A Quote by Laura Jane Grace

To me, the songs that I'm most thankful to have been a part of creating are the songs that are able to adapt and change over the years and that mean different things to you at different periods of time in your life.
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.
Music and songs are written at different periods of time, at different times in your life. They reflect the feelings you have and to be honest, I quite like having positive emotions.
There have been 700 or 800 songs I've written over the last 60 years, as I went through different periods of writing. I listen and marvel at how different they are and how they still stand up. They are very well done, if I must say so.
I'm sure that the meaning of the songs that I've written will change for me over the years, the same way that I can't even say what inspired some of the songs that I've been singing for a long time anymore.
I think the idea is that every time we perform Big Red Machine music it should be different somehow - like, different people, different songs maybe, definitely different versions of the songs.
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.
The beauty of Billie Holiday is that she gave every singer after her the license to interpret and perform music in ways that were unique to each of us. Her uniqueness was very much a part of the way she sang the songs, the story she wanted to tell through the songs. I didn't really have a full understanding of Billie until I left home -- until I'd lived a little, shall we say. At different seasons of my life, when I'd sing her songs or listen to her albums, I'd hear things I didn't hear before. Wherever you are in life, you'll hear different things in her songs.
I'm involved in a lot of different things, like producing, starting a label and writing songs. But still my biggest release, and the easiest and most fun thing for me to do in my life, is to be in New Found Glory, go on stage and play these songs.
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.
You sing songs hundreds of times over and over, but certain ones just morph and naturally, as you age and get life experience, take on a different form as well. When I was looking at songs for the album, I thought, "Which are the ones that connect with me the most? What do I think would work in album form?" Almost all of them I've done in shows.
There are definitely some songs you sing and you just know there's something about it - there's kind of a touch on it that's different. But there are no rules to that. Every time, it's a surprise and it's humbling to hear that people are singing the songs in different places and different parts of the world. We're always amazed by that.
If I completely understood what was going on and I understood these songs, they wouldn't make sense to play live anymore. They're still enigmatic for me. I'm still searching in the songs as they are. That's what's actually been the most fun about playing and touring for me is that there's still a lot of caverns in the songs where you can go and hide out different nights.
There are certain songs that just stick around and do something that transcends whatever time they were written in. Through different eras, people are able to impart different meaning to the song, and they become part of some sort of consciousness.
I never put myself in a box. I like to have various different types of songs and different genres and situational songs. No matter is going on, I have something for that time or era.
It's funny: I look at songs, and I guess they each tell a story, and the different songs talk about different things. But they're unified by the rhythm underneath and the way that we decided to arrange and play them.
You need to get outside of your comfort zone to write songs that are interesting, songs that are compelling, songs that are different from what other people are writing.
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