If Marilyn Manson would write a song that says, 'Do your damn homework,' it would make the world a better place, and it wouldn't hurt him at all. And if he doesn't like it, to hell with him. He can come fight us - by the bicycle racks.
Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I think the ordinary guy has just as much right to say 'This is a good song' as somebody who is in the music business.
It doesn't take much for anyone to pick up anything I play - it's quite simple. I go for a good song. And if you hear a good song, you don't dissect it - you just listen, and every bit seems right.
When I was 3 or 4, I seemed to be bursting with music. They played Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra in the house, so I learned my vocabulary from song lyrics - I was literally singing before I was talking.
The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.
I have a repertoire of songs that I'm proud of, that I've written for my own band. When I do a cover, something that somebody else has written, I think about it very carefully before I sing that song. I have to really get behind it and understand it and like it. And that's how I pick roles. I don't want to play just anything.
I really like working with unique and unknown artists, as they usually bring something fresh to a song.
It often seems... the human race has twittered away its existence singing an endless song - a song of waste and hatred, where there should be progress and love.
I went to a radio station on Long Island in 1982, and thank goodness for me, it was so new that there was no receptionist. So the DJ opened up his booth, and took my tape and listened to it and thought it was a hit song.
If people stop being interested, it's because you haven't written a good enough album. Music will always be the most powerful thing. It doesn't matter what record labels or journalists say. It's the song.
When we try to write a pop song, we go for standard pop arrangements, even to the point where we will go to the key change at the end, which is really cheesy.
I close my eyes when I sing so I can feel the song better.
I wrote my first song at 6. I spent every day with the guitar, and I just made up songs.
A female vocal can lift a song.
In the case of 'Shape Of Water,' I want it to feel like a song. I wanted people to come out of the movie humming the movie.
Roadrunner wanted to make Born in the Flood the next Nickelback, but I didn't want to be that. I didn't want to be a huge rock star playing songs I didn't like. I didn't want to be stuck playing 'Anthem,' the song everybody liked but I didn't want to put on the record, for the next five years.
I think you really have to remember what you loved about making music in the first place. Ultimately, people can be like, 'We've seen this dude in many movies,' but if they hear a song and they're feeling it, they can look past all the personal things and not hold it against you that you're also an actor.
I do try to structure everything in a way that's very much like a pop song. I try to keep the arrangements really simple, just to make everything essential.
I think hip-hop is no more misogynistic than America is as a society. I just think hip-hop is a lot more brash, a lot more bold, a lot more loquacious. There are a lot more words that go into a hip-hop song than go into a regular song.
My intent for EPs - and, really, my philosophy on my music - is that every single song has to be worth it.
I think my favorite song from another artist would have to be 'Superstition' by Stevie Wonder.
'Try Again' - every time I hear that song, it just brings a smile to your face. When you're feeling like crap, and you hear, 'Dust yourself off and try again,' it kind of just puts you in a different mindset, 100 percent.
'Safe Harbor' is a state of mind... it's the place - in reality or metaphor - to which one goes in times of trouble or worry. It can be a friendship, marriage, church, garden, beach, poem, prayer, or song.
You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even working on an older song that might complete that picture.
If someone had told me when I was a kid I'd get an ovation from Frank Sinatra! One time, I did a song called 'I Am A Singer', but I rewrote the words for Frank. I was in tears and, when he got up, so was he.
A song is fire. You react to it primally, instantly. You don't have to decide whether you like it, and you don't really have to sit down and think about it much after you're done listening to it. It really does run through you like wind.
I played the coronet first, and then I upgraded to the trumpet. First song I learned on there was 'Hot Cross Buns.'
By forbidding Jews to destroy their hair, the Bible warns them away from seeking the siren song of eternal youth. By encouraging Jews to grow beards, it reminds them that they will not be young forever, that they must prepare the ground for those who come after, just as their fathers did for them.
I am not really into paintings, to be honest, but for me, the art I love is when I see singers putting their heart into their song, actors giving the performance of their lives, and books and movies that make me feel something I never thought I could; there's art in everything as long as it's made with soul.
I got into a conversation with EMI, and they said they were very interested in releasing the song because it was such a huge hit online. RCA and Universal were also very interested, but EMI were the best team, so I decided to sign with them. I got my deal because 'Silly Boy' leaked, so obviously now I'm very happy about what happened!
When poetry separates from song, then the words have to carry all the rhythm themselves; they have to do all the work. They can't rely on the singing voice.
I'm a sucker for a love song!
Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.
'Planet Caravan' by Black Sabbath is such a delicate song from such a surprising place.
When I'm writing a song, I'm just making stuff up as I go along.
I don't have one song that sounds like another one in my entire catalog.
