A Quote by Ann Leckie

I've seen music and songs used in stories, and while sometimes it works really well, often it doesn't. — © Ann Leckie
I've seen music and songs used in stories, and while sometimes it works really well, often it doesn't.
The term 'popular culture' always used to mean what the people do - pop songs, folk songs, music in general used to live because people would sing these songs and tell these stories together. Then all of these new technologies came out and it became the work of professionals.
Often people will ask me why a song was chosen and I don't always have a good answer for it. You try ideas and something works or sounds really cool. Sometimes songs are on the nose and sometimes they're more mysterious.
I write songs by sitting around in bars, so drinking songs are a little obvious. It's surprising that I don't write entirely drinking songs, since I am, in fact, drinking while writing the song. Drinking and love are the two principal sources of pleasure outside of music. There's only so many sources of pleasure, really. That's about it. Well, there are other arts as well. But none of them are as pleasurable as music, on a physical level.
It's always interesting - how do you actually convey thought through song? We're used to the convention on stage. In film, we used to be used to it, and now sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You need to be fresh and really look at the material.
My love for music was first seen by my father when as a child, I used to hum a lot of songs watching television and used to take part in singing competitions even at school.
Every musician creates a bank. You'll first check if any of the songs from the bank fits in, and if you feel it does, you suggest it to the filmmakers. Sometimes it works, while sometimes it gets rejected.
I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.
Well obviously, when you're in a band you have to diplomatic about things. Everybody wants to put in their two cents and while sometimes it works, often times it also doesn't, and a lot of times it leads to arguments, like when there's too many cooks in the kitchen.
Jazz presumes that it would be nice if the four of us-simpatico dudes that we are-while playing this complicated song together, might somehow be free and autonomous as well. Tragically, this never quite works out. At best, we can only be free one or two at a time-while the other dudes hold onto the wire. Which is not to say that no one has tried to dispense with wires. Many have, and sometimes it works-but it doesn't feel like jazz when it does. The music simply drifts away into the stratosphere of formal dialectic, beyond our social concerns.
What I'm trying to do is tell good stories through music. I think some of the best songs, the best country songs, are stories.
When you love what you do, you just really fall in love with it. Sometimes you record a lot more songs than the album will even hold. You record like 300 songs and only 12 songs go on the album. It takes time. But if you love what you do, it works out.
Sometimes when a record's done, I'm satisfied and I won't listen back to it for a while 'cause I'm usually pretty tired of the songs. Then I've got to learn them again to play them live, and sometimes it takes a while to realise it's a really good record.
I write songs all the time. Sometimes they're just weird songs I sing while changing a baby, or songs about annoying things that I sing to myself, or to friends while sitting at a bar, or about Christmas or New York.
I love the smell of a theater. The old rooms and the carpet and all that stuff. I love to tell stories. Even before I was doing music, I saw myself as a director. So most of my songs come in a play form, you know, where there are characters and stories, so I like to go beyond just the song sometimes.
Sometimes you write music to a script or while a film is being edited. Sometimes I write without seeing any images, but that's rare. The approach is often based on practical decisions, but I'm interested in the narrative and physical space that music can occupy in a film or play.
I used to retain information extremely fast, so perhaps it's hardening a bit and I don't take the impression as well as I used to. Instead of writing in free flight, I had to check on the stories all the time. So I have decided I better to do it while I am fresh!
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