I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me.
Life is a present; life is a miracle. Life is a song divine. When you touch my heart, hold my soul. Oh my pure valentine.
I would describe my songs as just a collection of my thoughts, with melodies that probably occurred to me in the grocery store or cycling home, sung as best I can over a bunch of chords.
When I look at the majority of my own songs they really came from my own sense of personal confusion or need to express some pain or beauty - they were coming from a universal and personal place.
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.
It was a very bizarre experience for me, to get the songs together, go in there, and try to deliver them as I would perhaps in a live setting. But I realized that I couldn't take on that coffeehouse style that I came from and go in there and burn it ...
There's no doubt that there's certain songs and arrangements of music that release a chemical reaction in my brain. This sounds a little goofy, but I really believe that. It's such a euphoric experience that I sort of want to chase that experience as...
I knew all this Beatles music. I knew the songs phonetically. It was like my whole experience of that music was out of focus, and somebody put the perfect glasses on me, and all of a sudden I could see everything.
The popular songs that were written in the 1920s and '30s, '40s and early '50s were written by veterans - mostly men who'd had experience in life. How can you write a lyric if you haven't really lived life?
Sometimes I listen to songs by very smart writers who assume that the world is a civil place with certain formalities that people follow, but I don't see things that way. My own experience tells me that life is not like that.
When playing any song in front of an audience, you're watching them experience it, and it changes. In a lot of ways, it's almost like the music is just the background buzz to what's happening between you and the audience in the room.
When I write a song, it comes from the heart and is based on a specific experience. You can't really say that one experience is greater than another, because all of your experiences take you through life on this journey.
We sing a little song before we eat, a little blessing before we eat, and it's really - we're thanking the Lord and the Earth for the food that we eat, and it really brings you together in a profound kind of way.
Some of the press who speak loudly about the freedom of the press are themselves the enemies of freedom. Countless people dare not say a thing because they know it will be picked up and made a song of by the press. That limits freedom.
In Torch Song, I did that character almost non-stop from 1978 until I made the movie in 1987. Then I had some failure, which also colors how you react to doing other things.
I love researching, whether it's old Western documentaries or old Western country singers or John Ford Westerns, which are heavily influenced by family values, which so many of these country songs are related to.
I had all the material for a long time, but I was just too busy. Sometimes we'd sit around at home and sing some of these songs at family things, and everyone always said I should record them.
The last name is pronounced Jill-en-hall. It's spelled with two l's, two a's. We have a song in my family; G-Y-Double L - EN - HAAL spells Gyllenhaal. It's a Swedish name. It's a family heirloom set to music.
You live a life, you have a family, you sing your songs. You do not think about these things. You just do them. And then one day, it all make sense to you.
People in my family and camp who grew up listening to rap music love 'We Are Young.' I've heard it play at weddings. I've heard it in graduation parties. It's a big idea and big song.
I always feel like I want to write a song when I'm really upset. And when I'm in an argument with my family, I go straight to the piano and just kind of take it out on the piano and get all emotional.
