I wasn't thinking of the longevity of any of my songs, but I am extremely pleased with the lasting effect.
I mean, Beatles songs were two and a half minutes long, and they're fantastic.
I enjoy singing the songs a certain way, but I don't even know how the writing even began. To me, it's work that is kind of invisible; it's a weird kind of work to have because you're not working, but it's not not work. Formulating your thoughts and making a melody that's catchy enough for people to listen to what you're saying is really hard!
I never publicise in advance what I'm going to be singing because I never quite know until I start. I often change my mind halfway through. I sometimes throw in stuff about politics or Shakespeare or do songs in Yiddish.
Get up, groan, write a bit, moan, eat breakfast, write some more, cycle my bike through the Sligo hills, make up country songs as I pedal along, sing them, have lunch, have a nap, groan, moan, write a small bit more, cook dinner, feed wifey, open a bottle, or several, slump, sleep.
To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best.
I like those kinds of songs that have details that you remember and that have stories that mean something and that open up into different levels philosophically. I like those kinds of movies, and I like those kinds of books.
Songs are about whatever you want them to be about. For me it might mean something completely different than what it means to you. So I'd say it's about whatever the listener thinks it's about.
If any of our songs ever did make it on the top ten, I'd disband the group immediately.
Throughout my life I have cared as deeply about the songs of all peoples as I have about the rights of all peoples.
Few rappers realize the genre sprang from West African griots through Delta slave songs to jazz poetry and the comedic trash talk of 'the dozens.'
I love rapping. I do. My styling's similar to Missy Elliott - I think she's so dope. In a weird way, that's how I first learned the American accent: doing American rap songs.
I'm doing a record that has a story that runs through all of the songs, and then there is also a film that goes along with it.
I have no time to write songs.
I write songs all the time in my room. I play them for my friends and family.
I try not to repeat myself in fills in all the Rush songs unless it is something simple or something I feel is my own characteristic thing.
The first songs I wrote were catchy, but the subject matter was God.
Technically, I've been retired for some time now. All I ever do is occasionally write songs for friends, such as one, for a friend who had just turned 80. I wrote a song for him called, The First 80 Years are The Hardest.
You can de-select the songs that you don't want to have on the record, but I hope we always put something out that has a lot of songs that the majority of people will love.
My son writes songs and plays. He sings like an angel.
About 50 percent of the songs on the radio are like, 'Live like tomorrow doesn't exist. Like it's my birthday. Like it's the last day of my life'... Such a large percentage of pop music is really about party time.
I can't believe that I get to stand on the stages I stand on every summer, and get to sing the songs that I sing.
The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Barbra Streisand, Bruce Springsteen, these are just some of the people who threatened to sue if we used their songs.
It's true when they say songwriting is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. In truth, what happens is... songs comes through you.
There's this notion that allows people to create their own collection of songs, so it rewrites what a song is. They may only want 10 seconds of something, or they may only want this particular song, or they want this group of songs. It becomes much more user-controlled.
In 29 years, I had recorded over 2,200 songs. I was amazed.
Artists who write songs... what they're going through usually comes through in their music.
I'm not very good with some of the more modern songs that have an awful lot of 'doo wah wahs,' if you know what I mean, because I can't do anything with them.
Songs are like movies to me, and so you put yourself in the movie. You become a character in the movie.
However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.
I've written many love songs for Gerard. But it's never enough. I feel that he deserves a million love songs written for him.
What's really fun is seeing mothers bringing their daughters to the shows. And the best part is the mothers know they don't have to worry about sexual innuendo in the songs. The shows are family shows.
The biggest influence? I've had several at different times - but the biggest for me was Bob Dylan, who was a guy that came along when I was twelve or thirteen and just changed all the rules about what it meant to write songs.
I don't write songs about a specific, elusive thing. I write about love, and everyone knows what it is like to have your heart broken.
I love researching, whether it's old Western documentaries or old Western country singers or John Ford Westerns, which are heavily influenced by family values, which so many of these country songs are related to.
I'm writing all the time. I want to do this forever. I want to have a box set someday. I can't stop. The day I stop being inspired to write songs, I'll go sit on the beach - until I become inspired again.
