I go in and sing the song and arrange it and mix it and that's it. It's no different than playing in clubs.
I'd much rather be worrying about playing that note in tune, and picking out the best way to arrange the song, rather than thinking about pricing for the download. It's not art.
I think the Beatles is one band that, if I'm working on a song arrangement or if I have some idea for a song, and there's a little bit of a Beatles quality to it, I never avoid that. I always will steer into it.
There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.
When I was still in the Yardbirds, our producer, Mickie Most, would always try to get us to record all these horrible songs. During one session, we recorded 'Ten Little Indians,' an extremely silly song that featured a truly awful brass arrangement.
You listen to a Metallica song, and you listen to the drums, and they're not necessarily swinging, but the arrangements are different. Why is that? Because it's more in tune with jazz arrangements. It's very different. It's not a traditional rock and roll production, in terms of the drums.
I think Bridge Over Troubled Water was a very good song. Artie sang it beautifully. The Boxer was a really nice record. But I don't think I've written any great songs.
Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
I actually admire the Indian artiste 'Lost Stories.' He made a remix of my song 'Faded.' That is really good and cool because it actually represented Indian music. I just loved the song; it so unique.
I treat every song like a different character. It is good that people recognise my voice instantly, but as an artiste, I always try and bring some variety with each of them.
I don't feel like songs should be hoarded. I don't feel like one's tainted if somebody else does it. That's the mark of artistry - take a song that's maybe even a really popular song and do it your own way. I think that's cool.
What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don't really think that hard.
Being an artist doesn't just mean you have a song. That doesn't make you an artist. The word 'artist' means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists - Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, Kanye West - are doing the most.
If we found an ashtray in the studio, we'd try to play it and find a part for it in a song.
I wrote my first song at 12 and remember someone asking, 'What were you going through at 12 that you could write about?' I get what you're saying, but 11, 12, 13 were the hardest years of my life. You learn everything. You learn how horrible things feel.
The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds - how many human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives, and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!
The song 'Assassins Of Youth'... 'Assassins of youths' is what they used to call drugs in the old days when they first started the anti-drug campaign. And it's kind of an anti-drug record.
When I was 15 or 16 playing in groups, we used to sit in the car and try to write the lyrics down as a song was playing, and we'd assign each person a verse, you know: 'I'm going to do the first one. You go for the second one.' And then sometimes you'd wait an hour for it to come on again so you could finish it up.
I was a theater major, and I remember being in college, and whenever my professor would assign me songs that I hated, I really had a hard time singing them. One time, I even faked sick so I wouldn't have to sing a song.
There's all kinds of those moments in your life where either through a weird set of circumstances, or a song you hear, or a smell you smell, or one person says something totally out of the context without the meaning that you assigned to it, but you snap back to the way you were when you were 14 or 15. We all deal with that.
