A Quote by Jain

My favourite place was in The Congo. It's where I began to write songs and build myself as an adult. — © Jain
My favourite place was in The Congo. It's where I began to write songs and build myself as an adult.
At 16 I was living in the Congo, and, you know, it's your teenage time. I really wanted to find a way to express myself, so I started to write songs in the Congo, and I think that's why my music is quite open, with a lot of different influences.
I started to write my songs when I was 15 and living in the Congo.
I always look at my favourite photographs or favourite movies by James Bidgood or Sofia Coppola before I write my songs - they put me in the right frame of mind.
I chose Congo in order to become close to a place that we had turned away from. It isn't present in our imaginations, in the stories we tell each other. Yet it's relevant to our lives and to our worlds, in a practical way. Congo supplies raw materials for the things that we use on a daily basis. We are intimately linked to Congo, economically. We're linked to it through human events that are occurring there, that affect all of us, and yet you don't find narratives of Congo present in our lives.
My idea of making time for myself is writing songs. I never stop beating myself up about trying to be productive, so I don't really like to do a lot of things other than write in my journal and write songs.
As a young adult, I began to read widely in history, philosophy, and religion - including the Bible. I began to feel that a purely secular view of life was incomplete and that the universe was a fundamentally spiritual place.
I've published over 100 books - and that is divided about 50/50 adult and young adult. Lately, I have been writing more YA, which is such a great genre to write it. I don't have a favourite (I usually say it's the last book I've written), but certain books do stick in the mind. My very first YA novel, The Children of Lir, will always be special to me, and, of course The Alchemyst because it was a series I'd wanted to write for ages.
I learned that the songs that mean the most to me are the songs that I write by myself. While there were people I wrote really well with, particularly Gary Nicholson and Delbert McClinton, and I really enjoyed the experience, I came away from it feeling like I need to write by myself.
Throughout all of the changes that have happened in my life, one of the priorities I've had is to never change the way I write songs and the reasons I write songs. I write songs to help me understand life a little more. I write songs to get past things that cause me pain. And I write songs because sometimes life makes more sense to me when it's being sung in a chorus, and when I can write it in a verse.
I don't write songs for myself anymore. I only write songs on assignment. It's purely a business, but it is still so important to me emotionally.
I tend to write songs critiquing myself. The best way for me to deal with stuff is to write a song about it... That's not to say all my songs are like that.
My favourite things are just wandering from place to place, going to cafés, taking photographs. My favourite day is a happy accident.
I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record. Originally I was not writing songs for myself. ....And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves. ... Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential. When you write a song, a song has longevity. ... So I wanted to sing inspirational music, and that's exactly how I approached it-only the words have been changed to declare my relationship with God. Songwriting is my gift from God.
I was married to someone who wanted me to change. Become more adult, more responsible. I began not to like myself, not like what I do. I lost my identity. Everything began collapsing around me.
I think it's a mistake to think, 'Am I going to write a young adult book, or do I desperately want to write a book for adults?' I think the better ambition is to try to write someone's favorite book, because those categorizations of adult, young adult, become kind of superfluous.
Neo-Hoodoo is the 8 basic dances of 19th century New Orleans' Place Congo- the Calinda the Bamboula the Chacta the Babouille the Conjaille the Juba the Congo and the VooDoo- modernized into the Philly Dog, the Hully Gully, the Funky Chicken, the Popcorn, the Boogaloo and the dance of great American choreographer Buddy Bradley.
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