When you're writing with an artist or for an artist, you have to help them serve their vision. That's the cool part about writing songs. There are no rules.
Interpretation
Writing songs for artists involves collaboration to realize their creative vision.
This quote emphasizes the importance of collaboration in artistic endeavors, particularly in songwriting. It suggests that the writer's role is to support and enhance the artist's vision, allowing for creativity to flourish without being bound by strict rules. This freedom in artistic expression is what makes songwriting exciting and unique.
In practice
Using this quote when discussing the creative process in a songwriting workshop.
I didn't know they would pay you money to sit in a room and write songs for other people. I always thought that George Strait was singing a song, he made it up, and that was the end of it. But the instant I found that out, that that could be a job, I thought, 'That's the job for me. I gotta figure out how to do that.'
I like things that don't sound particularly processed or mechanical or made by machines. I like music that contains human elements, with all their flaws. There's air in it, and you can hear a room of a bunch of guys playing. Those are the magic parts.
I'm gonna keep making music that hopefully I think is good, and whatever comes out of that, that will be fine with me.
They wasn't gonna give you nothin'. I didn't care as long as they let me play my music. Cash on the spot... You cheat me and I'm gonna get me some money, too.
Reality is the richest thing there is, the most important thing there is. Our imagination allows us to live an artificial life that is wonderful, extremely rich, but I don't believe any artist would dare to say that artifice is better than real life.
I never want to make the kind of film whose impact ends when the audience leaves the cinema.
It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.
Reinforced concrete buildings are by nature skeletal buildings. No noodles nor armoured turrets. A construction of girders that carry the weight, and walls that carry no weight. That is to say, buildings consisting of skin and bones.
If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level.
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