I came into the music world in 1988 with a song called 'Ooh La La,' that was like a breath of fresh air in Haitian music.
I can't imagine ever not making music, making albums, writing songs, doing shows. That's all I really know, and that's all I really do.
Many cities make music, but no city breathes music quite like Memphis. The songs and sounds that come from here are uniquely American.
Music is so much fun because each song is like a film in itself. You get to go from beginning to end and interact and exchange energy with a live audience.
When you listen to my music, you hear that there are all these voices going on in different parts of the song. That's because I was always around so many voices in church.
I tend to like simple music. And clever, succinct lyrics. Songs that don't try to be more than they need to to be effective, to stir up something emotionally within you.
Every single morning, I have a person sitting right there next to me in prayer with a tape recorder - and a song comes up every day.
I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.
I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.
It's nice that there are movies and songs about romance - it's what motivates us as human beings. I'm all for being brainwashed by rom-coms.
From chain gangs to folk songs to intelligent soul, America has created musicians dedicated to truth, justice, and a better American Way.
It's warts and all in my songs, and I think that's why people can relate to them.
To love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart and to sing it to them when they have forgotten.
I also started writing songs because I had this burning activity in my heart and had to express myself.
I get so many ideas for songs, but I'm so seldom disciplined enough to sit down and crank them out.
There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.
If you're horrible to me, I'm going to write a song about it, and you won't like it. That's how I operate.
Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way.
There isn't music without rhythm; have a soul that won't leave your lips without a song.
She danced a jig, she sung a song that took my heart away.
'Miss Saigon' taught me what it means to help carry a big show, and it had some of the most gorgeous songs wrote.
