There's two things that are tough when you're trying to be a songwriter: Number one is, how do I write a great song? The second thing is, how do I write a great song that's right for me?
There's just a natural human element to a great song that feels immediately satisfying. I like the song to create a mood.
We travel so much as touring musicians and artists that sometimes, when you hear a great song that you really think could be on your project, you go ahead and record it instead of try to write it.
I guess I've never been introduced properly to Pink Floyd. I know they're great, don't get me wrong. Excellent, excellent musicians; great band; awesome harmony; great song writers; I just don't know anything besides, I guess, the popular songs on the radio.
He's written some great songs. I thought that 'Blues Man' was a perfect song for me to do as a tribute.
Great stories start with great opening lines. 'I'm a lineman for the county' - what a great way to start a song.
'Jesus of Suburbia' is such a dynamic song from start to finish; it's nine minutes of craziness and hectic-ness and emotion... It's one of those songs where I know that for the next couple of days, I don't have to go to the gym, because I got my workout running around the stage and thrashing to Green Day.
Sending greeting cards to aliens is hardly a new idea. In 2005, Craigslist solicited messages for broadcast to space by a transmitter in Florida, and in 2008, NASA beamed a Beatles song to the North Star (Polaris), on the assumption that any putative Polarians would appreciate the Fab Four's 1960s-genre compositions.
I had been wanting to give guitar lessons to girls because I feel like women tend to use their voice as the starting point for a song and learn a few chords, and then it ends there because then they just use their voice to flesh out a song.
As a guitar player, it's harder for me to impress somebody than it is to write a song that they like.
My songs aren't bubble gum pop dance songs and I don't have background dancers on every single song.
You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.
A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.
I can remember back as far as age 8, performing with the Boston Folk Song Society. It was a Woody Guthrie song.
Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus.'
My own personal favorite Cher song is the unforgettable Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.
It's cool when your husband starts to sing some old Merle Haggard song and I can pop in with a harmony and it doesn't sound too bad.
I'm reading 'Ten Storey Love Song' by Richard Milward. I read his first novel, 'Apples,' after hearing a reading of his in the Hague. I really enjoyed it, so I've started this one.
You have an hour and a half or two hours - maybe two and a half hours - in a movie, and it has to be a self-contained three-act structure. It's like a rock and roll song. Certain things have to happen for it to be a toe-tapper and get people excited, leaving the theater.
I know 'Hallelujah' isn't actually a Christmas song, but it has that cozy, haunting vibe that sounds like a winter's night and belongs by a fire.
