Every time I turn on the radio, I must be on the wrong song or something. But, to be honest, since I went on the road back in 1970, I didn't listen to radio music because I didn't want to subconsciously steal somebody's stuff.
When you listen deeply to a song, you find all the little sounds they use and subconsciously learn how to produce and mix.
I write a lot of my music, but not all of it. I have always subscribed to the 'best song wins' theory when making an album.
I try to make myself, and subsequently the audience, as uncomfortable as possible, whether it's completely desecrating a song they thought was one thing, or getting too drunk to really do a very good job.
Music became less understandable in the wake of the new MTV era. You weren't supposed to be anything other than a pop star, to not go deeper than that. It was really strange. It was suffocating, image-wise. What you could talk about in a song changed; if you were misunderstood, you were really misunderstood - taken literally.
To summarize, the particular song a male sings, and the behavioral responses of females to song and morphological signals, are not genetically inherited in a fixed manner but are determined by learning early in life.
I tried writing a song and it wasn't very good. I sung it to my mom and she told me it was bad - but I was eight, so it's okay.
People don't realize the limitations of 200 words, and the way they get chiselled down into a song that has to be sung.
'Dirt on My Boots' was pegged as the second single from 'California Sunrise' from the get-go, and we felt like it was just a fun song to go with.
I'm not a drama person, but when you can make a movie in song form in three-and-a-half minutes, it's surreal.
Most of the songs I write are full of power, and I'm suspecting it may come from my love for grotesque Renaissance art and the Eurovision Song Contest.
It is important that the audience should understand every syllable of every word, for only then can they grasp the meaning of the song.
In a certain way, it's the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.
To me, a song is not finished. To me, there's no such thing as a finished anything. All of Beethoven's nine symphonies, to me, are one. I think of it as having no beginning and no end.
Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.
A song has to become as much a part of you as a tailored suit.
I was very small when I started making music. I think the first song might have been when I was, like, in grade one, maybe? It was really ironic, cause it was a kid talking about taking time with growing up.
I make up cassettes all the time - to take on the road with me - a song from this album, a song from that album. That's the way I listen to music; it's like one of those K Tel things: it's from all over. I listen to Fred Astaire, I listen to African folk music, I listen to Talking Heads.
Everyone talks about how much data's in the world. Except, actually, 80% of it is pretty blind to computers. I mean, it can store it. But if it's a movie, a poem, a song, it doesn't know what it's actually saying or doing.
I wouldn't go so far as to make 'You Don't Own Me' a tango or 'It's My Party' a hip-hop thing. Believe me, those things have been suggested to me. But I thought if I could stay true to the song, the arrangements would work. I'm really enjoying singing them.
