Quotes About Lyrics

I don't like most world music because you need to know what the words are to really understand it.

Hip hop was definitely, far and away, the primary influence for at least 10 years of my life. From about 7 or 8 on till about 15 or 16, that's all I listened to.

When you go back and really listen to the legendary rappers, this is timeless music. Guys like Biggie, guys like Pac, timeless music.

'Free Bird' is timeless, 'Sweet Home' is timeless. They're just timeless songs.

I think it's just that Skynyrd songs are timeless.

There is some Eighties music that is just timeless. The melodies, the lyrics... I called it church. Church in club. You can shout and dance. The best of the Eighties was club church.

I'm no stranger to making timeless music.

I get tips from Bob Gaudio. And one of my songs somehow caught the attention of one of my idols, Marty Panzer, who wrote big hits for Barry Manilow. So two guys who inspired me to write lyrics are now teaching me to write.

There was a film called 'FM,' and we were asked to do the title song. And I said, 'Does it have to have any specific words?' And they said, 'No, it just has to be about FM radio.' It took a day or two to write.

I used to listen to a lot of music in my studio - all the time. But as far as the music that interplays with my work, what I've done and still do is keep a lyric book and song title. The material typically comes from Eartha Kitt, Betty Davis, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston.

I'm a hip-hop kind of guy, but to be honest with you, I could listen to R&B all day. Give me some slow jams, and I'm a happy person.

For me, I like old-school rap music. There was a time when music was so, so rich overall, and the content of what people talked about was so deep on every level, song-for-song, pound-for-pound, and on radio, there was so much content. I gravitate more towards that type of music, to be honest.

People used to talk about my lyrical content and not about my music, and to be honest, I think I have got lazy with my lyrics over the years.

Favorite cereal is Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

The standard of music has come down. There is only screaming and shouting in songs today and I don't want to sing such songs.

I always like story songs, Dolly Parton, Tom T. Hall, Mel Tillis, Red Stegall, when they'd do their story songs. I was totally enthralled.

I think often sadness is a great place to get songs from.

Hip-hop is still cool at a party. But to me, hip-hop has never been strictly a party it is also there to elevate consciousness.

Q: What's the square root of 69? A: Ate something.

Shay sometimes talked in a mysterious way, like she was quoting the lyrics of some band no one else listened to.

I think the melody is the first time I hear in a song and if I like the melody, then I'll pay closer attention to the lyrics.

I came up during that time when music, to me, was really music. It wasn't about talking about a woman and calling them a derogatory name or something like that. It was real music.

It's so funny because I listen to songs that I recorded that I didn't really know anything about at the time. Later on I'm starting to feel the songs. Sing them first, feel them later.

The songs themselves do broaden out as time passes and take on subtly different meanings, take on more meaning, I find.