A Quote by Bonnie McKee
I wanted to make a video for the holidays, but none of the traditional holiday songs were moving me.
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I always wanted to sing, I always loved to sing. As a child I was singing all the time, and my parents were singing all the time, but not the traditional songs because they were very Christian; the Christian Sámis learnt from the missionaries and the priests that the traditional songs were from the Devil, so they didn't teach them to their children, but they were singing the Christian hymns all the time. So I think I got my musical education in this way. And of course the traditional songs were always under the hymns, because it doesn't just disappear, the traditional way of singing.
I wanted to try to make songs that worked as songs, not just as productions. People wanted me to do a solo acoustic session, they were like "Can you play song on the piano?" and I was like "Not really. It doesn't really work." I wanted to write songs that would work in a variation of instrumentation.
I've got two young children, so holidays are not the same as they used to be. There are now two types: family holidays and holidays you need from that holiday.
I love the holidays on 'The Middle' because I feel like I'm getting that very traditional American holiday experience that I never had growing up.
Over the years, I've heard pop artists do some Christmas songs, and I haven't fully cared for them. They weren't the traditional Christmas music that I was raised on and love. Thinking of that, I wanted to make my songs mimic the classic Christmas songs.
'Phase' is a special song to me, and I wanted the video to make you feel like you are on a journey with me. My team and I shot this video three different times, and every time I got it back, I wanted to go a step further.
I built a reputation as a songwriter in the industry before my own hits. People were used to coming to me for songs. There were songs like 'Clown' and 'Mountains' that were my songs that I wanted to keep. But the record labels saw me as a songwriter. It was hard to get people to believe in me as an artist.
The other songs [of Billie Holiday] - "Body and Soul" is like the standard - I also wanted some songs that I knew I would sound good on, as a producer. It's been the same nine songs since I debuted it back in 2012.
I wanted to be a pro wrestler, but my mom didn't let me. I used to make videos and stuff in the backyard. I had a buddy named Daniel Decker, and we used to have a tag team called the 'Deck Garra Era.' We used to make video after video. We were the tag team champions, but then we turned on each other.
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.
We wanted to be successful, we wanted to shoot a video. We just wrote a song and we were like, 'OK, let's go onstage! Let's shoot a video for it!' That was always our dream... We just wanted to have fans and a crowd who would listen.
I also tried to focus on songs that Billie Holiday wrote, songs that she had a hand in shaping, like "Strange Fruit"; songs that were written for her or songs that she wrote herself, like "Fine and Mellow" or "God Bless The Child."
With fitness, I decided that I wanted to get into shape, and my passion for fitness and a desire to help other people do the same made me decide to do a fitness video. People always tell me they want to work out to my songs, so why not make a fitness DVD.
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.
This is as good a time as any to comment on what I think has grown into an abuse. Congress makes holidays and every time there isa holiday it is the practice for one department to telephone over to another department and say we are going to have an extra holiday in this department and what is your department going to do about it.... If it comes on Saturday, they want a holiday on Friday, and of course they couldn't come back and travel on Sunday and so they want another holiday on Monday to get back on.
Actually the royal family were very gracious and good to me. But I also found that the British establishment were never quite sure what to make of me. I was a Labour figure, but I'd come from a very middle-class background. In one sense I offended both traditional right and traditional left. But I thought that was no bad thing.
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