My father served as an Army doctor in West Germany in the late '50s and early '60s. As a result, he and my mother - both native southerners - were acutely aware of what had happened during the Holocaust.
It's very rare - and it does happen on occasion - where I'll take a piece of lyric and I'll just sit down and purposefully craft that melody around that lyric because I think the lyric is the wellspring for the song, without question.
I think there's always a call for people who are bucking the norm. But I don't expect it to happen now because I think that more than ever the entertainment industry is trying to serve as a distraction, to keep people from thinking too hard.
The main thing was finding this... voice that I had interest in, which I'll call the quiet-yet-stoic voice: the very quiet yet very strong voice that I developed, that people would want to hear and that was worth paying attention to.
Those people who shun us just because of the label we're on, or the fact that we've got a video out there that's getting us somewhere, are only limiting themselves, because they aren't keeping an open mind.
You were the one who gave me those boxers? I wondered where they came from, I wear those! Although I'm not a big fan of flannel, it gets a little hot down there, if you know what I mean.
Take 'Jack and Diane.' I was so disgusted with people thinking the line 'Hold on to sixteen as long as you can' meant to stay a teenager forever. What I meant was keep doing whatever makes you feel alive.
The public conviction that a railroad linking the West and the East was an absolute necessity became so pronounced after the gold discoveries of '49 that Congress passed an act in 1853 providing for a survey of several lines from the Mississippi to t...
I try to frighten my very young colleagues into studying and understanding their voices before they attempt things that are beyond them. It's wise to take gymnastics and swimming to strengthen the body, because people don't realise what an athletic u...
Stubbornness and ignorance and determination are a very fine line from each other. I'm a very stubborn person, but not so stubborn that I can't learn new things and meet new people, but I have a one-track mind.
For me, I wanted somebody that got me musically, that understood that I'm an artist and this is who I am. I'm not going to be like another artist on your label, probably - hopefully. I found all those things with the Broken Bow group.
There isn't one album that says 'Hall & Oates.' It's always 'Daryl Hall and John Oates.' From the very beginning. People never note that. The idea of 'Hall & Oates,' this two-headed monster, this thing, is not anything we've ever wanted or liked.
Back in the early '90s, I started going to Nashville to do a lot of co-writes. One of the first people I met there was Keith Follese. Keith and his wife Adrienne are both songwriters, and we wrote some songs together.
Most agree, whatever their party political position, that the West can and should open its agricultural markets more fully to the products of the poorer countries of the globe. They are agricultural societies that need our markets more than our chari...
Sometimes it works. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Hospital'. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Pablo Picasso'. I've been playing a lot lately. I do it as long as I feel like it.
I don't have a Madonna-sized fan base, so I can actually e-mail and talk to everyone that e-mails me, because I am totally appreciative and I like my fans!
Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate And though I oft have passed them by A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
The job of singing is to stay open to the river of soul in all its manifestations, the dark and the light, without letting your ego get in the way. I never want to be bigger than the song. I just want you to receive it.
I never listen to Led Zeppelin. But, I mean, I don't think Robert Plant or Jimmy Page listen to Led Zeppelin, either. We all probably obsessed over the same old blues records growing up.
Well, when The Black Keys make a record, I never really feel limited. To me, it seems the possibilities are always endless. The big difference has been playing live and being able to recreate every little part of the record.
I don't think songs have to be like these super-#1-smash-hit-sounding songs, because I think it's more important that it's like, 'Hey! This is coming out of me. This is something I connect with. This is something that I like to sing.'
