We went through this business of me writing out all the parts for these old songs from Gravity and Speechless and we'd been performing that, but we don't do that any more.
Songs are really interesting in that way. Sometimes, they grow with you. Sometimes, you outgrow them.
I enjoy being in New York. I have so many fans here that sing all my songs from start to finish.
My mom used to ask me when I was gonna write a happy song. I still tell her that it's when I start to write really happy-sounding songs that everyone needs to start worrying.
When I started writing songs, I was doing it for myself and a small circle of friends. And gradually, over the years, an audience became involved.
Before, I was terrified on stage. I only play guitar during the acoustic songs. After a while, you can elicit certain responses from the crowd, like Elvis.
I've really been writing a lot of country songs. I used to get criticized for doing a 'Bump & Grind,' then turning around and doing a gospel song. But the truth is I'm glad I have a gift that allows me to switch lanes.
I look for songs that the listener, when they hear it, they believe what I'm singing about, that I know what I'm singing about. That's my whole deal. I try to choose songs that a male or a female can perform and relate to.
I was raised on songs of poetry like Simon and Garfunkel and Cat Stevens and Neil Young, etc. I love those old songs probably the most because they hit me so deep down in my core.
My songs are really never titled. Sometimes I call it one thing. then I change it.
I like to think that if it hadn't gone as well as it has, if I wasn't able to make a living off of playing music, I would still be playing the music. But, of course, I wouldn't likely have had the opportunity to travel, and a lot of the places have inspired songs.
I don't avoid anything. In my songs I just choose to talk about certain things, and so yeah, there are some aspects of my character and personality that don't come out.
The reaction that I got from 'Diamonds' I would have expected to get from 'House of the Rising Sun' or one of the other songs.
Young people don't want to be second to anyone. Everyone wants to be an overnight star. Look how many years I had to wait, how many roads I had to travel, how many songs I had to sing. And now I'm just beginning, never ending.
David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C'mon - Van Halen doing 'Dancing in the Streets'? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing someone else's music.
When I started out playing small clubs, you could feel the room recoil from certain kinds of songs. Anything that was too personal, that had a sentiment to it, or was laying out your feelings, was immediately booed. People would start throwing things. And anything that was really provocative or humorous or radical was embraced or cheered.
I was the boy who liked to sing his own songs at talent shows, and I was suddenly officially uncool.
I have a knack for writing tribute songs for people who will never know about them.
I love country songs. I love Broadway.
What's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they're being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the blues.
I'm not like a professional writer with professional skills. Songs kind of come into my head the same way they did when I was a kid. I say I'm an overgrown kindergarten kid. I work on songs.
I only know the lyrics to songs that I listened to between the ages of 11 and 15.
It's funny because if you ever ask anyone in England to try and do a Beatles accent, no one knows what they really sound like. If you ask anyone in America, they would try and give it a go. English people just know their songs.
I think the world is ready for some rock 'n' roll. Some real time guys that play their own instruments, write their own songs, and sing the music and have a good time doing it.
I write songs as honestly as I can without worrying about genres or labels. Sometimes I sing, and sometimes I rap, and sometimes I do something in between. I jump around on stage and don't care too much about how I look. I try to be myself even though I'm still figuring myself out.
Many of my songs were dance orientated from way back. That's because I love dance! When I hear a dance number, just hearing the first eight bars, it immediately makes my bod start moving and dancing.
I have learned that music helps a lot of people survive, and they want songs that can give them something - I guess you could call it hope.
The 'Hey Monday' songs were always glammed up to be this big production, and I definitely want there to be some bells and whistles like synth or drum loops, but for the most part, I want a simple yet powerful production.
Part of doing mash-ups is getting the legal rights to use the songs. If you're going to do a mash-up with five songs, you should probably find 10 songs, because you're only going to get half of them cleared. It's a real collaborative effort.
My mom actually had a band called Six Pack - even though there were seven of them - who went around Chicago performing popular songs. Her voice was like Gladys Knight mixed with Aretha Franklin.
Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.
My songs are the door to every dream I've ever had and every success I've ever achieved.
I've always tended to write songs prolifically.
I'm coming from a Ginuwine and Usher background: slow and smooth songs. And that's why I really connected to Sam Cooke, because he was just very smooth. It's not like the James Brown types, which is all great stuff, but he was totally set apart from those guys.
As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third-world people all over the world, to defend them with protest songs. To move the audience to make them conscious of what has been done to my people around the world.
I never edit the songs that come out. And they tend to come out as a whole. The closest thing I have ever done to editing them is just cutting out a verse, but never rewriting lyrics.
