My sister tells me I began singing before I could even talk. My first performance was of a song called 'My Blue Heaven,' which I began singing when I was a year and a half.
I never really got paid for 'Tell It Like Is,' but I look back at it and say God knew what he was doing; he probably figured that if I had got money back in them days, I wouldn't be here now. That's okay. I'm here. And I'm still singing the song.
Growing up in the '90s, I just loved 'Ice Ice Baby.' I knew, and still know, every single word to that song.
You never know until a song comes out and becomes what it becomes, obviously you can't predict how the masses will react.
After a decade this glum, we deserved a shot of 'Glee,' a show that restored our faith in the power of song, the beauty of dance, and the magic of 'spirit fingers' to chase our cares and woes into somebody else's backyard.
Most people in the U.K. discovered me playing a standard on Parkinson. In America, it was on VH1 singing an original called 'All At Sea,' which is a contemporary pop song. So the people that know me there tend to think of me in the singer/songwriter category.
There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.
When we start to write for a new record, we never really know what we're doing. We don't come into the room with a set of ideas, but miraculously, a song comes out of it.
I don't really care about a song or lyrics; I'm really just interested in the way people emphasize words. That's what makes a strong impact on me.
Sometimes I might borrow something from a song I started a long time ago and see if I can grab something.
I wrote 'Lights' a long, long time ago. And I expected it to be on the album, because it was - I wrote it with 'Biff' Stannard. And he wrote every single Spice Girls song and every single pop song of the 90s, basically. So I thought, you know, I was really lucky to work with him, but I didn't think it would be a big song for some reason.
Every song I've ever written has been based in reality, based in fact, things that happen to me.
Every time I re-perform a song, I gain some perspective.
There's always ideas buzzing around, but it's whether they actually end up materialising into a song.
Every time I write a song I feel really lucky and kind of surprised. Not surprised that I wrote it, but just surprised that things exist that you don't know about.
One of the nice things about a favorite pop song is that it's an unconditional truce on judgment and musical snobbery. You like the song because you just do, and there need not be any further criticism.
I've always been jealous of rappers, because they can fit so many words into a song and tell a story with lots of details. But when you're a songwriter, you have to fit the words to the melody and you can't fit as much in. I'm just a big fan of storytelling.
I've been ripping the Rolling Stones off with every song I write in some form or another.
When I get all focused on songwriting, I get into all the marketing and promotion that we do to make it happen. Then the right song comes along and blows it all out of the water. The right song will do it for you every time.
When I write, I don't have any expectation of what kind of song it will become or who it might reach.
I internalize a lot of thoughts, and sometimes it seems like I'm not listening or totally zoned out, but I'm always on a loop of ideas and song titles. I'm definitely kind of a space cadet, but I'm very laid back.
The music industry has become so unpredictable. And I think people know that if someone has a Number One song, it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have several ones after.
I'm visually stimulated, so I watch TV, movies, even Pinterest. A song could come from something as simple as being words splashed across a billboard or changing everyday turns of phrases.
'Before I Ever Met You' was the first one to come out and that just dives into the grit, and it's pretty graphic about a relationship. For my first song, it was very special the way it happened, because I didn't really hold anything back, and people responded to it.
'Fix' was a song that definitely put me on the map and changed everything for in me my career. I'm really thankful for it.
I don't know why my brain has kept all the words to the Gilligan's Island theme song and has deleted everything about triangles.
Believe me when I say this: you can't please everyone in concert, even though I still want to. Someone always wants you to sing a song that isn't necessarily on your set list.
It is such a gift to be able to write songs in general, but when you can share it with somebody, it is just such a pleasure. It is such a happy moment when you finish a song, and you are just like, 'Wow - that was great.'
When you enter the realm of politics, you don't enter it because you want to be popular. When I want to be popular, I pull on a guitar and sing a song.
I would like to be able to do a song with Ray Charles, before we both get too old.
If there is place for music that I do in Bollywood, then I would surely like to sing a song in a Hindi film.
I think I hid my singing talent from a lot of my friends at school because I didn't want to alienate anyone. If everyone was singing along in the car to a Madonna song, I didn't join in because when we're younger we're afraid of sticking out or showing off, when in fact we should own those things that make us really unique.
A timeless pop song is the hardest thing to do as a songwriter.
There's only so many things to sing about, so what's going to make a song appeal to you more than someone else's is just a unique way of saying the same thing.
I usually don't write songs by people calling me and saying, 'Write a song about this.' Usually I'm just going with what I want to write, so you never know.
In Torch Song, I did that character almost non-stop from 1978 until I made the movie in 1987. Then I had some failure, which also colors how you react to doing other things.
