hear the song, but I always hear her and her truth.
When you write a song, you don't ask if it's good or not, or if it's gonna sell. When you write a song, you ask whether you've reached deep inside your heart and whether it's honest.
Ever since I was really really little, I was just singing all the time. Like one of my favorite games when I was little would be to just have one of my sisters pick a title, and I would impromptu create that song.
Writing a song is like playing a series of downs in football: Lots of rules, timing is crucial, lots of boundaries, lots of protective gear, lots of stopping and starting.
Surprise, surprise! I have a band! I'm really excited that we have a song on the soundtrack of 'American Reunion' for that very reason.
Every song has a composer, every book has an author, every car has a maker, every painting has a painter, and every building has a builder. So it isn't irrational to take this simple logic a little further and say that nature must have had a Maker. It would be irrational to believe that it made itself.
As I get older I think, contrary to modern assumption but in line with the old Lerner and Lowe song, that it would actually benefit both them and society if - to quote Professor Higgins - a woman could be more like a man.
I may not be the most famous songwriter in the world, but you know a David Friedman song when you hear it. It took me a long time to appreciate that.
It's about giving the people what they want. So many people have told me that they've made love to my records so what I've delivered this time is an album about sex. Pretty much every song has that theme. Straight no chasers, it's booty music!
Cause when you're sequencing a record, you want the listener to stick with it from beginning to end, and in order to do that, you really have to map out the journey from the first song to the last.
I think sometimes when I sit down to write a song, it doesn't come out naturally, but when you are writing an email to someone, especially if you are writing to a stranger, you write much more spontaneously, and it's freer.
I like rock music because it's always sonically fascinating. There's never a method to what it needs to sound like. It's just however that instrument comes out that day, whatever the humidity level was in the air, what studio you were at. All that makes that tone that you can't re-create, so each song is like a person.
I like Fisher Price music, nursery rhymes, and the alphabet song.
I had to be at least 8 or 9; I was listening to everything on the radio. You name it, I heard every song.
I don't want to have one hit, one song of the summer, and then have me disappear forever. I really want my things to last, and I want my songs and my bodies of work to resonate with people. I want to hit people - at least make a dent in them. I want to make a mark somehow.
I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.
'Close to the Edge' is the album where we first attempted to do the extra-long-form piece of music, having one song taking up the whole side of a piece of vinyl.
Sound-wise, I'm really limitless in the way I write songs. Whatever comes out, comes out. Every song is completely different.
I shout at the radio when someone starts talking over the end of a song. Shut up! I don't want to hear that the DJ has just found a mouldy sandwich in the corner of the studio. Nor do I like it when the magic of something you're watching is shattered by an advert for Argos.
American Pie speaks to the loss that we feel. That's why that song has found the niche that it has.
But at this phase of my life, I want to write and not have to think about whether a song is going to be a hit. I want to explore the music that inspires me, and I don't want to ape myself.
When I get into the studio, it's not about trying to get a good song, it's about whatever comes naturally.
I wanted to write a happy song. I didn't know how.
The thing I try to do the most is to play in terms of the song and play in terms of what I'm hearing.
During 'Torches,' I was more concerned with communicating the spirit of the song than the actual lyrics.
