A Quote by Colin Hay

I like to let the songs speak so that they can go through some kind of rebirth as you play them. — © Colin Hay
I like to let the songs speak so that they can go through some kind of rebirth as you play them.
I go back to things all the time. It's really nice, too, like when I'm going through some kind of a writer's block, and I'm feeling uninspired, I go to some of my oldest songs from over the years and sift through them, and one thing that's very nice is to see how I've grown up a little bit. A little bit.
When I go to see people, I always kind of hope they are going to play some kind of songs I know. So you've got to know your audience. It's kind of something that is a blessing and a curse in a way. You're obligated to play some of that stuff that people know, but I don't think that's all you have to do.
So what I do, more than play any instrument - I mean, I love to play - but more than that, I write songs. Songs that are about living, about what it's like to be going through all the things that people go through in life.
The quality of my songs will get through to people. They are good songs. Lyrically, some of them are interesting: there's stories, a bit of humour. I'm very confident about the music I play, you know.
There are some bands for whom that works very well and it's no disrespect to them because I'm sure there's something honest and natural about it, but for us I feel like it would be dishonest and kinda disrespectful to that artwork to do that. To be like: "Okay, we're going to go back and only play these songs, even though we have an hour to an hour and a half set and we gotta play more songs, but we'll skimp you on your extra half hour." That's just silly to me.
Some of Eminem's rap songs kind of have the teenage love songs like the fifties love songs. It's kind of like domestic drama set to music. He is really good storyteller.
I like the songs to appear very simple and to flow by without any kind of hiccup, but there has to be this impression of other currents underneath. Like if the songs aren't, on some level, multidimensional, we lose interest in them.
Every one of those old songs like "What's My Age Again?" and "All the Small Things" is like a tattoo or a scrapbook or an old photograph. There are just songs that define certain moments in your life. Everyone has a song that got them through a bad breakup or they put on and it made them feel like they wanted to go out and kick the world's ass with their friends on a weekend. Those songs still feel like that to me.
I really connect with every character that I've played, just because I kinda have to; as an actor, you want to take them in and get to know them and like them; because they're evil, you kinda have to like them so that you can understand them and play them and play them with some kind of empathy.
So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.
Some like them hot,some like them cold. Some like them when they're not to darn old Some like them fat,some like them lean. Some like them only at sweet sixteen. Some like them dark,some like them light. Some like them in the park,late at night. Some like them fickle,some like them true, But the time I like them is when they're like you
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.
When I go speak to these kids through my foundation and am able to sit down and tell them some of the things that I've been through, they can look up and relate to me, and they can understand the feelings I had that are similar to what they're going through and feeling.
It's cool because you don't know how certain songs are going to go over until you play them live. For some reason, "Shivers" gets a huge response. I was not expecting it. When I start singing in the middle of "Baby Get Worse", they go nuts. Just little surprises like that.
Luckily, there's enough people who have recorded songs that I can just go online and kind of figure out how to play them.
When I listen to songs, I can smell a rat. I like songs that speak to me with some deeper truth.
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