Song Quotes

Women stand for the objective world for a man. They stand for the thing that you're not and that's what you always reach for in a song.

An un-named song is like an un-named child, it has no identity.

I'm the guy who wrote The Authority Song. Did they think I was kidding? Did they think it was only a song to entertain?

When I finished a song that I thought was good, I thought, I don't know where that came from, so I have no idea if I can do that again. I'm talking like, a hundred and fifty songs down the line. I still feel that.

One of them would definitely be the Nelson Mandela gig, when I played the tribute song for him. He was up and dancing, and he really enjoyed it. It was a really lovely occasion.

When you write a song you have an idea of how it should be sung but it doesn't work out that way if someone else records it.

There's a whole bunch of unfinished stuff. Then I've got books of lyrics. I find it frustrating to finish a song and not be able to record it... so I don't write a million songs.

Jim Morrison's very good looking, but I don't like this version of the song. The Feliciano version is better.

She danced a jig, she sung a song that took my heart away.

Singing is a way of releasing an emotion that you sometimes can't portray when you're acting. And music moves your soul, so music is the source of the most intense emotions you can feel. When you hear a song and you're acting it's incredible. But when you're singing a song and you're acting it's even more incredible.

When you hear me, you know it's me, regardless of the song.

That song has the full extent of my mandolin abilities; I'm not a good mandolin player at all.

We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having their nails pulled out in dungeons so it's very hard for me to place any high value on the work that I do to write a song. Yeah, I work hard but compared to what?

We were the rebels of the music industry so we wanted to write a rebellious song.

I think it's important to really press on with the song writing and just go with it. There's no code, there's no craft... it's just let yourself shine through your music. If it's meant to be loved and heard, it'll happen.

That folk music led to learning to play, and making things up led to what turns out to be the most lucrative part of the music business - writing, because you get paid every time that song gets played.

I've never written a song that I thought was a hit.

I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I'd written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.

If my life was a song the title would probably be 'Clumsy', 'cause I'm clumsy.

Everything is Song. Everything is Silence. Since it all turns out to be illusion, perfectly being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, you are free to die laughing.

Music's always been really cathartic. It's the best drug for me to get away from the everyday pressures just for a second via a good song.

And he was going to give me a song, because I'm a singer and I wanted to sing in everything.

If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song.

Sinatra was pretty astute - he used the best songwriters around, he used all the resources, he covered every song from the era basically.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that's very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.

But when you get to a song, not only do you have to do a vocal melody, you have to write words and not be redundant and make some semblance of a story.

If my life were a song, what would it be? 'A Never Ending Road of Musical Good Times'.

I can reach the mass audience if I come from different perspectives on every song.

'None of Your Business.' It's the only Salt-N-Pepa song that I regret.