Social topics may hit too close to home for people, but then again, if you pull a heartstring, then that's what country music is. It's not just songs about getting drunk and leaving your girl.
I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart.
I love Calle 13 - they are Puerto Rican; some songs sound like Reggaeton, but it's not Reggaeton; it's good urban music.
What really turns me on about technology is not just the ability to get more songs on MP3 players. The revolution - this revolution - is much bigger than that. I hope, I believe. What turns me on about the digital age, what excites me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing.
'Darkness on the Edge of Town' came out of a huge body of work that had tons of very happy songs.
It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs.
I sing the songs that people need to hear.
What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.
I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colors for those who see none.
When I was about 14 I remember thinking when it came to proposing to my future girlfriend, I'd make a CD with all her favourite songs and a message that said, 'Will you marry me?' Shows you what a romantic I was. No one listens to CDs any more. It's all about iTunes.
I think no-one was surprised to hear that Janis Joplin was dead. She seemed to be living up all of her energy that she had to give in just a few years. Now you listen to covers of her songs by various women, and it's pale in comparison.
I don't write all my stuff. Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I've ever had has been about 50-50 songs I've written or co-written and other people's songs.
I didn't want to play these people any more songs and have them say that they weren't good enough. So my response was to just not be able to write anymore. I know that's not the healthiest of responses.
The true treasure lies within. It is the underlying theme of the songs we sing, the shows we watch and the books we read. It is woven into the Psalms of the Bible, the ballads of the Beatles and practically every Bollywood film ever made. What is that treasure? Love. Love is the nature of the Divine.
I used to make my grandparents pay a dollar to watch me sing 'Grease' songs and 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' in their living room. I was always an entertainer, and I would always do all that stuff, but it slowly evolved into a career, which is great, but it wasn't a plan.
But mostly, I wrote songs and Viv wrote songs.
The people who are making money are the ones who are writing and singing their own songs.
It just doesn't get any more stripped down than going out totally alone and doing songs.
I think Usher is a bonafide superstar because he's very honest in his songs, and people can relate to that, especially in the feelings and textures of his voice. He is one of the best.
Two things I'm obsessed with are the countryside and fields and being in the open space and body parts, so you'll hear me mentioning body parts and human anatomy. I've listened to my songs and I think I am quite visual and I talk about bones and flesh a lot.
When I wrote those two songs, I couldn't have been any closer to the bottom.
I always used to look at books and wonder how anybody could come up with so many words. But my divorce and then falling in love with somebody else has released in me an ability to write in other ways apart from songs.
In high school, I was Mr. Choir Boy. I had solos, I was helping out the tenors with their parts and our choir teacher would ask me what songs we should do.
I take a lot of pride in my songs.
Where I grew up, in the Detroit area, there was a really good station. Sometimes you would hear songs for the first time on the radio, and if a really special song came on, somebody would turn it up, and everybody would just stop talking.
When someone picks up one of my songs and records it, I'm a flattered man, it's a blessing to me.
At intervals between the songs, more especially after the trances have begun, the dancers unclasp hands and sit down to smoke or talk for a few minutes.
It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.
There was a time we decided that it was songs that were done especially from my background because of the things we were dealing with, but nowadays, anybody who has a need, and can find the need, they can sing the blues.
I bring up 'The Heist,' and you can almost cut that record down the middle between songs where the beat came first and the words came second, and songs where the words came first and the beat came second. It can start with a vibe, a beat that drives a story, or it can start with a story and then trying to identify the tone to tell that story right.
We've been called the soundtrack of people's lives. There have been lots of downs, of course but mostly ups. That EW&F is still clicking at least twenty years on and has a life of its own, that the songs have stayed alive - we're like a good book that people go back to.
I didn't want to be a solo Westlife - covers and ballads - and the reason I signed with Capitol Records was because they wanted me to write songs myself. It was pretty scary, but they put me in a studio in Nashville with some new songwriters, and the results were pretty good.
Action was something I really wanted to do and will continue doing it in future as well, but at the same time, I know dancing and songs are huge part of Bollywood, and it will be my top priority to excel in that.
When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it - why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s - 'Nick of Time' and other songs I was surprised I came up with - it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say.
Since I was doing all of it myself, I had to decide where I wanted to go with the songs, how to proceed with the chords, if the sound was alright, and all that detail on my own.
Working with Yahoo! allows us to give our fans a chance to listen to our songs, check out the video, purchase our new album, win tickets to our show, and chat with us all in one place.
