Singing songs that make you slit your wrists
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.
There are very few songs about just liking someone as a friend.
I love story songs. It's just, for me, they're harder to write, and sometimes they sound too intended or something.
I suspect many readers might associate [Bob Dylan] with one of the shortest phases of his career, the time from 1963 to '65 when he wrote his most famous "protest songs," like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin. '"
This is what I wanted to do from the very beginning: write songs and make records and tour them with a good live band.
I start with a comprehensive list of all the recent songs that have been big hits - and then I go down that list and see if I can come up with funny ideas for them. I can always come up with ideas, but not necessarily good ones!
There is a real hunger for spiritual things in today's culture; people are seeking something spiritual, something beyond themselves. That's the good news. The bad news is people are not getting it at church because the church is singing songs, preaching messages, doing programs, and taking offerings for itself.
I feel like writing songs is cheating on acting. It's weird.
In my culture we had songs for everything, and that's lost now. There were songs for when people were born, when they died, when they sowed the field, baked bread and they're gone now mostly. I think we need these songs today. One of the reasons people connect to Wardruna in such a personal way is because there is a need for these songs and for that kind of connection to the nameless. Call it nature, god whatever.
I don't have any favourite lyrics. Honestly, all of them I love 'em to death - it's the same with songs. I don't have just one favourite lyric, I love them all.
By the time I was ten or eleven, I had a song-book and I was writing everything down. It used to just be my hobby but now it's like my diary, it's where I can go in my own little bubble.
Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing. ' It really made me think about the importance of happy music.
I write a little something every day, even though I don't write a song [every day]. Everything inspires me. I'll come up with a line, or somebody will say something that will trigger something.
Writing songs out of my faith was a real natural progression. I grew up singing in my dad's choir and singing with my family. Christian music became the music that I identified myself with and was a way that I expressed my faith. Even at a public school I would take my Christian music in and play it for my friends.
Gospel songs are the songs of hope. When you sing gospel you have the feeling there is a cure for what's wrong, but when you are through with the blues, you've got nothing to rest on.
I've been writing joke songs since I was a kid and it served me well at S. N. L. I can write those in my sleep. In fact, I have.
Almost all the producers I know and dig, like Quincy Jones or Brian Eno, are really musicians first. I'm a composer, an orchestrator, an arranger and a musician first. I know how to write and rewrite songs, and the genius is really in the rewriting.
And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to guide them along So maybe I'll see you there We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares, and go Downtown, things'll be great when you're Downtown, don't wait a minute more Downtown, everything's waiting for you
I write songs because I have to write them, and if I didn't I'd be doing some other kind of music that didn't require a song.