I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.
Sometimes, but the year I lived in France I started to write songs.
I'd like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!
Attempting to write vocal oriented songs to me felt like going through the motions and if you are going to go through the motions you might as well just do any gig that caused you to do repetitive motions like banging a hammer or serving fries.
I guess the way to keep a grip on reality is just to take breaks in between albums like most normal bands do. Go home and be a person and hang out with your friends. Do separate things and get back to earth and write songs and go out there again.
I sang a lot of low stuff on songs like 'Secrets' and 'Rockin',' almost like Toni Braxton. On 'Secrets,' I'm a different person.
I had heard some Elvis songs on the radio. During Christmastime, they'd play 'Blue Christmas,' and I knew I liked his songs, but I didn't know who it was singing them. I just knew I liked them... I started reading, watching, and just picking up everything I could about him.
When I became a parent and hit my thirties, I got my hands on an acoustic guitar. I started writing quiet, simple songs at home and, with a little encouragement, I got more courage and found my voice. I have people and movements who have inspired me to carry on, but I try to write about things I know, nothing too complicated, really.
We really try to make sure that the band writes the songs, not just one person.
I usually enter the studio with a mix of songs that I've been listening to that are relevant to the sound I want to achieve.
I'm not an extremely prolific writer. I don't write songs all the time.
With the Rhythm Kings, I can involve myself in arranging and producing the music as well as the choice of songs.
My music is nostalgic. The early Neil Sedaka songs are always catchy and very singable.
I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It's all authentic.
When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.
I was looking online; many singers have sung songs for the elections, but I am not doing anything like that.
Obviously the biggest change is that it's me by myself. When you don't have another band interpreting your songs or playing them the way that they have, it's bound to sound different.
I could play it safe by recording songs that are familiar, but am I expanding myself as an artist by doing covers? It's a catch-22. It's called show business: The word 'business' is in it, and you've got to be a businessman. But then again, you have to be true to yourself as an artist.
I really wish I knew what I was doing because I'd be writing hit songs every minute.
A lot of times, I don't feel responsible for the songs myself. But that's my job or my place in life: to keep my search and catch the ideas before they pass me by.
No matter how famous and established they were or however blessed they were with great songs or long careers, if they lived alone, they lived alone. That's not the way I wanted to live prior to the tour or after.
After struggling for so long in the industry and writing so many failed songs and hearing 'no' for so long - I'm so grateful every time I hear a song that I was a part of on the radio.
I go back to things all the time. It's really nice, too, like when I'm going through some kind of a writer's block, and I'm feeling uninspired, I go to some of my oldest songs from over the years and sift through them, and one thing that's very nice is to see how I've grown up a little bit. A little bit.
I don't want you to feel defeated, like, 'Oh boy, why do you do this to me?' We have too many of those songs.
I miss CDs. I miss listening to a whole album, even the lame songs that sometimes grow on you.
Every few years, I go back into all the songs and I update them so that it never sounds like an oldies show. If you come to the shows, they're full of muscle. 'Copacabana' sounds like it could have been released yesterday.
I started listening to and playing other music in the '90s. It was after hearing other bands, like Bad Religion, cover Ramones songs that I started to like our songs again.
I had 25 or 30 songs. Sequencing the record, I left that to the producer. I'm not into doing that stuff.
I don't want my reputation to take me over, I just want to be judged on my songs. I want people to come and see me because they want to, not because fashion dictates it.
I know for works for me - those wonderful sad love songs.
Although I'm a huge fan of Ben Kweller, I don't think I'd cover one of his songs, simply because there's just so much of my own stuff I wanna do.
Do you know most of the Jewish songs have the same trend of sadness as Negro spirituals?
I'm part of the party, getting the crowd fired up, singing songs, pouring drinks, whatever it takes to get them to have a good time. When I walk into the meet-and-greet, someone's always going to have a story, a sad story or a happy story.
A musical, like most religions, provides the audience or followers with a sense of belonging. Religious services, on the other hand, with their staged performances, invigorating songs, popular wisdom and shared experience, are almost a form of community theater.
I've been writing joke songs since I was a kid and it served me well at S.N.L. I can write those in my sleep. In fact, I have.
The grandmother, the mother, the worker, the student, the intellectual, the professional, the unemployed, everybody identified with the songs because they were descriptions of life in the city.
