The thing that bothers me is that it seems like all the sensitive stuff I write just goes unnoticed. . . the media doesn't get who I am at all. Or maybe they just can't accept it. It doesn't fit into those negative stories they like to write. I'm the kind of guy who is moved by a song like Don McLean's "Vincent," that one about Van Gogh. The lyric on that song is so touching. That's how I want to make my songs feel. Take "Dear Mama" - I aimed that one straight for my homies' heartstrings.
I really just tried to make a record full of great songs, which is the goal I always have.
I don't have a nice singing voice! Particularly if I've had a few beers, that's when I'll get up and go on the karaoke. I'll usually try to murder a Frank Sinatra song like 'My Way'. In my head I sound exactly like him, but when you watch the footage back, evidently not!
I will bring more Korean dance moves and Korean songs overseas.
Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a hopeless romantic who listens to love ballads and doo-wop songs all the time.
I only record songs that touch me in some way, ones that I can relate to.
We actually have some gay people that work with us, and we have a lot of friends that are gay, too, and I know that this song has inspired them. . . I know that coming out was tough on their parents and on them and the whole entire family. For a long time, some of them didn't get to hear 'I love you' from their dads or be accepted in that way. . . . It's helped a lot of our friends. . . We don't judge anybody's lives.
A guy said to me, 'You're so lucky. You have people like Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand and The Beatles doing your songs. ' I figured out, though, the harder I work the luckier I get. The secret of anything is to surround yourself with good people if you want a good product.
The Treorchy Male Choir - the very name is a song! May I thank the Choir, past and present, for all the glorious music-making they have shared with us.
I wrote these two songs ["Coming Out of the Dark" and "Always Tomorrow"] as a celebration of hope. And, I want to send it out to all of those people who are suffering through this terrible disaster [Hurricane Katrina], and please know that you are not alone -- and you will not be.
Since I write the lyrics, I don't want to be pigeonholed into a person who's out there preaching these songs. If you read the lyrics, there isn't a story being set up for you. You have to use your imagination to get the best out of the songs - if you choose to do that.
You know how it is - you make songs, and as you make the new ones, the old ones get old and you throw them out.
I find it extremely difficult talking about my songs because there's so many different things that can make a song come together.
No one knew what Rococode was "supposed" to sound like. Now we have a sound and we have a good idea of what we want to create and the type of songs we want to present to people. I think it's really exciting, actually.
I'm not claiming divinity. I've never claimed purity of soul. I've never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can. . . But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.
I want to say at once that I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived. . . . His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert.
It's always a blast playing the new stuff. But I feel like songs, in a way, are never finished. You get to a point where you're comfortable enough to put a stamp on it and send it out there, but even after recording it, when you're playing it live, you hear different harmonies, you hear different notes, you hear different tempos or peaks and valleys in the song.
It used to be the case that for an Irishman to come to the U. S. involved a perilous journey on a ship. It involved singing lots of songs before you left saying goodbye, and once you were in the U. S. , it involved singing lots of songs about how you were never going to set foot in Ireland again.
Once they're on paper, they're gone. I like to do as much with the words, as far as image goes, so that it's really left open for a lot of things, even though I remember a specific impression of something I had at the time. I can't say a song is about this or that; in fact, I wouldn't even want to. I just prefer to have people live it anyway they want. Because it's theirs after that. There's nothing I can do about it anymore
I'm friends with [exes] and they hear the songs. I can honestly say I don't have any exes I hate. They're artists in some fashion so they understand.
