- Live
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- Nov 07, 2020
Song Quotes
The feeling behind every song.
These song quotes emphasize sincerity as the key to a performance that actually reaches an audience, along with the idea that a song can capture a live moment as it happens. One entry recalls a song tied to an early anti-drug campaign, showing how songs can carry a specific message. Related picks continue in our Feel quotes.
- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Fun
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- Nov 07, 2020
I thought it would be fun to write a song where a bunch of my favorite guitarists contributed, so I started 'Valley of Fire.'
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
It's nice if people ask to use your song. You have to make a decision as an artist how you feel about that.
- Black
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- Nov 07, 2020
Black holes can bang against space-time as mallets on a drum and have a very characteristic song.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
With every record, with each band, I just try to make a song good. I'm not so much focusing on my technique. There are a million better drummers than me. I try to adapt to the songwriter; I try to adapt to the situation and retain my sort of melodic power. My goal is for the band to be good.
- Grace
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- Nov 07, 2020
I did the co-writing thing all through the '90s and I got one hit out of it - a Keith Urban song called 'But For The Grace Of God' - but then I got burnt out.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
I try to make everything I write a little bit different. Those songs that go, 'I love you so much and you love me,' they're boring. If I'm going to write a love song, it's going to be a little bit tortuous.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
Sometimes I would write something that was so private, people would say, 'Make it more universal.' I never liked that idea. I always thought the more personal a song was, the more people would want to hear it.
- Getting
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- Nov 07, 2020
For some producers who are technical-minded, making the song sound good is easy, and getting the emotion into the song is harder.
- Poetry
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- Nov 07, 2020
When I started writing poetry, it was always in very hip-hop influenced spaces: Someone would teach a Nas song side-by-side with a Gwendolyn Brooks poem, and we'd talk about the connections between those things.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
It's important to me that there's not just one story told about our city. 'LSD' is an ode to Chicago, a song for the complicated love I have for my city.
- Live
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- Nov 07, 2020
I love when a song is conceived as a jigsaw puzzle in the studio, and then it's a natural to play live. That's my gauge of success for a song.
- Food
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- Nov 07, 2020
What a character eats is a detail - like eye color or a favorite song. But food is also our lifeblood.
- Faith
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- Nov 07, 2020
After a decade this glum, we deserved a shot of 'Glee,' a show that restored our faith in the power of song, the beauty of dance, and the magic of 'spirit fingers' to chase our cares and woes into somebody else's backyard.
- I Am
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- Nov 07, 2020