A Quote by Buffy Sainte-Marie
I'm not like a professional writer with professional skills. Songs kind of come into my head the same way they did when I was a kid. I say I'm an overgrown kindergarten kid. I work on songs.
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Well, I was always really mature for my age. I'm an above-age reader. I'm not trying to come off like, 'I have a high IQ number. My parents gave me the test.' That's the way I was, I guess. I am still a kid. I love doing kid activities. I'm such a kid, but when I'm on set, I do like to be professional.
One thing I can say is that as I've gotten older, I've gotten younger. I've grown up but I've kind of immatured (but matured!) but I've allowed myself to be a kid. When I was a kid, I was so much of a professional and carried myself that way. It was crazy.
I'm not the kind of writer that can wake up and say, "Okay, I'm gonna write a song today," and have that song be the kind I would want to record. The songs of mine that I end up liking are songs that come from real experience. They're like chapter titles in my life.
I used to write songs that mimicked other songs that I would hear as a kid, cos I was 12 years old when I was writing those, right. And you hear a radio so all I'd write about was [sings] "hey girl, look at you", you know what I mean. I think that even doing that made it easier for me to write non-personal songs because, from a kid, I never wrote personal songs, they were always like mimicking. And now I'm just trying to understand my writing and where it's coming from.
I grew up as normally as any other kid. Between that small TV part I did at five and when I turned professional actor at 18, I stayed away from the limelight, so I was just like any typical kid who went to school.
The best songs that I write usually come in, like, two minutes, and I think a lot of songwriters would probably say those kind of songs that come just like that are the good ones.
The hardest thing about being a kid actor is just kind of separating 'this is my professional life' and 'this is my kid life.' That was always the hard part for me.
I was obsessed with country music when I was a kid, and it's definitely had a huge influence on the way I write songs. I was always attracted to songs that had a brilliant pun or a clever turn of phrase, but came from a dark, bitter place. As a writer, I've always gravitated towards that feeling.
On 'Heartbreaker,' I had to sing those songs. I drank the way I did those songs. I ate the way I did those songs. I communicated the way I did those songs. With 'Gold,' I was trying to prove something to myself. I wanted to invent a modern classic.
The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.
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.
Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.
I do feel I'm responsible to carrying on the music. That's what I was charged with as a kid. When I was a little girl, I was told, 'When we are gone' - when you're a kid, you never think they'll ever be gone - 'you have to keep the music alive, the Carter Family songs, and add your own songs.'
Imagine, 24 pages of superhero adventures produced by the same writer and artist every month!! How did they do it? (What? By being professional about it? But that's too much like work!)
I have amassed an enormous amount of songs about every particular condition of humankind - children's songs, marriage songs, death songs, love songs, epic songs, mystical songs, songs of leaving, songs of meeting, songs of wonder. I pretty much have got a song for every occasion.
It was not cool to be that fun, bubbly kid, so I would just go off on my own and sing and make up songs, and that's how I think I developed into the kind of artist and writer that I am.
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