Once we start hitting lyrical themes that can whack you from all these different perspectives, we know we're onto something special.
I think I'm better than I was in my younger days, because I'm exploring deep lyrical material, and I've been sober for a while now.
I don't see myself as the boss. I sing and write the songs, and it would feel strange if somebody else wrote the lyrics I sang.
Singing for me has always been a joyous but private pleasure that connects me in a lyric thread to my beloved grandmother Alice.
I need some kind of emotional stake in it to write my lyrics, assuming that place. It might just be an emotion I understand but am not currently experiencing necessarily.
A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.
I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.
For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.
I can be stupid in my lyrics or say whatever I want without having to worry about anybody else's feeling or anybody being embarrassed by it or anything like that.
Anyone who wants to know who I am can just read my lyrics - I've always written about who I am.
How can you consider flower power outdated? The essence of my lyrics is the desire for peace and harmony. That's all anyone has ever wanted. How could it become outdated?
I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets.
A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly artificial divisions which have no real be...
There's this one song called 'Final Warning' that I'm really excited about because I love the contrast of my vocal sounding very soothing and my harsh lyrics.
Sondheim writes the music and lyrics, and because he's so smart and goes so deep with his feelings, there's a lot to explore, get involved with and learn about.
I grew up with all kinds ofmusic, but my heart was particularly drawn to Country Music because of the guitar playing, the lyrics and of artists like Steve Warner and Vince Gill.
Sometimes my boyfriend would write the lyrics and I would write the melody, and other times I would start from scratch. Or sometimes I would take a local poem and put that to music.
I was a kid who got picked on in school, and now the guys beating up those kids were wearing red caps and using my music to fuel that aggression. But if they listen to the lyrics, the aggression is targeted at them.
No matter what I do, my songs come out in a certain style, and if that sounds like Dead Kennedys, then there's probably a reason for it. Don't forget, I wrote most of those songs, music and lyrics.
My second record I used a producer, which was frustrating in a way, because I think a lot of the punky spirit and provocative nature of the lyrics didn't come across - the music was pretty.
I'm very honest in my music and I'm often asked to explain the lyrics; as an introvert, I find that quite hard. And I always wear high heels on stage, which can be painful.
