Quotes About Song

I'm no longer beholden to the sacredness of the recorded song as some kind of ultimate standard by which every performance of the song is measured. I like to diversify, that there are multiple versions of every song. And the songs incorporate a lot of improvisation, and an element of chance, and I think that's exciting. There's no one true formulation of a song, they have various manifestations depending on the space we're in. I like that.

The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn't really over, so you're relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.

A song like "Walkabout", it's totally imitative. The goal of that song was to make people happy, and I've never really made a song to make people happy before. I really genuinely wanted people to listen to that song and have their spirits lifted.

I learned very early in life that: 'Without a song, the day would never end; without a friend, a man ain't got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend-without a song.' So I keep singing a song.

"Straight Edge" was a song about my life. There was no structure, no premise as if I was forming a club. There were no tenets. I mean I wrote a song called "Straight Edge," I'll take that, but the song was about my life the way I wanted to live it.

We learn a language through its song, and even if you don't have music you have the song of people you love's voice, and you'll notice that song in their voice.

Right away, I knew I didn't want to have that look of other guys with long hair and bell-bottom pants, because everybody else had that look. I kind of adopted my boarding-school look, which made me stand out. Then the next thing you know, the first song on my first record is a song called "School Days." It's about going to the boarding school I went to. So then I just started to write about myself. The very first song I ever wrote was about a guy I met in a boatyard that we were working in. So I've always had this thing about sticking to more or less what I knew.

All you gotta do is think of the song in your head. And it doesn't matter whether you can play it or not, you can get somebody to play it. With songs I've written, there's a song called "The Statue", which I can't play. There are songs that I've written that I've actually just hummed on - there's a song on one of the albums they have there on the Internet called "My Love Was True" and it's almost operatic. I can't play it. But I can sing it.

When you get to say something in a song you're not directing it necessarily at one person. When it's in a song it's easier to get it out. I don't really worry so much about it when I'm writing a song.

When "Here Comes the Sun" started, what happened? No, the sun didn't come out, but Mom opened up like the sun breaking through the clouds. You know how in the first few notes of that song, there's something about George's guitar that's just so hopeful? It was like when Mom sang, she was full of hope, too. She even got the irregular clapping right during the guitar solo. When the song was over, she paused. "Oh Bee," she said. "This song reminds me of you." She had tears in her eyes.

It's fun to be able to revisit a song and do something that doesn't really illustrate the song but works tangentially or runs parallel to the song in some way.

But the reality is when you write a song, you should be able to strip away all the instruments and just have a song right there with an acoustic guitar and a voice, and the song should be good.

I want my careless song to strike no minor key; no fiend to stand between my body's Southern song - the fusion of the South, my body's song and me.

When I originally wrote "Jealousy," it was more like an exercise to try to write a girl-group kind of pop song. It was really contrary to most of the material I'd ever written. I didn't pay much attention to the song after I'd recorded it. I didn't really perform it at all the last 20 years. When it came time to make the new record, I decided to make peace with the song and have fun with it.

I think, sometimes, artists release music too fast. If you just sit back and listen to the track for a little bit you could pick and choose how you want to do it and see if you really feel the song, because sometimes you might not even like the song after a few listens.

I don't sing a song unless I feel it. The song don't tug at my heart, I pass on it. I have to believe in what I'm doing.

So I'll set a cycle in motion and pop it into record and I'll lay down a drum pattern, a bass line, a keyboard and guitar part, and once the groove is going I launch into the song and sing my song over the top.

I try to find little things that you can do to move the song along and things that serve the song.

Say an A&R person wants me to do this type of song because they feel it is going to work on the radio, I guarantee you that unless the song is real, there is nothing wrong with having success and I want to be successful. That is why I am, but I do it my own way.

I've got a song on One Direction's album called 'Tell Me A Lie'. It's a really cute song - I love it. I loved that they liked it. They sound really great on it. I already have it - I'm so VIP with my copy on my computer! It does sound really good.

I always loved that old song Banks of the Ohio - it was always such a man's song, so I've always wanted to record it.

We wanted to write a whole song about partying and then taking Yellow Cabs home. That's the weirdest topic we've ever thought of centering a song around.

Nobody's favorite movie is some dark, dysfunctional slasher story. Everybody's favorite song is a sentimental song. So why all of a sudden is it bad to be sentimental in books?

The tweets are getting shorter, but the songs are still 4 minutes long. You're coming up with 140-character zingers, and the song is still 4 minutes long…I realized about a year ago that I couldn't have a complete thought anymore. And I was a tweetaholic. I had four million twitter followers, and I was always writing on it. And I stopped using twitter as an outlet and I started using twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn't write a song.

Generally, if you could picture a bunch of rock and roll momentum behind a song and it was particularly melodious, maybe the Pornographers would do it. If it was kind of moody and more lyrical, then maybe it would be a Destroyer song. Anything that's really lyrically driven I would keep for Destroyer.

I take things a little bit more critically now, like, "What did I think I was saying in that song? What is this song about?" I thought the lyrics were incredibly descriptive, and now they sound really cryptic and weird. I'd like to also think that when I listen to songs from Something About Airplanes that I'm proud of my development as a writer. I don't think I was doing anything poorly at that time, but I can certainly see how my writing has changed.

I think that a good song is catchy, and a great song is not catchy - but it has a deeper meaning.

I've always been drawn to all kinds of music - to me, it's all the same. There's different arrangements and slightly different ways of writing, but if it's a good song, it's a good song - you can dress it up any way you like.

Meditation is listening the inner song. The song of Love, Peace and Light

Sometimes I'll write a song first and then I'm like, "Oh this person will be great on this song." But there are some artists I know what want, like off the top I knew I wanted Brandy and Faith Evans. Their music is like the soundtrack to my life, so it was a personal thing for me. So once they said yes, I wrote songs specifically for them.

The reading of the song is vital. The written word is first always . . . first. Not belittling the music, but it really is a backdrop. To convey the meaning of a song you need to look at the lyric and understand it.

It was always meant to ease out of a big radio song and flow into the next one. Don't is the bridge song in between Sing and Thinking Out Loud.

I'm sure there's going to be some material from This Is Not Going To Be Pretty. I usually use that song to just introduce myself to the audience, although the patter in between the song is always different.

Someone like John Prine can write a song that tears into your soul, turn it over, and write a song that makes you laugh and feel light as a feather. With someone like him, you're getting a real picture of a person, a real expression.

A lot of time when I'm creating songs, they're in real time. When I'm writing the song, I feel what I'm feeling for its full potential. As soon as the song is over, I'm like, I created art.

I love Thelonious Monk's song "Just a Gigolo." It's probably a minor song for him, but whenever I hear a recording of him playing it, I'm mesmerized, because Monk clearly loved pop music. He took it very seriously and made an amazing thing out of it.

Forgetfulness heals everything and song is the most beautiful manner of forgetting, for in song man feels only what he loves.

What we do every St. Patty's day, which is wear green and drink a lot of Guinness. And maybe cry a little bit and laugh, and everyone will have to sing a song. That's how every funeral, christening, and wedding ends up in Ireland. Everyone ends up having to sing a song by the end of it.

I'd hear a tune in my head and the words would come. And then, very suddenly it just stopped. It seemed too stilted to try and learn how to write a song, to go to round robins and to learn things from other people on how to write a song. So I just stopped and did other things.

One of my favorite things as an engineer is watching a band get comfortable in the studio and getting a great take. Like, they're playing the song, warming up, and then suddenly, the communication really happens and everybody's really in the song, and they nail it, and then that's the take.

One of the nice things about a favorite pop song is that it's an unconditional truce on judgment and musical snobbery. You like the song because you just do, and there need not be any further criticism.

If there is a blues song, it just goes in one ear and out the other. But other than that, if it stays with you and when we are all 90, we're going to look back at those songs, and it's going to be emotional. And when someone plays it, and you know it, and you're going to go, "I know that song and I love it."

It was a slow process. You gotta remember I hadn't recorded a song sober in seven years. So it took me awhile to even feel like I could record a song sober.

A great song is a great song, whether it's on vinyl or CD or cassette or reel to reel or mp3. Then again, that might be an overly optimistic view, but I do think that great music will transcend the medium in which it is delivered.

Everyone was saved once by music. So I decided to REALLY work on my songs and not just "play" - to make something really good, more "professional." Something which makes you feel better; a song who says: "I know how much you're sad, and you're not alone, this is a song made for you." I really wanted to help with my music.

The reality is not exactly what the song started out to be, but it's not a bad song.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle. The rock stars have assimilated all kinds of philosophies, styles, histories, writings, and they throw out what they have gleaned from that.

Walt Disney was a great believer in the use of song to convey story. He was primarily a storyman & story-driven songs were his 'pets.' He always asked what was going on with the song - he hated 'singing heads.' He loved learning about character & motivation thru music & lyrics.