There was a time that I was only known for being a plagiarist. It used to hurt at times because there was so much effort I was putting into music. And instead of that, it was a couple tunes that I had reproduced from folk songs to remake as film song...
I like finding that common point between another song and my music. It's like between people; you can be of religion or another, from this country or from another country, but we're all basically the same. It's just the same with songs.
I could have done a hundred songs, really. It was hard to narrow them down, because I tried to pick songs for the most part that actually did have some effect on me or influenced me in the past.
The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species.
Everything needs to be catchy because a listener is either going to stay with the song or lose interest in the first five seconds. But people also like those songs they can relate to and say, 'Yeah, I went through that.'
I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.
If I wanted to make a quick buck, there's far easier ways of doing it. What I want is to provoke people. If you want a hit song, all you need to do is rewrite an old song. It might have been proven to work, but you won't be remembered the same way.
Did you wish upon a star and take the time to try to make your wish come true? Did you try to paint the sunrise and find the gift of life within? Did you write a song just for the joy of it? Or write a poem just to feel the pain? Did you find a reaso...
A bird does not sing because he has the answer to something, he sings because he has a song.
The fool sings a love song to his wife, the wise man will talk about his dog.
I write what's given me to write.
I don't write to be understood; I write to understand.
The thing I write will be the thing I write.
I write - and then I write some more.
I don't write stories, I write characters.
Re-writing is different from writing. Original writing is very difficult.
I don't write about good and evil with this enormous dichotomy. I write about people. I write about people doing the kinds of things that people do.
When I write a book, I write very cleanly from page one to the last page. I hardly ever write out of sequence.
What is the best way to write? Each of us has to discover her own way by writing. Writing teaches writing. No one can tell you your own secret.
I write because I feel driven to write. I write from a sense of inner necessity. I don't write for anything other than that.
There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. [...] The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because h...