Every day, I hear a song and I think, 'This would be great to cover on Glee.' I like Led Zeppelin, of course, and Pink Floyd, Alice in Chains.
No one worries about genre when they're dancing. They're not asking themselves, 'Is this song a dubstep song?'
The songs will come as they come, and I'm excited because I haven't gotten to be really creative in a while. I'm excited to get back and do what I do and just write a song.
When I'm in the studio, I don't finish the song and say, 'That's going to be a big ringtone.'
I think I made this decision that I just loved making music, and it didn't matter what level I got to do it on, and 'Fight Song' was this declaration that I'm going to keep going, and I'm going to keep believing in myself, even if it seems like it's impossible.
The most amazing thing is being onstage and watching the audience sing every song lyric for lyric.
I have been listening a lot to The Carpenters and Neil Diamond, Elton John, and thinking, like, 'God, it'd be great to write a sort of subversive, alternative ballad,' like Lou Reed does so well with 'Perfect Day.' And I really loved 'Video Games' - at the time, it hadn't really got as big, but it's a classic song; you can't deny it.
I never was a liner note junkie. I didn't know who produced records or there was such a thing as a straight songwriter. I always assumed that everybody that was singing a song wrote it or made it up.
A song is a lot of things. But, first of all, a song is the voice of its time. Setting words to music gives them weight, makes then somehow easier to say, and it helps them to be remembered.
My dad dying was actually a reason for me to stop music properly for about a year, because he was a big supporter. All I wanted to do was write a song about him and, you know, when something's too fresh, you can't quite word it.
Don't get me wrong: there are aspects of buying music online that I love. Instantly being able to hear a song the moment it crosses your mind? Where's the downside? However, I do feel for those too young to remember the thrill of going record shopping.
Both Springsteen and Michael Jackson, who had these huge productions, could always scale them back down to just a song and a melody. All of that influences me. I also try to be a fictional writer, and sometimes I get close, but the things that resonate the most with me - and with everyone else - is what's real.
'They Don't Care About Us' by Michael Jackson - This song makes me want to dance, and I fell in love with it watching 'This Is It' with my kids.
I loved the idea of recording. The idea of sound-on-sound-recording captured me as a young kid, and once I realized what it was I had an epiphany. Before I was even playing the guitar, I would create these lists of how I would record things and overdub them, like Led Zeppelin song, 'I could put this guitar on this track...' and so on.
In a certain way, it's the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.
Favorite movie of all time? I hate being asked... that's like being asked, 'What's your favorite song?'
Rather than writing about my experiences with other people, 'Ugly Cherries' is the first song I've ever written about myself. It's a confrontation: an attempt to unpack my own queerness with humor and self care.
'Rise Up' is definitely my baby. I think it was a gift because, you know, it's like God just spoke to me and wrote that song. It's very powerful.
You can't help but have your children and your family be part of what you dream about when you dream up a song.
Now one thing I think is really lame, is if you're an artist and you go to a karaoke bar and sing your own song. I like to get up there and sing stuff that I would never sing on stage anywhere else. Like Neil Diamond.
I wouldn't use a song I didn't think was my brand or image.
A lot of country music is sad. I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. It applies to music. Three chords and the truth - that's what a country song is. There is a lot of heartache in the world.
For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.
I'm not sure it's a better music world of appreciation and performance. I think the listener is a different guy, and listening is something he does in passing, with other stuff going on. There's less care and understanding of the relationship between the song and the listener.
My best album is called In Search Of A Song. That was my best shot right there. My finest hour, as they say. I could listen to the whole thing all the way through. There's nothing really crammed into it.
People tell me they use my song 'Coming Home' at their weddings. My audience seems to range from young to old, and it's cool when you really get to connect with all different people.
The need to make music, and to listen to it, is universally expressed by human beings. I cannot imagine, even in our most primitive times, the emergence of talented painters to make cave paintings without there having been, near at hand, equally creative people making song. It is, like speech, a dominant aspect of human biology.
The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.
Well, what's interesting, I try not to think about the radio when I'm writing a song. I want people to love the song, and that means it might not be exactly thinking about the radio, but it's thinking about your audience and saying, 'I want people to like this song after it's done.'
In blues music, there's a lot of borrowing, so it's often difficult to identify the originator of a song.
It must have been fascinating for Bono to have Johnny Cash do a cover of his song, and hear how he translates the words that he has used. And it would be fascinating to see a great director do his take on my work.
I did a song in eight minutes. I thought everybody could write songs that fast. But working with a lot of them, they don't.
'Sit Here and Cry' was one of the first songs I wrote with that overdramatic sarcastic dry sense of humor, which is why the energy of the song doesn't necessarily reflect the subject matter.
There should be a whole book written about that one word: country. What does that mean, country? It's such a huge umbrella. I would hope that what makes it country is that it all starts with a song. The story being told in three and a half minutes that is not being told on another station.
How we absorb music is unique. I know what I do. When I'm listening to music, I tend to find myself in a song. That's what really makes you connect is if you feel what that song is saying.
At first, I did have that thought, like, 'Oh crap, what are we going to do after?' Then I realized 'Girl in a Country Song' was an honest, truthful song, and we were telling our truth, and that's all we have to do - write songs that are true and tell our stories.
