I like songs that have lots of different parts in them, an intro, an outro and a bridge.
I don't have to worry about any pop sensibility. I can write adult songs, and I don't have to worry about choruses and hook lines.
One thing all the way through the show to me is boring. I don't care how great the artist is. I find that if my audience is very young, and they want to hear very young songs, my show will be dominated by that. But there'll be some ballads here and there and some swing tunes.
I write my songs and just play them, so there are not a whole lot of fireworks. As long as the music comes first, it's OK to have some fireworks. But not the other way around.
Blues are the songs of despair, but gospel songs are the songs of hope.
I think Pantera is a type of band that has been documented very, very well over the years. With the past re-releases, we were fortunate enough to have old demos and stuff that never really saw the light of day. But Pantera was not the type of band to waste many riffs or many parts or songs.
For 70 nights, right across America, I've been getting out there with two ex-lovers and we've been playing songs which are so specific about each of us, you just wouldn't know. We're friends now but we can't forget what happened between us.
Instead of slashing my wrists, I just write a bunch of really crummy songs.
There are some songs where you're like, 'I really like this song,' and it just didn't work out how you thought it would. That's life. You win some, you lose some. You can't dwell on it. I can't be worried about the past.
I've written lots of songs on the piano. My mother had a piano and it was the first instrument I played.
People - especially white people - they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.
For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.
There's a whole bunch of unfinished stuff. Then I've got books of lyrics. I find it frustrating to finish a song and not be able to record it... so I don't write a million songs.
Lately I've been falling asleep listening to 'Common One' by Van Morrison, specifically the song 'Summertime in England.' It's 15 minutes long, so to make it through the entire song is a real task unto itself, but Van has that emotional payoff that makes even his most tiresome songs more powerful than most people's entire catalog.
I'm not afraid to write my feelings in songs.
I think that I've got some pretty bad reviews on albums or songs that later proved themselves.
I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That's what I do. That's my job. Simple.
The more I go on in this career of making albums, writing songs and playing music, the more I think of each album as a movie. I really wanted to make a film, but making a film is much more expensive than making a record.
The extraordinary thing about Irving Berlin is that he's like the American Mozart! It seems as if his songs were always there. How do you put together songs like 'Always' or 'Cheek To Cheek'? Songs of his are, frankly, perfect.
I think some people found the production took away from the actual songs, which I can understand.
John Lennon and Ringo Starr liked my songs. I used to write songs and they heard me sing songs on stage in London.
It's not the case of turning in a bunch of songs and recording the next month. I think you're looking for songs all year long and you're writing all year long.
It's interesting to do other people's music - that's how I learned to play, by learning other people's songs. It's nice to delve into how other people got to where they are.
I really just tried to make a record full of great songs, which is the goal I always have.
When I think about the songs I might record, I ask myself, 'Can I picture anybody I know back home sitting in their truck cranking this up?'
I'd like to write some songs that are so good that nobody understands them. Not even myself.
Most of the songs I sing have that blues feeling in it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about. I don't.
I picked and co-wrote the songs that if I was a guy who would be spending my hard-earned money buying an album I would want to hear.
I used to write songs that were deeply personal, but since I am becoming so passionate about the world around me, that passion and drive is starting to come into my work.
Even though I hate acting, I love doing videos for my songs.
I got really, really sick with a spinal infection that put me in a hospital for a couple of months, and it was touch and go. I had my guitar with me, and as soon as I got well enough to play, there was nothing else to do in that hospital. The nurses would come in and request songs.
I don't know if my songs fit in films.
Anytime someone uses one of my songs for anything - a ceremony or a sacred moment - that, to me, is a high honor. I'm proud of the song at that point because I'm trying to write something for humans - whichever humans want to get on board and put this in their soundtrack to their soul's development or spiritual lives.
My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that - so I've tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the '60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson's songs.
I'm not a hustler. I don't pitch songs. I don't ask people to write with me. It's not what I do.
I don't like people telling me what to do, or trying to MAKE me write songs.
