Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Growing up on the border there, we were always frustrated with people's pronunciations of towns in Michigan, and people mispronouncing Illinois. There are all these Native American words that no one really knows how to pronounce.
To me, Fearless is not the absense of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. To me, Fearless is having fears. Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, Fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death.
I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, 'Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we'll talk.'
There's no regimen. There's no personal trainer. I love to go hiking because it's an experience. If I need to gain stamina for a tour, I will run every single night on the treadmill, but I don't necessarily like being at the gym.
One month I'll be completely obsessed with Bob Dylan and the next Arcade Fire. I like early Elton John and David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I listen to a lot of American bands. But I like listening to new bands, too.
Let go into the mystery. Let yourself go. And when you open up your heart, you get everything you need. Baby there's a way and a mystic road. You've got to have some faith to carry on, you've got to open up your heart to the Son.
The real beauty of it - key to my life was playing key chords on a banjo. For somebody else it may be a golf club that mom and dad put in their hands or a baseball or ballet lessons. Real gift to give to me and put it in writing.
My hope has always been that each record could have its own audience. Of course, it's awesome to have a cumulative audience for more than one record, but I like the idea that there could be a record that an individual might like.
My dream many years ago would've been to continue to write and record songs in record/album form for years to come, but now records aren't what they were then - and so it doesn't actually feel very good to make a record of songs.
It's something that I do every year - every Ramadan to be exact - taking an 18-hour flight back home to Malaysia from Los Angeles. I'm born and raised in Malaysia, and Ramadan and Eid has always been my favorite time of the year.
When I was kid, I remember playing 'Vogue' by Madonna over and over and over again. And ah, you know, something about the beat was really cool, and Madonna, visually, was on TV all the time and I thought she was just so beautiful.
I have a profound empathy for people who are in the public eye, whether they manifest it themselves or whether it happened by accident - it doesn't matter to me. I think there's a great misunderstanding of what it is to be famous.
Physical pain is problematic because it's very difficult to transcend that. Sometimes you're just in physical pain, and that's a bummer. Even then, there are beautiful things involved in the healing of that. I've experienced some.
I know what it's like to be an outcast in society. I know what it's like to want to find strength, and more importantly, I know what it's like to find that internal strength and rise out of the pain of being just sort of a weirdo.
It's one thing when you're driving to go play at a radio station and you hear it on that station. It's another thing when you're just out in the middle of nowhere, and the song just comes on the radio, and you're like "Oh my God!"
I knew naturally as a child not to forfeit my creativity to a world that's all laid out for me. I'll look at everything around me and vow to keep in mind that alla this is just someone's idea. It could have just as well been mine.
As you get older, there will be a new challenge arising. What you thought you'd accomplished once, maybe the goal post has shifted and it's not what you're pursuing anymore, because you're not interested in that anymore, you know?
There are so many things that we could do to change the world in so many aspects. There are people working in nonprofit organizations, tackling the issues that we so desperately need to face, while governments fail so appallingly.
The music scene in the '70s was like the United Kingdom in the '70s - we had a lot of unemployment, we had inflation, we had a lot of strikes going on, on a national scale, and a lot of discontent. That was reflected in the music.
I didn't have to fit into a mold. You make the mold. People can smell a rat. If you're doing thing for marketing and for a record label, you're going to set yourself up to be called a phony. As long as it's true to you, you do it.
The first half of high school, I had a girlfriend, and then the second half I got to know these guys who would just get stoned and jam. I had struck the goth thing by then, but I still thought of myself as Ian Curtis or something.
I really wanted to make the worst thing: the thing that even people who liked bad, terrible music wouldn't like - the stuff that people would ignore, always. Something really, really stupid. Something that is destined for failure.
I think that I'm a very independent person, so I need somebody who's independent and strong within themselves as well. I don't necessarily need somebody in order to get things done. I don't need a blanket, do you know what I mean?
I get invited to premieres, and I've been to a few fashion shows and stuff, but I always get really bored. I feel quite awkward. You have to wear something by them, and it all feels like, 'Why am I doing free advertising for you?'
Next door, there's an old man who lived to his nineties and one day passed away in his sleep. And his wife, she stayed for a couple of days and passed away. I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong.
It's a different world now: Stars come and go quickly, and there are so many of them. I read a statistic that all the record companies combined used to put out around 3,000 albums in a year. Now they put out something like 30,000!
This is a cause that musicians can take to heart because one of our main reasons for being is to share our music with other people, and this takes us to people who probably wouldn't otherwise get to hear music on quite this level.
Writing is sort of putting a puzzle together halfway. Then, performing it has always been the completion of it. Once that happens, I'm feeling verbally communal with other people. It's out there and I feel so much better about it.
What I like about Elvis is the same thing I like about James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince. These guys, back in the day, there was no smoke and mirrors. It was just raw talent. They would step out onstage and command an audience.
I'm hoping that "Nothin' On You", "Billionaire" and "Just The Way You Are" - songs that I produced... I hope that it's a warning for people. I hope it lets them know that I'm a little unorthodox when it comes to genres and styles.
I used to be followed by a moon shadow. Now I'm followed by all these misconceptions, and they're like a ball and chain. I just want to write music from my heart and give people a message of hope and the search for a better place.
I always see my songs in colors, and I'm often more inspired by movies and photographs than I am by other songs when I write my music. I'm also inspired by fashion, and I want my music to be a visual painting of what's in my mind.
The first music I ever got into was the '80s alternative bands that my brother listened to, like The Cure and The Smiths and R.E.M. and Fugazi. I can remember specifically saying The Cure was my favorite band back in second grade.
It's always the negative things that seep through into your consciousness. Most of the positive things just roll off real fast. I just try not to pay attention to it, because I've never read anything about my band that's accurate.
Little soldier, little insect You know war it has no heart It will kill you in the sunshine Or happily in the the dark Where kindness is a card game Or a bent up cigarette In the trenches, in the hard rain With a bullet and a bet.
Everything around me is surreal. I get picked up in cars and go to celebrity bashes, and I get sponsorship on clothes, and it's great, and I really enjoy it. But you should remember where it all started: the music. That's the key.
They've got the singles and some people have burnt them from different web sites and stuff. So it was something that we talked about for a long, long time, and I just wanted to make sure that this remix album to be really special.
I used to always sit in church looking out the windows at the boys, wondering if I could make an excuse to go out and, you know, go to the bathroom because all the outdoor toilets. But anyhow, I was only going out to see the boys.
Sometimes when I'm under pressure, if I think somebody is expecting stuff from me, I'll do better than if I was just left on my own. I can sit down - I'm a skilled writer, I've been doing it all my life - and I can get down to it.
If you listen to one of my albums, you can tell I do a lot of different things. In the case of 'Vincent', I thought of his picture 'Starry Night.' It was a beautiful road-map for a song. I used a lot of imagery from that painting.
I'm not a fussy eater, but when I'm travelling, I try to stick to the same regime and just have my chicken and my mash and broccoli. Otherwise, you start eating all these funny delicacies, and it makes your tummy turn upside down.
Johnny Guitar... just one of my favorite singers of all time. I met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the '50s when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together.I would hear him sing every night.
If you're working with a producer like Rick Rubin or whatever, you sing each line probably 30 different ways. Each time they're like, "Can you try it this way, can you try it that way?" That's each line in the song, for each song.
I try not to be but Im super-neurotic about diet. Im neurotic about trying not to be neurotic! Im like every other girl. I have to try really hard my whole life to try to be fit. And Im super-vain. And I want to wear cute clothes.
People will tell me, "You're such a punk rebel," this or that, but I was not that growing up. I was actually a super-sheltered, conservative girl. Now, there was probably a bit of me that was like, "Why do I have to be like that?"
I found you a thousand times; I guess you done the same; But then we lose each other; It's like a children's game; As I find you here again; A thought runs through my mind; Our love is like a circle; Let's go 'round one more time.
An auctioneer is such a uniquely American thing. I keep thinking in my head, perhaps it's not as American as I think, but it feels so Southern. It feels so American. Like, hundreds of years of American tradition is involved in it.
Every song you write you think is the last one you're going to manage. You put everything you've got into the song, and you've twisted it and pulled at it and dug in and found a way to complete it. To get another one is the trick.
You're only famous in the eyes of others. Inside, you're still the same, and not a hundred million records or TV shows can change that. I think the only pitfall of fame is believing that it means something, and behaving like that.
It's a blessing and a curse when your first big public album does so well. 'Twentysomething' sold four million copies - I think we were hoping to sell 80,000. And it's still selling. In some ways, you'll always be defined by that.