Song quotes
10.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"The album is a definite departure. I haven't written original material before, except for one song on my first album, but Elvis and I did six songs together on this one."
"I like to interpret 'Call me a River', as if I'm saying, 'Now you're telling me you love me after all that, and I'm telling you to shove off.' That's my interpretation. But I would never 'say' that because somebody else might interpret the song in another way."
"I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart."
"All the songs that were written for that album are just all our first sophomore songs. So they're all from real life. Very sweet and very innocent. I think the theme of the album probably was just that it was our first record. ... Back when we were first making records, you didn't just make the music, you put a great deal of energy into the way it looked, and every word that was written on the whole thing."
"The music certainly plays a major role. You can be free enough to comfort each other, to touch each other, to embrace each other, to engage each other, to not be afraid of each other. The music certainly has that very strong element. Go back to folk songs, gospel, jazz, and spirituals. See, all of that came out of tremendous pain and hurt, rejection, loss, alienation, and abandonment. What I'm doing is I'm expressing my pain and hope at the same time."
"I love Mary Chapin Carpenter songs. I love her songs 'Come On, Come On' and 'I Am A Town', they're two of my favorite songs."
"Baby it's you. You're the one I love. You're the one I need. You're the only one I see."
"When I think about the songs I might record, I ask myself, 'Can I picture anybody I know back home sitting in their truck cranking this up?'"
"That's another way of writing a song, of course. Just talking to somebody that ain't there. That's the best way. That's the truest way. Then it just becomes a question of how heroic your speech is. To me, it's something to strive after."
"If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and good. Folk songs had taught me that."
"Most songs have bridges in them, to distract listeners from the main verses of a song so they don't get bored. My songs don't have a lot of bridges because lyric poetry never had them."
"My songs are personal music, they're not communal. I wouldn't want people singing along with me. It would sound funny. I'm not playing campfire meetings. I don't remember anyone singing along with Elvis, Carl Perkins or Little Richard."
"Well, it grow together. It's like, first time I try to write a song is the first time I try to play the guitar. And so I can write a song without the guitar. But it really grow together. I really like stay with my guitar. But it just happen, is the inspiration come through man. Because, I personally, it look like, could I write a whole heap a tune, it look like. But I pick special tune to write. Cause a man can think of plenty things. Yuh know wah ah mean."
"All of the artists did such a beautiful job I can’t thank them enough. I’m just honored that 'God Only Knows' was chosen. 'God Only Knows' is a very special song. An extremely spiritual song and one of the best I’ve ever written."
"Every rock song is some variation of 'Pull down your pants'"
"'Darkness on the Edge of Town' came out of a huge body of work that had tons of very happy songs."
"I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory."
"Depending on which day, and how I am feeling on that day, I have a different favorite song on the album. One day it might be 'Karma', and other days it is 'Stay For A While'"
"All the songs that were written for that album are just all our first sophomore songs. So they're all from real life. Very sweet and very innocent."
"If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me it's good. But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is all about."
