Pastoral Resources

I don't think of them as teenage songs. The things that happen to you in high school are the same things that happen your entire life. You can fall in love at 60; you can get rejected at 80.

A lot of songs you write are just for exercise - just pencil sharpeners.

I love the art form of songwriting. I get to carry a lot of vibes to a lot of people. My songs are all about the human condition, and people will be able to find themselves in my songs.

We'd have to suck away at oxygen canisters between songs just so that we could keep playing.

I've done lots of songs for film soundtracks and things like that - stuff I'm not ashamed of, but that doesn't represent my legacy with the Pretenders.

I don't think any of our lyrics have ever been erotic in a sexual term, because I haven't really written, touched on, that subject too often. But, uh... I mean, I suppose they could point the finger at us for violence maybe in certain songs.

Music and songs are written at different periods of time, at different times in your life. They reflect the feelings you have and to be honest, I quite like having positive emotions.

To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best.

If you put all the songs together that I've written on band records, and put it up next to my solo record, there's definitely a different kind of feel than Billy's songs.

Happy songs are very difficult to write. How many truly great upbeat songs are there?

So we used to look for funny songs, and learn them and play them. And we used to play them in pubs.

But mostly, I wrote songs and Viv wrote songs.

I think I'm in a really nice position, where I'm sure I could do another show if I wanted to do one, but right now the main thing in my mind is writing songs.

I think I had actually served my apprenticeship as a writer of fiction by writing all those songs. I had already been through phases of autobiographical or experimental stuff.

If you look at my last songs and first short stories, there is a real connection between them.

When I finally decided to do the show, I only had two weeks to learn the choreography and the songs in French.

I hope to bring people to God with my songs.

Do you know most of the Jewish songs have the same trend of sadness as Negro spirituals?

Blues are the songs of despair, but gospel songs are the songs of hope.

All those songs reflect all the people that live within me.