Songs Quotes

As far as I'm concerned, I'm now in the business of making spiritual records and using my voice for that purpose. I'm not going to be singing songs that I made in the past. I closed the door on that incarnation of Sinead O'Connor.

I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That's what I do. That's my job. Simple.

Every one of the songs was based around picking an acoustic guitar. That was part of the concept from the beginning, that the tempos were going to go from slow to almost mid-tempo.

When I think about putting together an album, the process of listening to hundreds of songs each time and picking out the best 10 or so that will go on the record, it really sinks in as to just how many songs I've listened to all these years.

With Whitney she has such a unique sound and powerful instrument that she made those songs her own. She might as well have written them because she brought such a power and passion to them that were very unique. She has a great gift.

You know, I always when people ask me, like, what is my most favorite song, I quote Duke Ellington, when they would ask him, what's his favorite composition? And I say, I haven't written it yet. Because, you know, there are different songs for different occasions.

All I ever wanted to do was write songs and get on a bus and go play them for people.

You know, songs often have a very coloured past. They might have something about them but it still doesn't work, so someone else adds a bit, and someone else adds a bit so perhaps one day I'll know its full history.

So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.

Sometimes you sing songs about the way you want to feel more than the way you actually do feel.

We would turn everything into songs in those days.

The invention of Bob Dylan with his guitar belongs in its way to the same kind of tradition of something meant to be heard, as the songs of Homer.

I'm not used to not having enough time to live with the songs. Usually, if I write something, I live with it for a little while.

Sometimes we drop in and do an acoustic set somewhere, and that's really fun to take all these insanely loud songs, and to do them quiet. It's really a sight to see... or to hear!

It's an interesting line that I walk. The AIDS crisis has done a lot for my songs and made them proliferate, and my songs have contributed a lot to that cause as well.

John Lennon and Ringo Starr liked my songs. I used to write songs and they heard me sing songs on stage in London.

You know, being an entertainer is partly being on the road, and a lot of your songs come from the road.

When I go to shows, I'm really looking forward to hearing the songs I know. I don't like it when a band tries to expose me to new stuff.

I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.

Well, Neighbours wanted to do a song on the show, and they asked me what songs I had. I told them I'd just written this song, called Born to Try, and I had just gone overseas and spoken to some people from Song about it.

Dad really had little to do with the songs, except to perform them.

You have to live what you write, or you have to know it. There are exceptions, like story songs, where you just have to have your facts straight. But I think you don't have to live a hard life to be a good or interesting songwriter.

It's really a sad story, and I liked that. The songs on this album talk about relationships in every aspect.

I was never trying to write a hit. I was just trying to write good songs and get a message out, and it was my great good fortune to be popular.

Even if you're specific about the character of the song, it's more exciting to place them, juxtapose them in such a way as to make an adventure out of the sequence of the songs.

My favorite album would have to be Rocket To Russia. I feel this album has the most classic Ramones songs.

My songs are more arrangements than they are songs.

I subscribe to that school of thespian - to be a wandering minstrel or traveling player, a thing ofrags and patches, of ballads, songs and snatches.

I've never... when I was having songs on the airwaves, and that sort of thing, I never felt a sense of pressure anywhere except from myself, to do things the way I wanted to do them; to feel authentic; to feel like I was presenting my true self to the world.

Poems and songs penned as an unstoppable outpouring of the heart take on a life of their own. They transcend the limits of nationality and time as they pass from person to person, from one heart to another.