Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don't recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.
I know I have sex appeal, but I've never felt like an actual sex symbol. Fans sometimes think I am. The majority of them are sweet about it, but occasionally somebody weird becomes totally fixated upon me.
Without books we're a very uneducated society. Think of the places books have taken us, the people we've been introduced to (fiction or non-fiction) and how books have allowed us to broaden our vocabulary.
For a song cycle to work, you have to feel these things when you hear them and you either have an emotional reaction to it or you don't. The plotline is something that gets woven together in the backstory.
I fight the same way as my dad! I've picked that up from him. We both get angry really fast and very intensely, and then get over it very quickly. You need to be good at apologising if you fight like that.
I always considered trying to make a living playing music. But it was always really clear to me, at the various stages in my life, that it really wasn't a possibility unless some phenomenal thing happened.
My last two records that I made were both quite pointed in one direction and I think I do my best stuff when it's all over the map, when there's a couple traditional things, a couple pretty rocking things.
But ya know what, I am a part of something that happened. I'm a part of the music that happened. My voice is one more instrument, is what it is. So that's the way I feel about people who “play on sessions.
I have a mantra that kind of explains my feelings on this subject, which is, "The past is the present is the future." When you're recording something, you're making something that will exist in the future.
Air you breathe is bad for your lungs so you've got to careful and don't overdue any bad air. Too much pot, too much anything is not good. Your lung is a piece of flesh, a piece of bone. You can injure it.
Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see, This world is such a great and a funny place to be. Oh, the gamblin' man is rich, an' the workin' man is poor, And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.
Where there is peace, there is sports; where there is sports, there is peace. Peace is what allows us, especially young people, to dream, go after ones goals and prepare you for the next challenge in life.
I just feel compelled to continue to be transparent. It just really levels the playing field and eradicates the shame that I have, or that one might have, about being human. So I'm going to just keep going.
Oh these little rejections how they add up quickly, one small sideways look and I feel so ungood. Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make me feel the way I thought only my father could.
Most of the songs are, in a roundabout way, actually addressed to myself, there's a certain aspect of the songs that's very confessional, very unadulterated...It was a very unfettered, spiritual experience.
When I was a kid I'd practise Chopin on piano - and I love Chopin! He's my dawg! Then I'd go out on the stoop and blast the radio. I'm from New York, the concrete jungle. Hip-hop influenced me from day one.
As a person who came from a small town and had dreams of becoming an actor, I know what it's like to have no support system for what it is that you want to do. A lot of people think you don't have a chance.
I don't even bother trying to picture a perfect world, because I don't think that perfection is something to strive for. I prefer imperfection. That's what makes things special. You know, things that change
My sound is constantly progressing and maturing. It's hard with all the songs that I have written over the years to compile them all into one album. It's almost impossible to categorize them into one genre.
I realize how much my life lines up with artists like Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. My sound comes from church, but the stories come from actual personal experience, being out there in the streets living life.
It's so inspiring to be around other people who have ideas you haven't thought of, and all of a sudden you're like, 'Wow! That's so amazing!' I definitely want everything I do to just get better and better.
It's like, how do you continue to make records that are representative of who you are that your fans will recognize as your band, while still trying to push things forward and present new sounds for people.
Sometimes I feel I know strangers Better than I know my friends Why must a beginning Be the means to an end? The stones from my enemies These wounds will mend But I cannot survive The roses from my friends.
Songs became little time periods of my life, little tales from certain periods, and you build these kingdoms and memories... they're all little personal relationships and places that I've stored in my head.
Let the sun stop burning, Let them tell me love's not worth going through. If it all falls apart, I will know deep in my heart, The only dream that mattered had come true ...In this life I was loved by you.
The Grand Ole Opry, to a country singer, is what Yankee Stadium is to a baseball player. Broadway to an actor. It's the top of the ladder, the top of the mountain. You don't just play the Opry; you live it.
I don't make records that way, where I'm trying to please the marketplace or anything. Not because I have anything against that, it's just never been a part of my aesthetic, even when I was with the Pixies.
Everything that's rock n roll is ever meant to be is happening now. I need to get over the shock that that thing is actually happening and that thousands of millions of people around the world are watching.
I think that we have a unique opportunity as performers and artists to be kind of the town criers and also to get more people to listen, so that's a blessing and a responsibility that I take very seriously.
If you listen to the radio, and something beats you into surrender, like 'REO Speedwagon', and you really hate them, there's 'You Can Go Your Own Way' in your ear all day, and that's what makes a good song.
I'd love to claim the title of 'songwriter' or 'intellectual,' but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.
I love that I can talk to my fans through Twitter, to cut out the middle man. Because I've done interviews where my words have gotten twisted, so it's nice to be able to have things coming straight from me.
You know, people want to honor me, and on the one hand I just don't want to be a poster child; but on the other, I want to do something classy and great - something where the residuals will go to the cause.
I think it's okay to feel jealous, but it's how you deal with it that's the important thing. You have to be happy for your friends when they do well because you want them to do well. It's not a competition.
Every personal experience of my life impacts my music. I can only give what I have. And when I receive, I give it back. I often fix it or color it differently or give it in my way, but thats what its about.
When I was 13 they were saying your album won't come out until your sweet 16. I felt really frustrated because that felt like forever from then and I felt like I was ready then. Looking back I wasn't ready.
It's one thing to really dream and have a vision and want all these cool things, but it's a whole other thing when you actually have wisdom and understand things. Then you can truly make the best decisions.
Well, I'II tell ya, it makes no difference if you came from the city. And it don't matter if you came from the country. And some of you out there within the sound of my voice may have come from the suburbs.
I got rid of my glasses and they changed my hair. That's really all they did. They went shopping for me, so the clothes are different too. It wasn't like Extreme Makeover where I got a nose job or anything.
You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.
When you're 16 or 17, I think like most people that age, the first time you experience certain things in life, whether it's heartbreak or death or love, obviously it's going to seem like a much bigger deal.
I've never really had a certain style of music in mind that I make, or am really adamant on how something should sound, but I like the process of not knowing, of just seeing what happens and what comes out.
Big, evocative words get thrown around, and people can sing along to passionately as if the lyrics just materialized out of the ether, largely because they don't ever seem to coalesce into a writerly voice.
Look, nobody is a bigger fan of Tommy Shaw than me. The day I met him in 1975 I knew he was going to be a great guitar player, performer and songwriter. I was his biggest fan, and I'm Styx's number one fan.
There are so many bad songs that have incredible videos. It's pretty amazing, actually. The power of putting images to music is hypnotizing. It's a real power. That's a realm that I've failed at completely.
A lot of people have said I'd have probably done better in my career if I hadn't looked so cheap and gaudy. But I dress to be comfortable for me, and you shouldn't be blamed because you want to look pretty.
I feel like a spinning top or a DreidelThe spinning don't stop when you leave the cradleYou just slow downRound and around this world you goSpinning through the lives of the people you knowWe all slow down.
Basically, in 'American Pie,' things are heading in the wrong direction. It is becoming less ideal, less idyllic. I don't know whether you consider that wrong or right, but it is a morality song in a sense.
I like to wear colourful clothes because they make me feel happy: short-shorts with funky tights and big jumpers are what I'm into. And I wear most things with hi-top trainers - I'm not a huge fan of heels.
I record stuff all the time, like little vocal things. I write random things down... Sometimes I just get things stuck in my head and I record them, and that actually becomes a song quite a lot of the time.