Song Quotes - Page 428

The orchestra's an amazing instrument, but I don't want to just arrange my songs for it. I think that might be kind of boring and a little bit overdramatic, perhaps. I'm still just having too much fun doing it my way, for the time being.

Some of your best songs come from a desperate attempt to escape, so sitting in an airport for hours I can just start pulling out little fragments of songs from my head. A lot of times a melody will just occur to me and be my companion for a couple of months.

I can't relate to the process of just disappearing and writing a record, all at the same time, followed by the sort of drudgery of going out on tour and trying to recreate the record, playing the same 12 songs every night.

There's always a tension between wanting to write a really concise, instant gratification type song that gets under your skin the first time you hear it, and wanting to really stretch out. I think it's a healthy tension.

Some of my earlier songs are kind of more about mental illness.

I create little challenges for myself, like, 'Okay, whatever you do in this song, you've got to somehow work in Greek Cypriots,' or something like that.

The way I work, I'm not a confessional singer-songwriter.

The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.

No, it's not dissatisfaction that inspires me to tinker with my songs, it's just restlessness.

The first splurge of creativity is kind of free, and the last 30 percent is painstakingly hard work, but it's good to light a fire and make it public and create that expectation. It's become part of the writing process, really, a way to ask the audience what they think, how they think it's going. I can't write songs in a vacuum.

Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary.

If something gets under my own skin, and keeps reoccurring, it starts to take on a certain weight and value, and I think, "I have to put this in the song. I have no choice but to mention Greek Cypriots in this song." It's a little internal challenge to myself. Like creating little imaginary rituals in yourself to help the song go from nonexisting to existing.

I know that my passion is for opera, but sometimes I like also to sing songs, because there are many beautiful melodies.

I am honored I have performed 'Quizas Quizas Quizas' with Jennifer Lopez, an eclectic artist who thanks to the charismatic power of her voice and to her soft sensuality, has managed to make this song particularly convincing.

What is certain is that singing is not merely modulating a song by means of the voice: we sing and we celebrate the beauty that we can grow and live every day. If you want to sing and give emotions to those who are listening, you must have something to tell through your singing; you have to use singing like an instrument to tell something.

Those people online are analyzing everything both of you do. Andre, every new song you're on gets scrutinized.

I'm feeling more and more thoughts that aren't songs, just reflections. I'm always been very shy and in some ways a prisoner in one language and I feel that the liberation of creativity has to be in all senses. So I've been deciding to publishing something very simple but very small at the same time, nothing egocentric.

The moment someone says, 'Hey, everyone, listen to the words in this song,' your party is over.

I hope that the next time you go to a concert, the band doesn't play the song you wanna hear! And instead, they just play songs off their new album!

ahhhh...organic and rich like good soil... makes me want to listen and hear it grow. the songs are honest and dimensional. it's music to my ears.

If some event happens and it seems really important to me and moving to me, I'll write it down in my lyric book knowing that it will come out in a song.

I ask but one thing of you, only one, That always you will be my dream of you; That never shall I wake to find untrue All this I have believed and rested on, Forever vanished, like a vision gone Out into the night. Alas, how few There are who strike in us a chord we knew Existed, but so seldom heard its tone We tremble at the half-forgotten sound. The world is full of rude awakenings And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground, Yet still our human longing vainly clings To a belief in beauty through all wrongs. O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!

To me, it's all about the song. Songs are what make me excited. You hear a great song and you want to record it or get a great idea and you want to write it.

I don't write songs that don't affect me on some level, because I figure if I am not moved by it, if its not something that I have a longing to celebrate or to be reminded of, if it doesn't affect me, then how can I possibly think it is going to affect somebody else. My touchstone is write something that matters.

The great thing about a song is that no one has to know your story. But if you tell it in a way that has clarity and means something to somebody else, then it can apply to their story.