Somebody described it to me the best as when you go in to write a song with two people that you've never met, you're pretty much going in and taking off your pants in front of strangers, so it's a really weird feeling.
So writing a song is much harder than doing a classical piece for me, because in a classical piece, I can just let the mood dictate what's going to happen.
When I was young, I just sat down and started playing Chopsticks at the piano. I got so far and then lost interest. Eventually, I regained it and started writing songs.
Idol has pretty much taken me out of my recording and out of my choreography. I have managed to slip in some choreography jobs. And I've been writing songs for other artists.
It's not like making records is terrible. Still, I do find the writing of the songs and the live shows to be the things that give you the most clear picture of what it's all about.
It's hard to write new stuff when the songs you have written before are still changing and evolving. It would be like building something when the foundations there are not really solid.
With anything I do, it's hard to categorize it. With any project, I just go in and blindly start writing songs and then find out which way we want to go with it.
I think I subconsciously put myself in these situations where the girlfriend isn't pleased with me. I'm useless as a boyfriend. That's how I managed to write all these songs.
I don't know what the inspiration for most of songs really mean until I finish them. For the most part, I'm going for a visceral impression, and I write the words last.
The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form.
If I can't sing them myself, there's nothing better than writing songs for other people and watching them be performed. It's kind of more thrilling than doing it yourself.
I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It's all authentic.
When it comes to sitting down and composing, there is no hesitation, no concern, no critics breathing fire down my neck. For me, writing a song is the purest part of all. No one can mess with that.
I feel like my songs are like diary entries for me. So I usually write about things that have happened to me specifically or sometimes it can be someone who's close to me.
I'm a sensitive guy. If you are a woman and you're in any kind of emotional duress and you write a song about it, I'll buy you album.
There isn't a dearth of it, but I will confess that it's harder for me to find songs on which I'm willing to invest anything from ten to fifteen hours writing an arrangement than it was in times past.
I took temp jobs, recorded a demo in the evenings and eventually shopped a record deal. All I knew was that I wanted to write songs; thankfully, I also got to sing them.
Self-editing is the way I write. Ten verses of a song and it's finished. Then we start playing it and if I see that it's too long, I'll start cutting.
I thought it would be interesting to write a song about a lonely person who is scared to see the truth that is right in from of him. I thought it would be interesting if you could watch yourself from a distance.
Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I'll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I've written a whole song in an hour.
Well mostly in song writing my experience is that there isn't so much inspiration as hard work. You sit there for hours, days and weeks with a guitar and piano until something good comes.
