Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are a few Irish writers who have a very strong influence on me, especially on the 'Take Me to Church' EP.
Some of the earlier stuff I did in studio with producers was very pop-directed, which I was uncomfortable with.
I try to face things without regret, or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can.
There are a lot of recurring themes that I resonated with when I read 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.'
I was always drawn to gospel music and the roots of African-American music. It's the foundation of rock and roll.
I used to almost not look forward to recording, because it was like, 'Okay, what am I going to have to sacrifice?'
I'm reading a lot of poetry because it's a lot easier to dip in and dip out when you've got 10 minutes to yourself.
I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties.
I will play around with an idea for a very long time until it's found it's feet and it's good enough to become a song.
It was amazing for me to even perform at the Grammys, but to do so alongside Annie Lennox was a truly incredible honor.
The main thing is, I can't stay up late partying when I'm on tour. That's not good for my voice or my health in general.
All you have is your fire And the place you need to reach Don't you ever tame your demons But always keep them on a leash
Sexuality, and sexual orientation - regardless of orientation - is just natural. An act of sex is one of the most human things.
I try to be happy. I try to face things without regret or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can.
I tried to avoid anything that caused me frustration or grief or duress. I played FarmVille and procrastinated like all teenagers.
I think all that we would know of America back home is foreign policy, and maybe the snippets of the madness of political culture.
Biggest musical influences would be people like Nina Simone and Tom Waits. A huge amount of writers like Leslie Feist and Paul Simon.
No Facebook status is as worrying as a vote and no tweet is as noticeable as an angry cry from a crowd outside a government building.
I'm not sure if every song will be 'Take Me to Church,' but I can only hope that people enjoy the body of work that I have ahead of me.
It was a rural upbringing by the seaside. A real quiet place surrounded by fields. I had to travel into town for school and stuff like that.
The way I did the first album... the way I wrote 'Church'... was just to trust my instincts with the music and let it kind of do what it does.
If I fall into a city, I fall into a scene, and I just don't want to get distracted and enjoy myself too much. There's too much work to be done.
Being 16 is the worst time to be anybody, there is not enough tea in China to persuade me to be that young again. I wasn't very happy with myself.
I'm uncomfortable with selfies and status updates documenting mundane pieces of my life, which I don't think should be of interest to anyone else.
One of my favorite books is 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell, and 'Catcher in the Rye,' obviously, is a big influence and is one of my favorites.
Either somebody has equal rights, or they don't. And certainly in the Irish constitution, marriage is genderless. There's no mention of a man and a woman.
When I write songs, I try to remove myself a little bit. Obviously they're very personal to me, but it feels easier if I feel like I'm writing characters.
When I write songs, I try to remove myself a little bit. Obviously, they're very personal to me, but it feels easier if I feel like I'm writing characters.
I think humans are driven by othering people, by defining themselves by who they are not and who is different from them. Human beings are in love with othering.
I know I'm not the kind of music that's going to have tons of screaming fans, and I'm not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. I just want to do as good a job as I can.
It's funny: Your relationship changes with a song over time. After a year or so, you're a different person, so your songs, you don't connect with them like you did.
We have such a culture of discrimination and hatred, and one that has scapegoats and affects people so extremely. That's something that very easily crosses borders.
I think if more people would understand how simple and what really feminism is, I would imagine that most men I know are feminists without verbalising or saying so.
One of my biggest influences of all time would be somebody like Tom Waits. David Bowie is another huge influence. I'm also a big fan of St. Vincent and Leslie Feist.
I have a bit of a love affair with fairy tales and some of the ideas of Irish mythology, like Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, who captured a lot of that very beautifully.
If I could, I'd sing old French songs or American folk music, but I sure as hell can't do it as well as Mississippi John Hurt - no way in hell am I getting near that!
Anyone close to me will be familiar with my frustrations with certain aspects of social media: the behaviour it encourages and attitudes towards the self it can breed.
It's kind of strange to hear your songs sung back to you! You get a big insight into what people connect to, what's moving to people or what songs people are really into.
To be honest, the biggest reason I write music and became a musician was to create the amount of joy that I felt about music to anyone else. To me, that's a job well done.
I would love to get in trouble with the Catholic Church. I'm not religious myself, but my issue is with the organization. It's an organization of men - it's not about faith.
Growing up, I always saw the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. The history speaks for itself, and I grew incredibly frustrated and angry. I essentially just put that into my words.
I think it all started with Nina Simone. When I was maybe seven or eight, I used to listen to one of her albums every night before I went to sleep. For me, her voice was everything.
I think it's very hard to write things about being joyful. I find that quite difficult. I think when you're happy, you don't want to write songs; you just want to enjoy being happy.
I have very strong feelings about a lot of things. I am sometimes reluctant to come straight to the forefront with it. You know, first and foremost, I'm a musician. I'm a songwriter.
My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me.
The success of 'Take Me To Church,' I never imagined it. I never imagined that it would work on radio, that it would find its way onto the charts, even at home and certainly not in America.
I figured the songs wouldn't make much of a splash. I didn't think 'Take Me To Church' would play on the radio or get in the charts, and I didn't think about dealing with a global audience.
All songs, all pieces of art, reflect the world that they were made in and the values of those artists and the hopes and aspirations of the people who listen to that music and who made that music.
The song, to me, is about what it is to be a human, what it is to love someone as a human being, and organizations that would undermine that, and undermine the more natural parts of being a person
No masters or kings when the ritual begins [making love] There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene Only then I am human Only then I am clean