Song Quotes

Without a song, each day would be a century.

'The Christmas Song,' by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance; to me it just sounds like the holidays. I've never sung it, because Nat's version is so perfect. I gotta leave it alone.

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.

Lionel Richie, love song, OK, thank you very much, good-bye. And all of a sudden I realized that, in my career, what has made my career has always been the surprises.

I'm sure there's going to be some material from This Is Not Going To Be Pretty. I usually use that song to just introduce myself to the audience, although the patter in between the song is always different.

I have never sung a whole song on my own before and I am not the best dancer in the world, but I would rather try and fall than not not try at all.

I was singing a lot of waltzes. And I was with Jerry Kennedy, my producer, and he was playing me some songs, and he said, hey, I want to play you this song that I'm going to get Jackie Ward to record.

I've always said it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes.

I did write a letter to the archdiocese who'd banned the song, Only the Good Die Young, asking them to ban my next record.

If Mozart were around now he would write a killer rock song.

I don't like lyrics that are just thrown together, that were obviously written as you went along, or the song was already written and the guy made up the lyrics in five minutes.

We played a gig and we had a song that was offensive to people of the Jewish persuasion, and we led off with it, and they were offended by it, and that was that.

Unless I really loved it and felt really passionate about it, I would just kind of abort the song and start a new one.

We wanted to write a whole song about partying and then taking Yellow Cabs home. That's the weirdest topic we've ever thought of centering a song around.

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

I don't want to scream 'Immigrant Song' every night for the rest of my life, and I'm not sure I could.

Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song. Until I heard 'Little Earthquakes' all my lyrics used really obvious analogies like rain for tears.

I try to keep my ear to the streets without sacrificing who I am as an artist. If a song needs a drum machine I'll use a drum machine. If it needs a drummer, I'll use a real drummer.

I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.

I think the melody is the first time I hear in a song and if I like the melody, then I'll pay closer attention to the lyrics.

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.

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.

Eminem's 'Lose Yourself' is my go-to song to pump myself up if I'm having a tough time or if I get really nervous right before a speech.

It's like, it's up to the people to fall in love with the song. The record company can only do so much.

He's written some great songs. I thought that "Blues Man" was a perfect song for me to do as a tribute.

This 'Making Mirrors' album is far more personal, even if there's a character element to the sounds I'm working with. Every song on this album I stand behind; I feel like I have a close relationship with them. There are older songs where I can feel myself writing a story, so this is the first album where I'm proud of every lyric.'

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?