A Quote by Don Felder

I try to write five or six songs each year and not just in one genre. — © Don Felder
I try to write five or six songs each year and not just in one genre.
Write down five things you love to do. Next, write down five things that you're really good at. Then just try to match them up! Revisit your list once a year to make sure you're on the right track.
I started writing songs so late and I had so many day jobs - jobs just to pay the bills. So, when I started doing this, I said, "I'm never gonna do anything to corrupt this. Never try to "sell it." Never gonna do anything to make this a job." I can go five months without writing a song. Then something will happen and I'll write six songs in a week.
If you look at the charts every year, there may be five or ten memorable songs from each year.
I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit.
It can get a little costly if you try and leave it until then to write songs. But you're writing all the time. You're collecting songs. I've had songs that have been collected over a two-year period for my next record.
I think when we were starting out, it was more about imitating our songwriting heroes. We would try to write songs like Neil Finn, or we would try to write songs like Ray Davies, or we would try to write songs like Glenn Tilbrook.
I suppose ever since I was about 14, I remember listening to "Sgt. Pepper's," and I remember thinking, "how do you possibly write songs like that?" I remember starting to try and write songs around that age, but just sitting around with an acoustic guitar, and try to come up with ideas for songs, and that's just what I've done ever since. I just never really stopped doing that, I suppose.
I love writing Christmas music. It's some of the easiest songs to write... You draw from your own memories - it's kind of a wellspring of inspiration, in a way. With other songs, you know, you spend six months just trying to figure out what to write about.
Every time we get days off, we try to go home and record five or six songs.
I've recorded 25 to 30 songs in a single night, singing five or six takes of each song. I'm very disciplined.
I always try to write the best song I can in the moment, and those songs are often going to end up on Death Cab for Cutie records. I don't set out to write a solo song or write a band song. I just write, and where that songs ends up is kind of TBD.
I think if you listen to our records, they come at different points in your life. When people say to me that Stars records have themes, I think what they mean is we write songs - or try to write songs - that are timeless. We try to write songs that catch you at the right time in your life, and that you can hold on to. We write kitchen sink songs. If you're doing the dishes or you're driving to your mom's funeral, or if you're getting over having done MDMA and you feel sad, you can listen to Stars because we're not going to demand of you that you be cool.
I have this theory about us. When we started writing our own songs, we were 17 years old. When you're 17, you write songs for other 17-year-olds. We stopped growing musically when we were 17. We still write songs for 17-year-olds.
If I'm writing... even a piece of a song... I write it down. If it still resonates six months down the line, a year, even five, those are the ones you put in your bag and you take to the studio. You come to realize, the ones that don't make it, they were only meant to live for that moment in your notebook or on the 4-track-and plenty of songs never get any farther than the 4-track.
I got a guitar when I was six and, instead of learning other people's songs, started to try to write my own, even at that young age.
My music is not a particular genre. It's not bubblegum or cheese. It's just good songs, pop songs. It's just my songs.
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