I'm writing a record of comedy songs. I'm doing all these collaborations with artists. I bring them lyrics and they write the music to it.
I mean, whose songs don't focus on tragedy and loss?
It's so funny because I listen to songs that I recorded that I didn't really know anything about at the time. Later on I'm starting to feel the songs. Sing them first, feel them later.
We had offers to go everywhere and we could have done them. But what would have been the point? We were tired. We had worked hard and needed a break before we got stale. We spent six months at home and writing songs.
Some of the songs on the radio are really outrageous. I listen to the lyric. If the lyric doesn't make sense, I don't like the song.
Any time I hear certain songs I put in a movie, I have to not listen to them anymore because I associate them with that movie. They take on that association rather than the association I had when I first heard them. So it's kinda bittersweet to put a song in a movie, honestly.
I found a sound that people really liked - I found this basic concept and all I did was change the lyrics and the melody a little bit. My songs, if you listen to them, they're quite a lot alike, like Chuck Berry.
Well, Neighbours wanted to do a song on the show, and they asked me what songs I had. I told them I'd just written this song, called Born to Try, and I had just gone overseas and spoken to some people from Song about it.
Even if you're specific about the character of the song, it's more exciting to place them, juxtapose them in such a way as to make an adventure out of the sequence of the songs.
I usually sing a lot on my mixtapes. I sing a lot on songs that just really aren't singles. Even my first single, 'My Last,' which I feel like is more pop than anything - I was originally singing the chorus on there. I'm used to that. I've always had fresh melodies.
I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.
Thank God for beautiful songs about feeling despair when you yourself are in despair. They really get us through.
You just went right in and just recorded songs and listened them, and if there were any mistakes, then we would correct them and just went on... one take or two take.
I sang and wrote songs when I was 12 years old.
I've done a lot of movies that don't have any music in them, and I've always sort of had a kind of wary attitude about music because it can be so manipulative, and also because with pop music, I feel like everybody kind of has their own relationship to songs.
I put myself into character for my songs.
Sing the songs of joy to the Lord, serve the Name of the Lord, and become the servant of His servants.
Songs give you incredible opportunity to convey a tremendous amount in a relatively short period of time.
I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.
When I began making my own albums, the songs became funkier. They were more about the streets.
One of my favorites is one called 'Rory's Radio' that I wrote about my brother Jeff's best friend growing up - his name was Rory Dunigan. I dedicated my first record to my brother, who got killed in a car accident in 1999, and I really didn't have any songs on the first album about him, nothing on a personal note.
As a musician, I don't think I'm the greatest guitar player. I'm a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm.
The thing is, unfortunately, I write the best songs when I'm miserable.
I started writing songs at 17.
I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they're no good. I don't throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight.
The album is a definite departure. I haven't written original material before, except for one song on my first album, but Elvis and I did six songs together on this one.
I admire pop songs that are perfect at three minutes.
We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.
It's what the Pixies always said about music - they were writing songs and just trying not to be boring. That was their main motivation and it worked for them. I remember reading that and thinking that was the way to do it.
I just play, and I'm always trying to write songs.
I've also gotten messages from men and women who are not the most attractive, in their minds, or are self-conscious about their weight. They're thanking me for doing songs like 'Proud Mary' and shaking a tailfeather, because they say I seem real comfortable in my skin and it made them want to be comfortable in theirs.
Writing songs, making music, and singing is important to me, and I do all three.
I love the fact that 35 years later, I still hear my songs on the radio.
When no one's buying your records, it's easy to justify selling a song. But once you start selling records, you can't really justify having two songs in Cadillac commercials. It looks greedy. And it is greedy. This whole music thing should be about music.
We must begin to make what I call 'conscious choices', and to really recognize that we are the same. It's from that place in my heart that I write my songs.
Well, as a songwriter, it's really dangerous to use the word love in a song. It's a word that has been used in songs so many millions of times before, and it's the most popular topic to ever write about.
