There were a lot of songs during my MCA years that I thought should have been singles but were not. You can't worry about what wasn't - I was very lucky to have as many hits as I had.
It's a unique thing to stand in front of a crowd and sing your songs.
When I was 13, I told my dad I needed to record myself because I sounded awesome, even though I didn't. By 18, I was a lot better. Then I got a publishing deal, so I was writing songs for other people professionally.
I've always thought that whether I'm writing or not, I've gotta pick the best songs, whether or not they're mine. I'm not gonna sing them just because I wrote them. I've gotta find the best songs to make the best record I can.
I have always been fascinated by dark and mysterious stuff. I guess I have a pretty dark and gloomy side. Writing songs saves me from going completely gonzo.
My songs are my kids. Some of them stay with me, some others I have to send out, out to the war. It might sound stupid and it might even sound naive, but that's just the way it is.
I've seen music and songs used in stories, and while sometimes it works really well, often it doesn't.
One of my theme songs is that if you can't do it in a test tube, don't do it.
I've always written songs, even when I wasn't doing anything with my personal life in music.
Dave and I had been song writers in Nashville, trying to get around, out hustling, trying to meet people. We randomly met Hillary out in town one night. She said she was a singer. I asked her if she would like to write some songs with Dave and me, and a week later she came over. Instantaneously we had this chemistry.
I think a lot of it is that we used to tour so much that we never really had time to write songs.
But we will play 6, 7 new songs each evening, approximately a third in the concert. I think it's a good balance. It will be very interesting to see the public's reaction. But i think when we'll play the very first new piece, we will be scared.
I laugh my head off every day with my husband and my kids, who are mooning me and singing me songs.
People hate cardio. I hate cardio. But pick the five top songs that you love. Do your cardio during these songs, and you're done. I'd say 95 percent of the time you don't even know you just did it.
I am deeply devoted to the 27,000 songs I can take anywhere on my iPod Classic as well as the exquisitely engineered MacBook Air on which I typed this column.
I was always into pop music, Destiny's Child, songs with catchy music. Even when I was writing when I was younger, it wasn't all about expressing myself; it was just about making fun music.
At the end of the day, they're happy if you do the obvious songs towards the end of the set and you've got to try and make yourself happy by doing certain songs at the front end of the set.
Of course, we wrote the songs accordingly and performed and recorded them that way. At that time, we really thought it was right, but you know, seen in retrospect, it made the album sound forced, and not really great.
I don't try to write songs that will further my career. I write about things that I care about. I don't have a career as much as I'm having an adventure with a guitar. I never liked the business way of doing it. You have to follow some sort of instinct.
Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.
I can't play my songs on the smaller harp. I have a Celtic harp. I can't do the key changes.
Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my songs sound like relationship songs.
My grandfather lived across the garden from us, and in his attic he had a lot of radios, appliances and inventions that he had made over 50 years, such as a keyboard called a clavioline, which can be heard on some Beatles songs - it was popular in the 60s. So we had all that at home.
Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don't get me.
I get nervous as hell when it's time for the songs to come out.
I don't think of them as teenage songs. The things that happen to you in high school are the same things that happen your entire life. You can fall in love at 60; you can get rejected at 80.
I've always been trying to write songs that hit you in the stomach but ones that make people feel like things will be just fine.
The more I push myself to really live and really experience things and step outside of my comfort zone, the more the songs are allowed to flow.
I'll be writing songs till I die. There's just no question.
Woody Allen movies are like Beatles songs. I can't name my favorite without you immediately naming a better one.
The film is a romance with songs and dances, aimed at a family audience.
It's good fun, making a solo album, because there's perhaps songs that wouldn't get used for the Stones or any other kind of outfit that I'm working with. It's just nice to be the boss.
If you only do little clusters - three or four songs by one, and another, and then yet another - you lose the opportunity to think your way into the composer's mind, since, after all, most of these pieces are quite brief.
I'm delighted about the track's success in the sports world, but the frustrating thing is, I don't think I got rich on it. The labels and publishers did very cheap deals on our songs.
I think people who don't believe in God are crazy. How can you say there is no God when you hear the birds singing these beautiful songs you didn't make?
When we first started playing in the early days, none of us really had any idea about writing our own songs yet. We were struggling how to learn our instruments and play songs to be able to perform for people.
