Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm not saying you have to be totally despondent or anything, but... in New York, it's cold sometimes; it rains sometimes; even if everything in your life is great, bad weather can set the mood. You can write songs in New York because it's not always perfect. To write a good song, things can't be perfect.
If we were making a record in Kentucky, there might be some more elements that recall a time, a place, or a relationship. Recording for the BBC you enter into this strange and wonderful, but kind of sterile, place with which you have no personal history, and that's the Maida Vale Studios at BBC in London.
Then little writings and recordings that thankfully continue to come up. I'm in this kind of wonderful, kind of awkward, off-putting, and strange position where there's nothing I want to do more than continue to make music, but the ways that I do things are not in tune with how I can do them commercially.
On stage, I'm this figure, this actor, who does things that people aren't used to seeing and I relish in that reaction. In real life, though, I play golf, I shop and I walk around with no makeup on and my hair in a ponytail. I may not be the typical middle-aged Joe, but I'm closer to normal than you think.
Totally. I think things are beautiful when you don’t plan them, and you don’t have any expectations, and you’re not trying to get somewhere in particular. You’re just enjoying it, and making something because you love it, and love the people that you’re playing with. I guess everything happens as a reason.
I've learned to trust that you know what you're doing, because it gets scary sometimes. There's a lot of money being spent. If you panic, then that kind of messes with the whole creative vibe. You can't force something to happen, you have to let it all come out and believe that you'll get there in the end.
Poor countries are being forced to deal with an unprecedented health crisis without the means to tackle it . Governments can only show how seriously they are taking this crisis by taking immediate action to provide four million extra health workers and to grant those in need access to affordable medicines.
There is a difference between a great producer and somebody who is a big advocate of your music. Just because you're a big advocate for a band doesn't mean you need to be in the studio with them, and at the same time - we don't need to get into this conversation - you can write a hit, but it might not hit.
I’m very romantic. I really believe in true love, a love that you only find once in a lifetime, if you have the chance. Because, I think that many people never find it, which is very sad. But, I’m not a guy who flirts easily with girls. I believe that there’s somebody out there for me. I’m still searching.
That's the most important thing, to get along with people. When you feel like you click with them. That's more important even then what their background is or what they've done before, how good they are, how new they are or whatever. All that stuff is really secondary to just getting along with the person.
The fact is that this conversation is going on at every level at every age, we're all going, "God, what a jerk I've been," "How could I have married that guy?" or "How could I have done this or that?" With time, this is the gift of being older, that you get to look back and say, "It wasn't all about them."
I respect country music because I feel like it's more about the talent and the songwriting and I put on a big show and we have a lot of stuff, but I feel confident in myself enough as an artist and a singer that I can have all of those fun toys and know that we don't need all the bells and whistles either.
I've always loved California; I'll probably always live here on the West Coast, at least long-term. But I do love coming to New York. The energy is totally different, and I always have a lot of fun there. I always end up staying up all night! I look at my friends, like, "How do you guys do this every day?"
I don't really premeditate what I write my songs about; you know, they just kind of happen, and I can't start writing songs to please a certain group of people or propagate a certain message all the time. That's just not how my songwriting works - it just sort of comes out, and the songs are what they are.
We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn't have the podium. The message that's delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we're going to put on because that's what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That's just where the culture's gotten.
I always felt like Tahliah's a very grown-up name to have. It's a pretty name when you're young, and then I think when I became a young lady, it felt kind of like a lot to grow into for some reason. I don't know. It sounds kind of regal. I never really liked it. I always felt like I couldn't live up to it.
Disco is funky when you take one record at a time. It's just that they narrowed it down to one beat to try to corner the market on a particular music. And when you do that with rhythm - talk about something that will get on your nerves. Try to make love with one stroke. Somebody will tell you to fax it in.
Music is supposed to be entertaining and if it touches you emotionally, so much the better. Sometimes you do it to save your own life, not anybody else's. That's why I write. I'm not trying to change anybody else's life or the world, I'm trying to keep from blowing my own brains out. That's the real point.
When you play a smaller, more intimate venue, you can have real conversations with your audience, take risks, and stay current. You can also change the set list, on how the day feels or how the audience reacts. When you do arena shows, every arena looks and feels the same. You can't see who is in the room.
Thanks to 'I'm Yours,' I'm probably set for a really long time. The pressure I put on myself, or what I hope my 'I Won't Give Up' does, is to make a difference in people's lives... With 'I'm Yours,' I got to go out and set my feet on different continents, and expose myself to different cultures and causes.
I'm removed in my real life, and unable to express certain things face to face. So I have always found myself in this fantasy world. That's why I started writing songs and stories from a very young age. I'd much rather walk around anonymously cooking up tales than face the people that I have known forever.
My son, Jett, is two, and when I was pregnant my nose got bigger, so I got a new one. Everything was bigger for a while after having Jet, but I knew I needed to be able to walk up my stairs without being winded. It took me two years to lose 60 lbs - lots of walking, bike-riding, kick-boxing and performing.
When my father was, you know, a very big artist in the 1970s and then later up through the '80s. And then I began playing guitar with him in the road in the late '80s until he retired in 1997. So I traveled the world with them for years, you know, and all around the world and got to meet some great people.
There was always a piano in the house when I was growing up - my dad played, and I thought it was cool - and when I was eight, I begged my parents to let me have lessons. After a couple of weeks, I wanted to give up, but my parents were very focused and made me keep going, which I'm very pleased about now.
The psychologists are valiantly trying to provide us with answers, the religious people are trying to provide us with answers. I think it properly falls on the cultural workers to investigate this predicament with a little less concern for the marketplace and a little more concern for their higher calling.
I think having kids just makes you want to do things to help people. You have children, and you see how fragile and innocent and helpless they are when they first start out. If they are going to be a victim of whatever they are surrounded by, I just do everything I can to try to make whatever change I can.
Family life is tough, I'll say that for it. But in my case, I've mined the family. In a sense, I've used it. I've used what happened - the different events, the births of children, birthdays. Connecting, not connecting. Regret, shame, guilt. I mean, they're all in the songs. And love, too, I hasten to add.
My goal from the very beginning was just to write good songs that don't require any production to be felt or understood. I wanted to be able to sit in a room with a guitar and play the song from beginning to end and have it be as impactful as if you heard the studio version with all the bells and whistles.
Whenever I do my live shows, I feel artistically inspired and excited because I get to do and say a lot of things that I can't if I just make a record. A lot of times it's the only way people are going to hear my music because you don't get to have your music played on Top 40 if you're above the age of 35.
Life is so full of unpredictable beauty and strange surprises. Sometimes that beauty is too much for me to handle. Do you know that feeling? When something is just too beautiful? When someone says something or writes something or plays something that moves you to the point of tears, maybe even changes you.
Sometimes you get there in spite of the route Losing track of your life and what it's about The road seems to know when to straighten right out... I could wonder if all of it led me to you I could show you the arrows and circles I drew I didn't have a map, it's the best I could do On the fly and on the run
As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me - Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.
My own experience with that brief moment where I had videos on MTV was that nothing was ever good enough. When you hear people say, "I was unhappy the whole time," that sounds ridiculous. I think this is a theme among people who seek fame, not just musicians. There are a lot of bitter, disappointed people.
I needed to be sexier. I needed to be more hip. I needed to be more edgy and this and that. 'No, don't write that kind of song, write this type of song. No, don't work with that producer, work with this producer. No, don't wear those clothes, wear these clothes.' And I didn't want to be a puppet, you know?
I love Korean food, and it's kind of like home to me. The area that I grew up in outside Chicago, Glenview, is heavily Korean. A lot of my friends growing up were Korean and when I would eat dinner at their houses, their parents wouldn't tell me the names of the dishes because I would butcher the language.
The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. He must return to the material world in order to do his work. It's the artist's responsibility to balance mystical communication and the labor of creation.
When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy or Chris Connor, or approaching songs with the kind of mystical lethargy of Billie Holiday, or championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenya. But I never dreamed of singing in a rock-and-roll band.
I'm not into the money thing. You can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat one meal at a time, or be in one car at a time. So I don't have to have millions of dollars to be happy. All I need are clothes on my back, a decent meal, and a little loving when I feel like it. That's the bottom line.
I don't know exactly where the ideas come from, but when I get into a songwriting mode and it's coming along, it's like you're on the front end of a boat and you're going through the water, and the breeze is blowing through your hair and the water's smooth, and you're going out to sea. I love that feeling.
I feel like I am campaigning door to door. You just can't step out of a band like Brooks & Dunn and assume that it is just going to be business as usual. You have to work it. It does feel like a campaign where you would have Obama, Romney, or Newt beating the bushes right now. That's what I'm having to do.
Collaboration has become really integral to my process. I play music so that I can spend time with my friends and communicate in that way. I experience so much joy in that process, because, you know, it's those times of getting together and playing music and all that comes with it that are the best for me.
I have been influenced by many different artists at many different stages of my life. Starting out, it was people like Elton John, Billy Joel, Ben Folds, and Fiona Apple. As I got older I got deeper into the work of bands like the Beatles, artists like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Etta James, and Joni Mitchell.
Because life is short. I feel we’re made of a hunger, a desire for life – if that can be described as a material. As I get older, I’m trying to open that channel more. If you don’t, if you close off desire and get complacent, life loses its freshness and sweetness, and that’s what I crave. That’s my bliss.
Late at night when all the world is sleeping I stay up and think of you and I wish on a star that somewhere you are thinking of me too...Cause I'm dreaming of you tonight 'Til tomorrow I'll be holding you tight! And there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be than here in my room, dreaming about you and me.
Did people care about how a singer sounded live back in the day? I don't really feel like they did. Not everything was being filmed. Today, one huge mess-up, and millions are seeing it. There's a lot more on the line nowadays. We're so cautious and scared of messing up. It adds a lot of stress to a career.
Because of social media, a lot of people think they can be, like, a rapper or a singer or a musician because they can put something on YouTube and it might become a thing because there's - like - YouTube phenomenons and whatnot, you know? It's not like they dedicated years to it or anything. It's annoying.
I've evolved as a human being, and I've taken more risks. I've let go of judgment. I don't know when the best stuff is coming - I sink into the process in a different way. I paint more, and my vision is stronger, but I don't think my music is better, because nothing is ever better than your first material.
You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even working on an older song that might complete that picture.
It never mattered to me that people in school didn't think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it - though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, 'I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.'
I find myself more affected by music the more I do it. Particularly when you're touring, and you're in the bus, and you're listening to loads of music. Life becomes far more dramatic, I guess - you're never in the same place; you're constantly meeting new people. You almost become more sensitized to music.