It's not that I have resisted songwriting, it's just not something I felt I have had to do. I've just not woken up and thought, I must do this. But I have often heard music that I have instantly felt 'I have to sing that song'.
I would start seeing, in just the sense I was saying now, the kind of record it was going to be and what the arrangement demands, and what my vocal part should be in the record. This was all emerging as the song was emerging.
I'm a fun song maker. I love to make people smile. I also love to see them big, burly dudes crying because their wives' song is 'Die a Happy Man.'
I can't just sit down and make a song in a day. It's only possible if you focus on the music and not the sound.
At the close of the day when the hamlet is still, and mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, when naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, and naught but the nightingale's song in the grove.
'None of Your Business.' It's the only Salt-N-Pepa song that I regret.
I wouldn't have made it past the first round of American Idol auditions. It was months before our first song was recorded. The guys were like, 'Just seeng!' And I was like, 'I don't know how to seeng! Can't I just play the triangle?'
When I wrote the song, The Way It Is, I wanted to move people to take a stand on civil rights in this country.
If you want to put out a song that you wrote yesterday, tomorrow go on Twitter, type in a new URL, and give it to the people!
I've been fascinated by the Internet from the very start. In 2001, I had made a funny black-and-white film called 'How to Dance Properly,' a short video of me dancing to a Madonna song. I sent it to 17 of my friends on a Thursday, and by Monday, one million people a day were logging on to view it.
In every song, there is a vocal element that doesn't have any words. I wanted to play around with how emotive and expressive my voice could be.
'The Haunted Man' is about communication barriers between men and women, and in that song it's a woman's wait for her husband to come back from war. The vision for me was of a group of men and women on the opposite sides of two cliffs, trying to move or sing to each other and communicate, but they're kind of misfiring.
We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it.
I've got a song on One Direction's album called 'Tell Me A Lie'. It's a really cute song - I love it. I loved that they liked it. They sound really great on it. I already have it - I'm so VIP with my copy on my computer! It does sound really good.
The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding.
I find it hard to get excited by just a sound. I have to have a song there, then I'll find what used I can make of that sound within the song.
The emotions in a song - the anger, aggression - have got to be legitimate.
Even though we didn't actually record it as the Move I had already written a song called 'Dear Elaine', which I subsequently put on the Boulders album. I thought at the time that was probably the best song I'd written.
I liked the way they treated the first, second, and third place finishers equally. It was an amazing year. I only entered two song contests this year; I won one and placed second in the other. And I entered each of them a day or two before the deadline.
When the script was written, it was sent to me with asterisks marking where he felt a song would be appropriate. Before the film was shot, the score was written. I made a demo of it, so they lived with the music as they were making the film.
After a while, no matter how much you love any pop song, you're going to get tired of it. That's the way it is with any entertainment. It's good when you first hear it or see it, you like it for a while, then it gets old. It gets chewed up and spit out and it's done.
I love ballads. I'm not into fast songs. I love to put my heart and all of my feelings into a song.
One of my songs was on a jazz station for awhile. It was a song that I wrote for a jazz sax player friend of mine, and I sang and played the guitar on it.
Right now, I'm Writing song lyrics. Experimenting with a play. Toying with an idea for a documentary. I hope one of these will eventually be launched into the light of day.
At the end of the day, I'm just trying to write a song that I like, that I'm not afraid to turn loose on the world. I do read a lot. I know a lot of people who read more, but I do try to keep a book in my hand most of the time, and I think that informs any kind of output that I'm going to have.
When I hear myself singing, I hear Iggy Pop and Jimi Hendrix. There's a conversational thing going on. I suppose it depends on which The Pretenders song you're listening to.
I'm one of the culprits who keeps turning stuff around, shaking up original tunes and trying to stand the canon on its ear. But sometimes, you just need to sing the song.
Every song that I've done is me in one way or another.
I just feel like this guy who's visiting the music business over the weekend. Every time I write a song, I feel like it's never going to happen again.
We're feminists. We're doing something that only guys are expected to do and doin' it right! At our concerts we'll do one hard-core rap song and then do one where we'll be real sexy.
I think Bridge Over Troubled Water was a very good song. Artie sang it beautifully. The Boxer was a really nice record. But I don't think I've written any great songs.
I had done a cover of the song 'Nenani Neevani' and put it up on Sound Cloud, which Sunny M.R., the music composer of Rowdy Fellow, came across. He liked it and approached me for 'Yedho.'
Between each album I try to gain a new insight that I didn't have before and perhaps write a song about something that I've written about before, but from a fresh viewpoint.
I try to sing many different kinds of songs. If I sing a batch of humorous songs, I'll throw in a deadly serious song. Or if I'm singing too many serious songs, I'll throw in a ridiculous song, to mix it up.
The song This Kiss was definitely my breakthrough song. After that, Breathe was my breakthrough album.
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, no winter in thy year.
