A Quote by Glen Hansard

Certain songs have a life, and certain songs don't. A song is like a saddle: you ride it for a while, and if it's the right kind of song you can sing it for the rest of your life. And then other songs are only really important for certain periods of your life, and you move on from them and find yourself not necessarily needing to sing them anymore.
A song is like a saddle: you ride it for a while, and if it's the right kind of song you can sing it for the rest of your life.
An audience will let you know if a song communicates. If you see them kind of falling asleep during the song, or if they clap at the end of a song, then they're telling you something about the song. But you can have a good song that doesn't communicate. Perhaps that isn't a song that you can sing to people; perhaps that's a song that you sing to yourself. And some songs are maybe for a small audience, and some songs are for a wide audience. But the audience will let you know pretty quickly.
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.
When you're going over periods of your life, you remember certain things, certain events, certain people that you've forgotten. You've forgotten certain lessons or people you were very close to, and then you haven't seen them in a while. I think if you can go through life with the correct regrets, then looking back on it, like I did, a certain portion of my life is pretty enjoyable. All my regrets are ones that I'd like to keep.
Just because you sing songs about a certain feeling doesn't mean you have to go feeling that way forever. You can sing about that for the rest of your life, but that doesn't mean things aren't going to change in your own life.
Certain songs by hearing the rhythm, it tells you that is either a love song or you might be heartbroken or the songs give you the vibes and you just know that certain songs are militant that you have to write.
There's a certain feeling of giving, a certain feeling of generosity in love songs. When you sing a song of love, you're actually giving something to yourself, too. You're singing and casting these affirmations of love out into the universe. It resonates in your body in a way that feels extraordinary.
I noticed with older songs that I perform that I'm coming from a different place with them now...it mutates the vibe and even the meaning of the same words when you have a different spirit, if the person singing is different. I like that, to be able to sing an emotionally wrought song from a more centered place, or to sing an eager, youthful song from a more experienced place. It kind of colors the songs differently, and it keeps them fresh.
That's what is so great about being able to record a 13-song album. You can do a very eclectic group of songs. You do have some almost pop songs in there, but you do have your traditional country, story songs. You have your ballads, your happy songs, your sad songs, your love songs, and your feisty songs.
Often for me, if I hear a song I know, it clicks for me and I hear it in a different way and I think, "I could sing that song. I've got something to say about that song. Wanting to connect with an audience and wanting them to rethink songs; it is actually important to do songs they're familiar with. Also, I love those songs. In a way, I think I've changed people's perceptions of what a cabaret show like this could be.
My own personal tastes don't really have an effect on whether song is a parody target or not. But having said that, I try to pick songs that I actually like because I realize that I have to live with these songs for a long time, from when I'm working on them in the studio to possibly playing them onstage for the rest of my life. So I try not to pick songs that I know would drive me crazy.
There are certain songs that if people come up to me and tell me how much that song meant to them, I think, You should have better taste, then, because I don't really like that song.
Sometimes I don't go into the studio for quite a while because I haven't found enough good songs. They have to have a certain caliber and connect with me because I'm going to be playing them for the rest of my life. I start off with a circle of friends whose songs I love anyway.
I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.
I try to sing many different kinds of songs. If I sing a batch of humorous songs, I'll throw in a deadly serious song. Or if I'm singing too many serious songs, I'll throw in a ridiculous song, to mix it up.
There's a certain feeling of giving, a certain feeling of generosity in love songs. When you sing a song of love, you're actually giving something to yourself, too. You're singing and casting these affirmations of love out into the universe.
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