Just because people play songs with great technique doesn't mean the records are better.
Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.
I think I had kind of an advantage. When I was growing up, my dad had just got out of jail and he had a great record collection. He had - it was all - these were the songs. So I heard a lot of these songs, like, my whole life, so for me it was easy. I already knew what I was going to sing.
I think people relate to Skynyrd; it's a working class band. They're just songs with messages. To this day, there's never been a song written that didn't have a message.
My most cryptic, strange songs might be my most personal, but that isn't how people are going to receive them, because they don't know the code.
I sing some songs but don't expect me to release an album anytime soon.
I think I just get excited by music, and, like, singing is a very physical thing. It releases endorphins in your body. You're using almost muscle in there, and I think that adrenaline really helps to kind of make the songs fresh every time.
So don't get me wrong, I love my songs, and I still love hearing them. That's history, baby.
For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I'm very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.
My songs are like my kids.
My retirement, back in 1976, began as a one-year boycott to challenge the media on that question. I refused to return until the media, and radio stations in particular, got a hold on identifiably Canadian songs.
I like to make songs that are based on concepts.
There are certain functions that a writer has to do. In a time of crisis, it is great to have heroic poems, as it was in the Irish Revolution. It's great to have great songs, because people need something to sing when they are marching. That's OK, but it should be on the side. It's not the ultimate thing.
Songs used to be short, then they became longer, and now they're getting shorter. But otherwise, music is about a beat and a message. If the beat gets to the audience, and the message touches them, you've got a hit.
A song is only as strong as its foundation, and when it comes so naturally in any setting, those are the songs that will hopefully outlive you, maybe even outlive the next generation of You.
There is nothing in the world of art like the songs mother used to sing.
I like to see other bands, and I like to hear their songs, but I really like it when they engage the audience.
I've never written a political song. Songs can't save the world. I've gone through all that.
With the Stray Cats at least, we really took the music somewhere else. First, we wrote our own songs. That's a real weak point in modern classics if you do rockabilly or blues.
Thinking about what songs are coming next instead of just relaxing, breathing and playing from my heart. Sometimes it can get to be almost like the enemy.
I love Benny Hill. He one of my favourites of aaall time. Like, the way Benny did it, he was just amazing. Just seeing how he put songs together and comedy and the timing and the sketches. He was way ahead of his time.
But to make a holiday record that involves favorite American songs and then also get to sing about Jesus birth, it just seemed like a real easy, subtle way to combine a couple of things that I love.
I've always written songs since I was a kid - always.
I think some people record songs and make records a certain way to cater to radio. If you're born to make commercial music that's cool. But if you're born to not make commercial records, maybe you're meant to cater to another market.
No matter how much money I make, no matter how many hit songs. I still perform like a street performer.
Writing songs is about trying to connect with people on a deeper spiritual level - but I'm not a fan of contemporary Christian music.
In my head, I consider 'No Turning Back' my 'dipping the toe in the water' album. It was mostly covers of favorite songs, and there were three originals in there. So, it feels like it was just my album to see what the temperature of the water was.
The type of music that I love to sing would have to be more bluesy and jazzy and more soul-like 'cause I love to belt when it comes to singing, so I guess bigger songs are what I lean more towards.
As a teenager I was obsessed with music and with writing and performing songs.
I toured with Skrillex, did an HBO commercial with Diplo. In the hip hop movement, I was the first artist Travis Scott ever featured with before he blew up. I had the songs with Chris Brown and Tyga. I've worked with some of the biggest artists in the world.
You know, I get a lot of people pitching songs to me.
My musical heroes are people like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie who wrote and sang real songs for real people; for everyone, old, young, and in between.
If it's a whole show of my own, I'll do more of what I think Del Shannon is. But for shows like Disneyland, I'll just do mainly hits. That's what they want to hear. I don't want to bore people. If I wanted that much to play nothing but 12 new songs, then I should go do it in a bar somewhere for peanuts.
I borrowed a guitar at age 16 and taught myself to play because I wanted to write songs.
A lot of what I've done as Nine Inch Nails has been governed by fear. I was trying to keep the songs in a framework that was tough, and I learnt a lot from Jesus and Mary Chain about how to bury nice pop songs in unlistenable noise - the idea being if you can get behind that wall, you find there's a pearl inside.
Yeah, one of the main ways is for songs that make me want to move.
