The reason I do interviews is because I'm protecting my songs.
'I'm Sorry' was one of the first songs to come out of Nashville using strings.
I mean, Beatles songs were two and a half minutes long, and they're fantastic.
I don't write demographically. I don't write a song to reach these people or those people.
If you call attention to yourself at the expense of the song, that's the cardinal sin.
People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them.
I was in 'Martha Marcy May Marlene,' and I got to do a song for the soundtrack.
A lot of songs you write are just for exercise - just pencil sharpeners.
Songs always get better after you start playing them live.
So I wanna see all of you making out during this song.
All I want a song to do is just to kind of present an idea.
We're playing the same songs, the same way, that we have for years.
Most of my songs aren't about me. They're about stuff I've seen.
I've written songs about things that nobody else has ever written about.
I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.
Some of those early Kinks songs, we were barely in tune.
Listen to the song of your heart, now follow the melody.
This is my story, this is my song, praising my Saviour all the day long.
I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.
I don't believe songs that try to say everything in a simple slogan.
My songs are about not knowing who to be and not knowing how to act.
