Quotes on Songs

There's a reason why the Foo Fighters don't blast out Nirvana songs every night: because we have a lot of respect for them. You know, that's hallowed ground. We have to be careful. We have to tread lightly. We have talked about it before, but the opportunity hasn't really come up, or it just hasn't felt right.

How many of the original songs survive intact from the slave cabins? Probably not many in their original form. Time has transformed them like light in a prism. What we hope to present is a version of those spirituals, and they speak not just to black Americans, but to people worldwide.

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.

Human beings love poetry. They don't even know it sometimes... whether they're the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber... they're listening to poetry.

The most powerful love songs always turn on the discrepancy between the act of declaring love and the knowledge that the ostensible addressee is no longer there, was never there, and could never be there.

Queen songs are not about the life of a rock star - they tend to be about the lives of normal people, which is why I think the songs connect so much. We're very lucky that they seemingly connect with every generation.

I think, for one thing, all of us remember those teenage years and those songs that we fell in love with and the music scene that we were part of. So, in a certain way, music cuts through time like almost nothing else. You know, it makes us feel like we're back in an earlier moment.

Starting a band is the easy part. Once you've formed the band, you have to tell a story, and that story requires songs. And not just good songs, but great songs. After a while, great songs won't do - they have to be the best. Success doesn't make it any easier. Each time I start a new record, it's a brand-new search.

You know that first love that leaves you? You never forget that, especially if you're a songwriter. I must have gotten nine songs out of that girl.

You get to thinking that because you've written 50 or 100 songs, you think maybe you know how to do it. But when they're not coming along, you're just as in the dark as you ever were. When they're coming along, there's nothing to it. Sometimes it's so easy, it's like you're a court stenographer.

Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my songs sound like relationship songs.

I write a lot of songs people don't hear. I really just enjoy the process. I finish 'em all. I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between the bad ones and the good ones.

I'm a great believer in not over-thinking lyrics. You might become technically better as a songwriter, but you lose what originally made your songs great.

I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written... Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn't have much of a social life going on.

I've been getting interested in reimagining folk songs and writing songs that should have existed but didn't, particularly around the Civil War when black voices were muted and only allowed particular channels.

When you have a reputation for making not only good songs but great albums, that in itself creates added artistic pressure. But, at the end of the day, I guess that pressure is something I welcome.

Whenever I start writing, I try to put together songs that feed the feeling of the movie.

Songs don't have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I've done is about alienation... about where you fit in society.

I'm wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It's a real enjoyment.

I want to say at once that I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived.... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert.

People - especially white people - they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.