Pastoral Resources

I like to look at the songs like they're little movies.

I'm delighted about the track's success in the sports world, but the frustrating thing is, I don't think I got rich on it. The labels and publishers did very cheap deals on our songs.

I write a lot of music in my time off and I compose most of the songs on guitar. I've actually gone into the studio and recorded a few things, but it's tough trying to sell a song. It's all about finding that hook, that melody.

If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.

Stephen Sondheim told me that Oscar Hammerstein believed everything that he wrote. So there's great truth in the songs, and that's what was so wonderful to find.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I'm very conscious of developing my singing, technically and stylistically. I want it to become more individual, express more of me. That's my goal. These songs are steps along that way.

It seems to me like the Internet allows you to break that structure a little bit. You know, here's your CD that's going into stores, here's your EP that you offer online, here's a subscription for songs you recorded on the road, here's your live stuff streaming.

I knew that collaborating on songwriting would be difficult for a lot of people, because I was known very much, for my independence and the fact that I wrote these quirky songs that were not typical structure, not typical sound - you know, really original stuff.

I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.

I do like to write nasty songs. It's a useful weapon to have, and it's cathartic as well, because I create art out of anger, something positive out of something negative.

I'm more prone to his '70s material, which is what I was around for and watched a lot. I listen to a lot of that stuff. It probably influenced me quite a bit. I'm more drawn to the darker, sadder songs.

It was more that his career was going down again and he was tired of the songs. He was tired of the routine. And there was a point where he just kind of gave up. He couldn't face being 40. And he resorted to stimulants. There's a dark side there, a really dark side.

I quite like childlike songs, which sometimes cross over.

The Stones were nasty and ugly and doing songs I was familiar with.

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.

Every year we celebrate the holy season of Advent, O God. Every year we pray those beautiful prayers of longing and waiting, and sing those lovely songs of hope and promise.

That's what I find with any good song, you just have to let it happen. Out of about twenty songs you might write, one of any significance. It might be thirty or forty, but I just keep churning them out and churning them out in hope that one of them will stick.

We just sang real simple songs in a simple way that got to people. We didn't try to tart them up with orchestral arrangements and all the stuff. We were all blues fanatics. We like R+B and blues and simple, gut-feeling music.

It's funny, when I'm not on the road or doing stuff with Bad Company - or whatever- I've always written songs galore... a lot of stuff people don't even hear.