“The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too - eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko's, Fatburger, Subway - I was a sandwich artist - and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.” PeopleWritingYearsFirstsJobsArtistSongHalfFourClaimsStudiosSandwichesElevenWriting SongsSubwayHalf A YearProcessors Author:Frank Ocean
“We'll only be playing four new songs live, but all the material for the next album is basically finished.” SongNextFourMaterialsAlbumsFinishedNew Songs Author:Scott Putesky
“When you first sit down to write the first song, until you've maybe got three or four under your belt, it's always, to me, like a mountain to climb. You look at that one blank piece of paper and you think, `God, how many songs do I have to write here?' It always feels like pressure.” ThinkingFeelsWritingFirstsLooksSongThreePiecesFourMountainPaperPressureClimbsBlankBelts Author:Martin Gore
“I would have issues with directions songs were taking, but I never heard one of Carlos' [Dangler] basslines and said, "I don't like that, do something else." The same goes for the beat and the guitars. I think that's why we were able to make four albums together.” ThinkingSaidAbleTogetherSongIssuesFourHeardBeatsGuitarAlbums Author:Paul Banks
“The main things to rebel against - over-production, too much technology, overthinking. It's a spoiled mentality; everything is too easy. If you want to record a song, you can buy Pro Tools and record four hundred guitar tracks. That leads to overthinking, which kills any spontaneity and the humanity of the performance.” IfsWantSongHumanityEasyTechnologyRecordsToo MuchFourHundredToolsPerformancesGuitarTrackProductionsRebelMentalitySpontaneitySpoiledOverthinking Author:Jack White
“I always thought my days spent in darkness [as a child she had cataracts and was unable to see for nearly four years] gave me a very special sensitivity. Much later, when I really wanted to hear, really 'see' a song, I'd close my eyes, and when I wanted to bring it out of the very depths of myself, out of my guts, out of my belly, when the song had to come from far away, I'd close my eyes.” YearsChildrenEyeWantedSongDarknessFourSpecialDepthGutsFour YearsFar AwaySensitivityBelly Author:Edith Piaf
“I actually had a week where I literally wrote four songs and all of them are on my album. But sometimes you'll go a week where you'll write songs and they never see the light of day. So that process takes a long time.” WritingLongSometimesLightSongProcessFourWeekLong TimeAlbums Author:Laura Bell Bundy
“When I first started making music, it was learning other peoples songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.” WritingFirstsIdeasUsedSongStuffSidesFourSingingTrackProductionsMelodyVehicleLyrical Author:M. Ward
“Acting is a difficult profession, it really is. It's different than singing. With singing you may have one song and four people to record it - but they'll all do it differently and they'll all have that option. Whereas with actors there might be one part, and five hundred actors all want the same role - it's so much more competitive. It's an incredibly painful profession because you get so much rejection.” PeopleWantMayDifferentMightSongActorsDifficultActingRolesRecordsFiveFourSingingHundredPainfulProfessionRejection Author:Olivia Newton-John
“An old pop music producer once said that there are really only four kinds of song a person can write: "I love you/I hate you/go away/come back!" That's a funny observation.” WritingKindPersonsSaidHateSongFourLove YouI HatePopsProducersObservationGoing AwayHate YouI Hate YouPop MusicMusic Producer Author:Matt Redman
“The tweets are getting shorter, but the songs are still 4 minutes long. You're coming up with 140-character zingers, and the song is still 4 minutes long…I realized about a year ago that I couldn't have a complete thought anymore. And I was a tweetaholic. I had four million twitter followers, and I was always writing on it. And I stopped using twitter as an outlet and I started using twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn't write a song.” WritingYearsMindLongStillsCharacterSongMillionsFourMinutesYears AgoInstrumentsI RealizedFollowersOutletsTweet140 Character Author:John Mayer
“I was writing with different people in Nashville - whoever I could. Eddie Hinton came on the scene about 1963, and about four years later we wrote a ton of songs together. I drifted around, but Eddie and I had some cuts through the '60s and '70s. I went on the road with Kris Kristofferson in 1970.” PeopleWritingYearsDifferentTogetherSongFourCuttingSceneFour YearsDifferent PeoplesNashville Author:Donnie Fritts
“A lot of the album is made of love songs I've written over the past three or four years that have lasted the test of time. It's probably the thing that connects the songs together other than the sound of my vocals.” YearsMadeTogetherPastSongThreeSoundFourWrittenTestsAlbumsFour YearsVocalOver The PastTest Of Time Author:Vance Joy
“The first time I knew what I wanted to do with my life was when I was about four years old. I was listening to an old Victrola, playing a railroad song...I thought that was the most wonderful, amazing thing...That you could take this piece of wax and music would come out of that box. From that day on, I wanted to sing on the radio.” YearsFirstsWantedSongPiecesFourWonderfulListeningFirst TimeRadioBoxesFour YearsAmazing ThingsRailroads Author:Johnny Cash
“If you were to say to me that you needed a romantic and sentimental song in four hours, I would have that song written in four hours.” IfsSongHoursFourWrittenNeededSentimental Author:Alice Cooper
“When it came to using elements of your personal life in your work, my mother was the master, or the mistress. There were three or four songs she wrote about my father - songs about failed love.” MotherSongThreeFatherFourMastersElementsPersonal LifeMistress Author:Rufus Wainwright
“Right now I feel so inspired, it's hard to believe. I've written about 20 songs in the last two days. I'd gone about four months without writing a thing.” FeelsWritingBelieveTwoHardLastsSongGoneFourWrittenMonthsRight NowInspiredTwo DaysHard To Believe Author:Tommy Bolin
“I never experimented with the hoddu like I wanted to do. Like on the song "Allah Addu," the hoddu and the voice is something that belongs to West African culture. When you go to the north of Mali, in the past it was just the singer and one instrument player. We never really did have that on our CDs. On some other songs, like "Laare Yoo," we have a whole section of hoddu, something like four of them playing together.” WholeWantedTogetherPastSongCultureVoiceFourPlayerInstrumentsWestSingersSectionsCdsAfrican CultureMaliPlaying Together Author:Baaba Maal
“I've been doing four-track songs by myself since I was like a teenager, where I'd sing in a way that I ... I just didn't think other people would like it, so I didn't play it for them but eventually I got over that, which I'm happy that I did, because it's kind of a drag to be playing a kind of music that you don't really like as much as another kind.” PeopleThinkingWayKindPlaySongFourTrackTeenagerDrag Author:Elliott Smith
“When I write - I always write on my own - I demo those songs on a four-track.” WritingSongMy OwnFourTrackDemos Author:PJ Harvey