As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I'd written? Yes. There's many of them!
Universal was absolutely marvelous about sitting down with me and listening to my input. It wasn't something where they chose a bunch of songs that were best sellers. They did a marvelous job on the packaging. It's a beautiful tribute.
I write songs about fat girls and about men who run off to Mexico.
I'm not focused on radio or whether I'm going to get all the audiences... all I wanted were great songs that were universal to any listener - Black, White, Green, Yellow; any kind a age difference.
U2 - that's a band that never should have existed. There's no life experience in any of their songs.
How do I tell people who I am? Not being a writer, the only way is to sing songs that reflect my opinions.
I like to think about stringing songs together like a string of pearls, or a string of beads, but ultimately it has to be stuff that really works with the band, and gives a spin to the older material.
The best songs I write in 20 minutes.
I decided it was time to pay tribute to my own songs, to give them the opportunity to mature and be adult.
Falling in love is awesome, but I'm never drawn to happy songs per se, so whenever you sit down to write a heartbreak song and you're happily in love, it's like, 'OK, now I have to go back to a sad place to get something good.'
I love writing songs. I'm a songwriter.
I don't know where my songs come from... If I knew, I'd know too much, more than we are allowed on this plane.
When someone says that I'm angry it's actually a compliment. I have not always been direct with my anger in my relationships, which is part of why I'd write about it in my songs because I had such fear around expressing anger as a woman.
Back when I first started with Scandal, I felt like I had to carry a lot of the weight because it was up to me to sell those songs.
We'd have to suck away at oxygen canisters between songs just so that we could keep playing.
Writing is not work. In fact, there's nothing better. Writing is something that if the music business went completely away tomorrow - radio stations quit existing and music quit being popular and it was old hat - I would still write songs.
Had I not come out with an inspirational CD, you perhaps would have never known that I feel like I feel, that all songs, all the music I've ever done is a gift from God.
The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible. So I'll play in bands and record and play songs with other people, but for me it's a form of expression that all I need is me. I don't need cameras or agents, I can just have a piano and sing and feel totally verified.
All of our songs take these really big creative turns and twists throughout the process, so sometimes songs will start out as a melody or some musical chord progressions.
On 'American Idol,' I felt like one of my challenges was picking songs because I've definitely been exposed to a lot of music. So when I went to pick songs, it was difficult for me to choose, but I'd always go to country because country music is so memorable.
I always figured it was best if I write my songs, take them to my publisher and just lay back. There used to be so many things going on - getting to the artist, getting to the publishers - you know, politics. I just didn't want to get mixed up in all of that.
When you love what you do, you just really fall in love with it. Sometimes you record a lot more songs than the album will even hold. You record like 300 songs and only 12 songs go on the album. It takes time. But if you love what you do, it works out.
I think I probably would have enjoyed to keep my own private pain out of my work. But I was changed by my audience who said your private pain which you have unwittingly shown us in your early songs is also ours.
Any songs that I like, I sort of rinse them out.
I don't think any of our lyrics have ever been erotic in a sexual term, because I haven't really written, touched on, that subject too often. But, uh... I mean, I suppose they could point the finger at us for violence maybe in certain songs.
All I gotta do is my job, do what it is that I bring to the table - that fire - and put the thump on these songs, and everything's gonna work from there.
All I want to do is write songs about funny characters I made up.
I don't write songs.
I don't tell 'U.S. Weekly' which parties I'm going to. I write songs.
I hate negative songs; I won't sing them. It doesn't matter if it's sold 2 million more albums.
We play melodic music, we play songs, we play all kinds of things and when you improvise you don't just shut out different languages, you use all the languages that you have.
If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.
Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.
Novelists get to say plenty in their massive tomes; rock singers only get four-minute songs with two verses and a chorus' worth of lyrics, and so there's a real pleasure in accessing the intelligence behind the music, even if it doesn't qualify as 'great literature.'
Only a tiny portion of music history involves a singer and a lyric. Songs in music are generally thought to be a minor form.
When people say 'stadium songs,' it's really negative. All the festival headliners, I've realised, are usually the worst bands.
