My songs are basically my diaries. Some of my best songwriting has come out of time when I've been going through a personal nightmare.
I intend to keep writing Christmas songs. There's still a lot more about Christmas that can be captured and feel like old-time Christmas. A lot of the traditions haven't been explained in song.
You know, all my songs are relatives, brothers, sisters, cousins.
I don't think writing or co-writing my songs makes me a better singer, but I haven't really got an excuse not to do it as I've got too many opinions!
I mostly play old period songs, as they suit a ukulele more. I bought it when I saw the tribute concert to George Harrison. Joe Brown came on and sang 'I'll See You In My Dreams,' and there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
My iPod that was programmed by Peter Buck. It has 7,000 songs hand-picked for me by him.
No, I got my web site going and said I have the record out. People were just falling on the floor - they couldn't believe it - after all that time. You know, it wasn't a compilation, it was new songs.
Oh my God, there are so many songs I wish I had written. 'Waters of March,' I wish I had written 'My Baby Just Cares for Me,' I wish I had written 'This Will Be Our Year,' I mean, there's millions of them. 'Wouldn't It Be Nice?'
There are seven songs finished and on par with any that are on Siren's.
I think that you get the mood of a song stronger if you get it right that way. On the other hand, you put some songs out live and they don't catch flight. They just flop. It is hard to tell until they are out there.
I love to sing old Motown songs to myself, or some Patti Smith Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday. That gets me in the mood for singing.
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
After a while, though, the group just wasn't a good vehicle for the songs I'd written.
I always imagine later on these songs I could've played with a band, but it never worked out that way.
We learned a verse of this and that and we were having fun with the songs. Tommy would make up stories to go along with them and I would yell at him, 'Hey, stupid, that's not right,' and he was like a silly kid trying to impress.
I still feel like that 17-year-old-kid that fell in love with country music, but I also am allowed to write songs about being a man, too, which I think is the coolest place I've ever been in my life.
A Minor is one of my all-time favorite keys to play in. It's a very moody key, and also 'A' is the first letter of my name. It just represents the songs through my eyes.
If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.
I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known.
When you're doing the traditional musicals, singing songs that are 40 and 50 years old, you realize there's a reason why those musicals are hits. These are amazing songs!
I like Sam Smith and Taylor Swift. I love pop music, but I also like Sam Smith's slow songs. That would be more to dance to. I think dancers like different genres of music, compared to just a regular person.
They gave me four weeks, and I asked if the first week could be just music with the two main conductors. So, the conductors came over to my home, and we worked in the music room, and I learned my two little songs.
I sometimes don't know what songs are about for several years after I've written them.
But when it came to jamming and writing songs like we used to, we realized Brandon was a huge spirit in the band. Who knew? It was just something we had to learn.
I have a natural instinct to feel guilty and that I've let people down. I've apologized in more songs than 'Back to the Shack.' Going back to our second record, the closing lines are 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' It's definitely part of my personality.
I was chubby in high school. I used to go to my information technology class, and I would type really fast to get the lesson done quick because the teacher had a little acoustic guitar, and there was a girl I had a crush on in the class. I would take the guitar and pretend to be some great singer-songwriter, serenade her with joke songs.
I tend to score with songs from Western pop music.
I'd want it to be really special to both of us, but I'm a huge fan of 'At Last' as a wedding song. But what's also really cool is songs that no one else would have at their wedding, like an obscure Radiohead song.
It is a process of discovery. It's being quiet enough and undisturbed enough for a period of time so that the songs can begin to sort of peek out, and you begin to have emotional experiences in a musical way.
It's not until I hear songs that I've done, that I realize how much of an inspiration music from the '60s and '70s has been.
I grew up the biggest fan of the Cure. Knew every lyric, had every album, B-side, single, poster, everything. Then cut to fifteen years later, and we're working on songs together. Ridiculous.
Our perception of songs that we've written... the meaning changes from day to day... to whatever stage we're at in our life and careers.
You obviously don't really forget how to play the old songs; you just don't have to spend so much time convincing yourself that you remember them. Way less mental energy is spent swimming around in lyrics you've already written and chords you've already played.
Forever Young, by Dylan, is one of my favorite songs.
Music is fun, but I'm an ice skater. I may sing songs and do shows, make movies and other things... that's all well and good and I enjoy it, and I would never trade any of those for anything. But figure skating is who I am.
We don't mind being ripped apart, but don't rip the songs apart. They're like our kids.
