When you're No. 1 or No. 300, you still get to play and write the songs.
I think that's the real reason, sometimes, that people talk about my stories as being scary, because if you compare what goes on in my stories to what goes on in popular movies and popular songs, it's very mild.
I am a big fan of the Gallagher brothers. At Liverpool, they came a few times; they are friends of Steven Gerrard. It was nice to meet them. When I was in Spain, I couldn't speak English, so I couldn't understand the lyrics. When I came to England, I started studying music and trying to understand what my favourite songs said.
If you listen to most of my songs, the lyrics are pretty kind of dark, but I like to put it behind happy music because then it evens it out... I'm really happy, actually. Obviously I have my bad moments, but I always challenge myself to not put negativity out there because there's already enough.
I try and take it for what it is, and I'm very at peace with the fact that when I'm done with the songs, they don't belong to me anymore. They belong to the listeners.
I started writing lyrics out of desperation. I was broke and wondering where my next job, my next meal was coming from, although I had had several successful revue songs on Broadway.
I am going to sing lesbian love songs and support gay rights no matter what. The rest is public relations.
I feel like all the songs are little scenes, different angles, of the feelings that come around something ending.
It's important to me that my songs actually make sense. So often, I turn on the radio, and I have no idea what the people are singing about. It may sound good, but when you listen, they're just saying words that rhyme. It's another song about nothing.
Some people get on the whole touring circuit for years and years and years on one record. What interests me is sitting down at a piano, writing songs, getting into a studio and exploring new sounds to come up with something I'm really proud of.
It's really important to me that the songs not only stand out individually but work as a full body of work, too.
A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.
I've been writing songs since I was 14 years old, and that's my true love.
I always make it a point to pick songs on which players really shine.
It's such a changing industry, and I realize that it's become more digital- and singles-driven, but I still love listening to a full record. It's the artist's story captured in 12 or 15 songs.
I really enjoy the therapeutic value of writing songs.
I really had a great time working with 'Modest Mouse,' just because of the people. I loved writing songs with Isaac Brock, and Jeremiah Green is probably my favorite musician that I've worked with.
Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. All of the little infinite detail that went into the arrangements and giving ourselves lots of breathing room in terms of playing what we wanted to play and using up any ideas that we had - all of those were conceived to be performed.
I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.
As I grew up, I wasn't a great buyer of albums, but I really liked 'The Jam.' I like good musicians and loved the energy of their songs.
I love singing. It's who I am. When I act, I take a small part of myself and just magnify it, but when I'm singing, that's who I am. I don't write music, so I choose songs that I would have written.
In the past, some of the songs that were the most fun, and the most entertaining and rocking, fell by the wayside because I was concerned with what I was going to say and how I was going to say it.
I think I'm in a really nice position, where I'm sure I could do another show if I wanted to do one, but right now the main thing in my mind is writing songs.
I remember making up songs in my head.
Yoga introduced me to a style of meditation. The only meditation I would have done before would be in the writing of songs.
I write songs very quickly, so the 20 minutes of joy I get out of writing a song doesn't compare to the two months of joy I get engaging with the people who like my music.
Most songs are somewhere between love and death, and mine are no exception.
A lot of my songs are written prophetically: I write something, and then I make it happen.
Singing songs like 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck.
I keep a lighter in my back pocket all the time. I'm not a smoker, I just really like certain songs.
For me personally, I'm always writing from what's happening in my emotional life. Even without thinking about it a lot of the time, it comes out in the songs that I'm writing.
My shows are always a mix of songs from all my albums with some rocking covers thrown in for fun.
I probably belong to a type of composer of songs who keeps thinking about melody... I am old fashioned.
I think I have some anger-management issues, and they end up coming out in these passive-aggressive songs that sound happy.
There's a saying, 'It's easy to write songs, but very difficult to write great songs.' I'm going through that right now.
A lot of times songs are very much of a moment, that you just encapsulate. They come to you, you write them, you feel good that day, or bad that day.
