In the depth of my soul there is
A wordless song - a song that lives
In the seed of my heart.
It refuses to melt with ink on
Parchment; it engulfs my affection
In a transparent cloak and flows,
But not upon my lips.
The way I write my songs is that I have to believe what I’m writing about, and that’s why they always end up being so personal - because the kind of artists I like, they convince me, they totally win me over straight away in that thing. Like, “Oh my God, this song is totally about me.”
Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest, And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe; And all the daughters of the year shall dance! Sing now the lusty song of fruit and flowers.
With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself--one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad.
I write about what I know and what I've experienced. That's the only way it can be real to me. I love songwriting. There is something so satisfying in coming up with an idea and turning it into a song that means something to people.
Have you ever noticed a tree standing naked against the sky, How beautiful it is? All its branches are outlined, and in its nakedness There is a poem, there is a song. Every leaf is gone and it is waiting for the spring. When the spring comes, it again fills the tree with The music of many leaves, Which in due season fall and are blown away. And this is the way of life.
Within a few years a simple and inexpensive device, readily carried about, will enable one to receive on land or sea the principal news, to hear a speech, a lecture, a song or play of a musical instrument, conveyed from any other region of the globe.
My brother says that I was writing songs about fate while he was off playing soccer. Now I tell him he's 33 and being a professional while I'm playing soccer with my friends. Ha!
Now I will do nothing but listen to accrue what I hear into this song. To let sounds contribute toward it. I hear the sound I love. The sound of the human voice. I hear all sounds running together.
I never put myself in a box. I like to have various different types of songs and different genres and situational songs. No matter is going on, I have something for that time or era.
When the songs of your heart start singing, you should listen...for its harmony will bring you happiness and the melody is the voice of your true spirit.
I think for many songwriter/performers, you need to go off by yourself and write the songs to begin with, but then you need people to bring them to life. So you have to be comfortable with solitude and also with being very social.