Quotes About Songs

I recorded songs with a great deal of meaning, songs of lasting material. That's the legacy I want to leave behind - a legacy of love.

We are just a rock and pop band, that's what we are. And I believe we recorded the records to feature the songs rather than it being a giant production.

I do pay performance royalties on others' songs I perform live, but I'm not recording these songs and putting them up for sale.

I've just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I'm just still writing songs and what not.

I have done a bit of recording and the songs are available on iTunes, and I've got some nice comments. It's something I enjoy doing, but I'm not looking for a singing career any time soon. As long as one person gets enjoyment out of it, I'm happy to make it available.

You have to focus hard on recording songs that you believe in.

A short story collection can be as exciting as a novel. It is a real complete experience, like when you listen to a real good recording, a Beatles record, and there are so many good songs.

I met Icona Pop by chance because we were both recording at the same studio. I was a fan so when I heard they were in the next room, I went to say hi. Next thing I knew, they were on two songs.

We were playing shows still when we wrote 'Phoebe' and 'Rock All Night.' We got to test those songs in a live setting, so it was nice recording them and knowing which ones really resonated with the crowd.

Since I'm known for recording other artists' material, I'm absolutely deluged with mail from all the publishing companies. They take all the songs that've been lying around the office for months and throw them at me. Most of them are terrible, but you have to listen... just in case.

Throughout college I was getting better and better at making recordings, producing songs, making different kinds of beats.

I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect.

I don't know if there are artists out there who love their own records. I haven't met any, and I'm kind of extreme in the other direction, but therein lies the impetus to keep working and keep making new songs and new records.

My earliest memories as a child are listening to Beatles records, and they are a big part of how I've learned to write pop songs.

That's why I don't necessarily enjoy it when bands cover other songs. You'll never recreate what has been done, especially if it's something that's legendary and classic.

It's always a mixture of fiction and your own story. It's more I recreate atmospheres and moods through songs.

I've established this kind of wild persona and these redneck party songs and a live show that's kind of rowdy, but I don't want people to think that's what I'm all about.

I do all the classics, like Dylan, Kristofferson, Jimmy Reed, Mexican mariachi songs, some jazz songs from the '30s. Cole Porter's 'Begin the Beguine,' that's one of my favorites.

I guess the way to keep a grip on reality is just to take breaks in between albums like most normal bands do. Go home and be a person and hang out with your friends. Do separate things and get back to earth and write songs and go out there again.

I was obsessed with harmonies and how to put songs together in lush soundscapes. But I don't know what it was all about, really.

But my point is these Civil War songs were gruesome. The hatred that's so bad in this country today, and for the past 10 or 15 years, bad as it is, is nothing compared to the kind of things people would write down and sing back in the Civil War.

When I was a kid and writing more acoustic songs, I was doing it more for the attention than for the love of the music. I knew I needed to change something because I wasn't having fun and wasn't liking the songs I was writing.

I'm a fan of all music, and probably my first - well, not the very first music I listened to, but back in the late fifties, when I first started hearing rock & roll, it was definitely tinged with doo wop and also Elvis and all those great songs.