I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That's what I do. That's my job. Simple.
There was a singer-songwriter who slept on our couch for a year when I was about 7 or 8. She used to sing these songs for us, and I loved it. It was magical to watch her.
In your heart, you have a song that will change the world, once you give yourself permission to sing.
You could make any song sound creepy if you wanted. It's all about the inflection.
What I say is from my heart. You must be sincere. So when I sing a song, people are supposed to feel it.
I'm scared of karaoke. I think if I did have a go to karaoke song, it would be 'Whatta Man' by Salt-n-Pepa.
The only reason I would write a break-up song is because my own problem of allowing myself to relate to people.
It's hard to say a favorite song of my father's. I listen to all his stuff - a lot of the old stuff before the '70s.
To have a song work for the movie, it can't just be written apart and shoved in. It's got to come out of the action. It's got to talk about the characters, not the story: it has to augment that action.
I don't think there is anything hard at all about having a lot of songs. It makes it easier to be less precious about them, and know that everybody's going to want to work on some of them.
While listening, to things like western swing, for instance, I'd work something out in my head, then play it on my National; not the same song, but one that captured the feeling of the original tune.
For a song cycle to work, you have to feel these things when you hear them and you either have an emotional reaction to it or you don't. The plotline is something that gets woven together in the back-story.
I'm never too ambitious when I go into the studio. I always know that I'm just going into the studio to work on or try to develop an idea that I have for a song.
I had no album title, and the album is like a journey in that it's a complete body of work. It's not just a couple of catchy songs and filler, so I felt that I needed to capture the essence of the album.
It's now taken for granted that women are in bands and you can say feminist things in your songs. But back in the early '90s, there was a lot of violence at Bikini Kill shows that people don't realize happened.
I've always had mostly women come out to see me perform. That's the reason the guys show up; they know R. Kelly is going to draw the women. Most of the songs I'm singing are catering to women anyway.
I continue to believe, contrary to the given wisdom, that it's more interesting to have an album - or, indeed, an individual song - which has variety rather than homogeneity.
We hurt one another. We go through life dressing up in new clothes and covering up our true motives. We meet up lightly, we drink rosé wine, and then we give each other pain. We don't want to! What we want to do, what one really wants to do is put o...
I am starting to accept that you never loved me. And it's sad because I don't think you see how beautiful you are to me. Your face was the light that chased away the shadows, every nightmare, every fear. But you burned out and now I'm learning to be ...
Can we account for instinct?' said Monte Cristo. 'Are there not some places where we seem to breathe sadness? — why, we cannot tell. It is a chain of recollections — an idea which carries you back to other times, to other places — which, very l...
About time, what I really learned from studying English is: time is different with timing. I understand the difference of these two words so well. I understand falling in love with the right person in the wrong timing could be the greatest sadness in...
