A Quote by Alan Jackson
I could have done a hundred songs, really. It was hard to narrow them down, because I tried to pick songs for the most part that actually did have some effect on me or influenced me in the past.
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My own personal tastes don't really have an effect on whether song is a parody target or not. But having said that, I try to pick songs that I actually like because I realize that I have to live with these songs for a long time, from when I'm working on them in the studio to possibly playing them onstage for the rest of my life. So I try not to pick songs that I know would drive me crazy.
I've always covered some Dylan songs. I do one or two. And I do them because they're great songs. You know some people cover songs they wish they could have written, not me. I like to cover songs I know I could not have ever written.
It never really interested me in the past but, for the first time, I wanted to make a pop record. I thought a good way of doing it would be to make songs that didn't really make sense to me as songs; songs that I couldn't just sit down and play in front of someone and then get them to play over it.
Writin songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent idea, the songs are the easy part. Actually having something to say is the hard part. If you get an idea for a song, then it pulls you along. There are just some ideas that you get that are really hard to edit out; it's hard to stop thinking about some bad ideas. So you just finish it and you end up putting it on a record.
And the thing about me is, I have a lot of mellow songs, because they're the easiest for me to write. I wanted to try to make some more upbeat songs, so, I ended up gravitating toward writing songs with friends, which was a great learning process, and also we came up with great songs. Those are the songs that came out the most naturally.
I do craft songs, that this is designed. It's almost like the song was written to produce this desired effect. And it probably really works for somebody. It's maybe somebody's favorite tune, and it's really hard to come down on that, even if I feel a little embarrassed for it. Because some songs are written like a commercial, and that can be a little strange.
I care about the records I make and I love writing songs and some songs are really dear to me and they mean something. But the memory of making the records and the activities surrounding the records, the people involved in them is actually a bigger thing to me.
Throughout all of the changes that have happened in my life, one of the priorities I've had is to never change the way I write songs and the reasons I write songs. I write songs to help me understand life a little more. I write songs to get past things that cause me pain. And I write songs because sometimes life makes more sense to me when it's being sung in a chorus, and when I can write it in a verse.
Early on I was just a kid in a cowboy hat with a bunch of other guys in a room that were putting out some records. Now thank God, in the past 3 or 4 years, when.. it's really hard to burn an image of a face with a song these days. I think that the songs like 'Don't Happen Twice' and 'Young' were songs that helped me do that and I think that 'I Go Back'(did) that even more.
I have many favorite actors that have influenced me all my life and that are still idols and models to me. It would be extremely hard for me to narrow it down to a few because each and every one of them influence me in a different way, on a different level, with diverse things, emotions, or thoughts.
Me and Thugger could make nine songs in a day and then choose which songs we like the most and think is gonna do something. With other people, it's like, we pick one song, and we hope it's the one.
Most of the people you see me working for me are actually with me. And I'm proud to say that I've known them for 20 years almost. I've written songs with, produced songs with them a lot of times. I don't deviate form my comfort zone. I feel like when God brings people to you, it's good to keep 'em around.
For 'Narrow Stairs', the majority of the songs I brought in were guitar songs - songs we could sit in a room and just play. I can honestly say I had more fun and felt more inspired on this record than anything that we had done in a long time.
Many times, people have come up to me after singing some songs, and they'd say, 'Richie, do you know what you did?' And I'd say, 'What?' And they'd go, 'I wrote these songs down for you to sing, and you sang them all in a row.' But that's the kind of communication that happens, you know.
Often for me, if I hear a song I know, it clicks for me and I hear it in a different way and I think, "I could sing that song. I've got something to say about that song. Wanting to connect with an audience and wanting them to rethink songs; it is actually important to do songs they're familiar with. Also, I love those songs. In a way, I think I've changed people's perceptions of what a cabaret show like this could be.
I can't stress enough how important it is to write bad songs. There's a lot of people who don't want to finish songs because they don't think they're any good. Well they're not good enough. Write it! I want you to write me the worst songs you could possible write me because you won't write bad songs. You're thinking they're bad so you don't have to finish it. That's what I really think it is. Well it's all right. Well, how do you know? It's not done!
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