The guys that do have the confidence to hit on me are not necessarily my type, but they think they are because I'm a pop star; I sing songs, do movies. I like to feel sexy and confident on stage.
I'm not going to be singing songs that I made in the past. I closed the door on that incarnation of Sinead O'Connor.
I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.
Way back in my mid-20s, I started making notes. I would just jot things down: lists of street names, songs, peculiar turns of speech, jokes, whatever.
I'm always asked if the songs that I write are therapeutic, and my answer is a quick no. In fact, it could be argued that they exacerbate my neurosis.
Some of the best songs that artists perform year after year are ones they hated.
There are some songs where I'll have had the music for 20 years and then finally the lyric will come through. That's not common but it does happen. Then there are other songs that come really quickly.
Most of the time, particularly with this record, 'The Light of the Sun,' I really just been standing in front of a microphone and blacking out musically, you know. I'd come back a couple hours later and there's six songs from beginning to end, you know? I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know how I'm going to say it.
I don't like guitar solos that are like, 'Look at me, look at me!' I like guitar solos that are little songs within the songs.
For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about.
Some of my songs are about the feeling you belong somewhere else. But there's also something grounding about coming from a small town.
Frosh-week songs are meant to be offensive because offensive is rebellious.
For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.
I tend to feel really protective of songs, and if they aren't sitting well in a record, I'll pull them tight to my chest until I feel it's a better time.
Ever since I was younger I wanted to be on stage, singing my songs in a glittering costume. And that happened and is still happening. I have to remember that this is what I wished for and be grateful because there are 500 other girls right behind me that are ready to snatch it up.
But I love to write music. What I would love to do is give some of the songs I write to someone like Taylor Swift because I feel like she could sing them.
I've been singing and writing songs only a little longer than acting. I really enjoy both.
As artists, we're always going to like the songs we just now made over the songs we made a year ago.
I'm definitely trying to make songs that people can sing along to and remember. If you can recognize a chorus and leave with it in your head, it's usually a good sign. But then with the verses, I can get a little more free form. I don't really like to copy and paste things.
To me, country music's about life. It's about Monday through Friday. It's the blue-collar, 40-hour week, songs about life. It used to have more of a sound, but I think the heart of that's still the same. It's still American music.
I decided one day to put on my tutu and jump on the coffee table and sing Aretha Franklin songs for the painters that were painting the house.
If you can't get your songs to people one way, you have to find another.
I do feel most at home playing live, but the feeling of getting into the studio to see the new songs take shape was really incredible.
I think there are some songs that stand the test of time better than others for sure. I think some songs go out of favour; I'll get sick of a song for a while, and I won't play it; then it'll make a comeback.
The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.
Records are one thing, and obviously, without hit songs, you don't have the opportunity to do your shows. But my live show has always been my selling tool.
Sometimes, writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you're thinking, like, 'This thing is going to come to me.'
There was a singer-songwriter who slept on our couch for a year when I was about 7 or 8. She used to sing these songs for us, and I loved it. It was magical to watch her.
I will always, forever, write songs, and wherever they're meant to be is where they'll be.
I've written a lot about southern California, but I don't use the same characters. Leave the people in the songs in the songs, is my philosophy.
You don't want to start writing songs about how your Twitter followers are going up, because one day Twitter won't exist, and you'll feel like an idiot.
All I ever wanted to do was write songs, and I just dreamed of putting out an album and having a single that maybe did alright.
I listened to it last night for the first time since we started this project. I went out to my car and put it in and went to an empty parking lot and just listened and read the little pamphlet that came with it. After two or three songs I burst into tears.
My motivations are thinking I can write better songs, that the concerts can be better.
I'm not one of those artists who doesn't want to play their most popular songs.
When you're all singing together, it brings things together. I know the songs that my grandfather and my father sang.
