A Quote by Ian Anderson

In most cases, my favorite Jethro Tull songs will be determined by how I feel about them as live performance songs, not by the recorded identity. — © Ian Anderson
In most cases, my favorite Jethro Tull songs will be determined by how I feel about them as live performance songs, not by the recorded identity.
As far as my favorite songs to perform live, most of the songs we did live were my favorite. If they weren't, I would have gotten rid of them.
When I met with Peter Angell, the producer of the CD, we talked about my idea to do songs that I loved and songs that I wished I had recorded. Peter suggested that we pick some songs and see how they work with you and try to come up with arrangements and ideas about how you might want to do them.
It's so funny because I listen to songs that I recorded that I didn't really know anything about at the time. Later on I'm starting to feel the songs. Sing them first, feel them later.
There will be slow songs, sad songs, happy songs, songs about boys, and songs about being who you are. I'm making sure I'm happy with all of the songs, because if I am not happy with them, I can't expect anyone else to be, you know?
Everybody tends to overplay live. That's just the nature of playing live. And that can be great, but it can also kill something that's special, and intimate, about a recorded version of a song. You find out very quickly which songs you can play, and which songs you do damage to by playing them live.
Every record has been very different, so I can't really compare them. The first record was good. I originally recorded about half the songs on that one in 2003 or something, and then I went back a few years later and re-recorded them and added some other songs.
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 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.
For me, the good songs are the ones that come really naturally. There are certain songs that you rework and rewrite and the craft becomes very evident, but a lot of times those aren't my favorite songs. The favorite songs are the ones that I can't even hear my own voice in.
I do pay performance royalties on others' songs I perform live, but I'm not recording these songs and putting them up for sale.
My favorite music to sing would be my own songs, my original songs, just because I know them, you know I write the tunes, so my favorite songs are the newest ones that I write. That's what I like to sing the most, because it means something, it's real, it comes from me.
From a very early age, I started to get really interested in how songs were put to tape. Not just listening to the songs, but the way the songs were recorded.
You say how you feel, and songs don't lie. Songs are the most honest form of human expression there is--there's nothing that lies about a song.
I've never written songs about relationships. I've written songs about how I feel. The songs are more about me, than another person. That's the way I like to look at it.
My favorite bands were Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, Grand Funk Railroad. If you listen to some of my early music, you can hear it.
And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person.
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