Pastoral Resources

I think some people found the production took away from the actual songs, which I can understand.

I just couldn't get anyone to sing my songs, so I had to sing my own tunes.

I had this talent for these stupid little teenage songs.

When you write songs, you can't really point out the exact thing you're inspired by. It's more a state or a mood or an atmosphere that you're trying to put into words.

Sometimes you're trapped in writing songs and you don't have enough distance from what you do anymore and you need the talent and the years of other people to come and jump in.

It's always a mixture of fiction and your own story. It's more I recreate atmospheres and moods through songs.

I know what my job is: I write the songs, I sing them, I play them on the piano.

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.

After that I didn't listen to music as much because '70s music just wasn't... I remember all the songs, but it wasn't because I was into them, you know what I mean?

I would have to work on the song and figure out how they wanted the song done, because they're such high-intensity songs. We figure that out first, then I go back and listen to it and go over and rehearse stuff with it and try to get a feel for the words.

If it were bad songs, yeah, I'd speak up, but they're not bad songs.

That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar.

My mother bought a piano, put it in the front room, and I just started writing my songs.

This is my seventh decade... and every once in a while I get a hankering to re-visit these songs again... songs with which I have had a great relationship.

United Artists wanted to do records with me. I had no idea, what a rare thing that was... to make an album. And they put a guy with me working on songs, and I got busy with films. I just kind of let it slide. Isn't that amazing?

I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best way I could.

Kids know me from their Grease DVD, so they instantly respond. You can hear a pin drop when I do my old songs.

So, it ended up being what you have there, seven songs brand new and ten live songs which is a good mix.

To think that when they come out with these gigantic songs, it's pretty tough to top them, you know.

Every single band in the world has these gigantic songs that people are obsessed with.