I think our storytellers - our songwriters should be great storytellers, and they should be mountain climbers and explorers, because music is something that can cross all different borders.
I like this town, it's really great. They've put me in The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This town is about music. It's about the kind of music I like.
The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand.
I did enjoy Nashville a lot of the time, because I made really good friends who were really good songwriters, and they would be a joy to hang out with.
Songwriting is like going to church. I'm connecting to something, and it's rewarding in really important ways. I don't need to share it with anyone to feel good about it.
I may not be the most famous songwriter in the world, but you know a David Friedman song when you hear it. It took me a long time to appreciate that.
Video is a funny thing. It's one thing to be an artist, singer-songwriter, and use words and create pictures in people's minds. And then be asked to do video for it, to actually give a certain visual for your song.
No matter how long what I'm doing here lasts, I want to be a songwriter for the rest of my life. I love it and it's my escape.
The key to songwriting is just to be able to observe, and put yourself in situations to be around people, and let those ideas come to you.
Whenever I fill out the job description I put 'songwriter', never 'singer' or 'artist.' Singers come and go.
I've grown a lot as a singer and a songwriter, but also as a person. I communicate better with my band, and our relationships are stronger and closer.
Alan's publishing company was in the Brill Building, and of course, the Brill Building was where all the songwriters hung out because that's where all the publishers were.
Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing.
It was kind of like songwriter's boot camp. You had to produce. You had to produce fast. You had to learn.
As a songwriter, you might write every day and throughout the course of a year you might get four songs that are really special.
I found songwriting really hard at first, but after a while it was actually very easy. I wrote about everyday stuff.
Most of my friends in Nashville - almost all of them - seem to have had hits in the '70s, either as artists or songwriters or producers.
'Clown' was written when I couldn't find anyone who believed in me as an artist. Maybe those labels will think twice next time a young songwriter comes along.
Loretta Lynn was one of those ladies a long time ago that opened a lot of doors and paved the way for a lot of ballsy singer-songwriters who weren't just cute.
Working as a musician, I have to constantly generate new material, so school keeps me sharp. Reading and writing all the time helps me to be a better songwriter.
Protest is patriotic. Since the beginning of musical time, American singers and songwriters have used their talent and bully pulpits to show us America's strengths and shortcomings.
