I really sing songs that move me. I'm not in show business. I'm in the communications business. That's what it's for me.
I never thought of having platinum albums and winning awards. I just wanted to write songs and sing when I started out in the music business.
Then l learned to play guitar and l started writing songs and my mother formed for me a publishing business, so we started publishing and managing artists.
Songs like the Buck Owens tune, for example, are very simple and straightforward, and recording it really gave me a chance to get into and get a sense of Buck's personality, a feel for that whole Bakersfield sound.
I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I'm not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it's cool.
If a musician wants to be an actor, everyone thinks that's pretty cool. But if an actor wants to play a song, even if they've been doing it for 40 years, that's bad news.
When I'm 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I'll be like: 'Cool, I'll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.'
Language as a communication tool is the primary element from which literature is created. Even in pre-literate societies, it exists as songs, riddles, or epics that are chanted.
I speak onstage to try to establish some method of communication. The songs are supposed to be a way of communicating. But speech and drinks and sometimes chocolates are also a way of communicating.
No matter how long you play rock n roll songs might change just as the balls are there, the rock balls. And that's what's important to us.
This is my home. Home is where the disease is. As long as I stay in America, I'll never run out of subjects for songs.
I like listening to Beyonce, and I like Jason Derulo. I love his new song 'Don't Wanna Go Home.'
Every song I put on a record could be a single and I just pack my bags for it... and the minute it takes off, I'm not gonna be home for a while.
I'm not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I'll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it's rare.
The only instrument I can play is piano. Whenever I make songs at home, I play the piano and make them on the piano.
If I have a hit, then I hope the people who like the hit song go out and buy my album so they can hear it all.
I think 'Country Girl' is one song that can veer into country or hip-hop or rap. You can listen to it and enjoy the humor and the fun in it.
So don't get me wrong, I love my songs, and I still love hearing them. That's history, baby.
It used to be that you'd have a song recorded by a major country artist and if it was a hit, you could buy a car. Now you can buy a dealership.
Stevie Wonder's 'Songs in the Key of Life' was on constant shuffle throughout my childhood. I remember my dad playing some stellar Max Roach albums as well.
My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I'm home.
