A Quote by Mark Foster
I've written so many songs that are hopeful - songs that are, like, about an old man that gives all his possessions away because he wants to help people. I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' just to tell a different type of story.
Related Quotes
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.
I also tried to focus on songs that Billie Holiday wrote, songs that she had a hand in shaping, like "Strange Fruit"; songs that were written for her or songs that she wrote herself, like "Fine and Mellow" or "God Bless The Child."
'Pumped Up Kicks' is written from the perspective like Truman Capote wrote 'In Cold Blood' or Dostoevsky wrote 'Crime & Punishment.' It's psychologically breaking down someone's state of mind and diving in and walking in their shoes.
I wrote 'Don't Stop' just like I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' - I didn't try to make either a hit. I just wanted to write a song I liked.
I just always wrote songs as a side hobby. So it was sort of a natural thing to write comedy songs. But when I started writing songs, I wrote very serious songs. Or things that a 13-14 year-old would think are very serious issues.
I like 'Bewitched' off the first album because it's one of the happiest songs I've ever written and, as any writer will tell you, happy songs are a million times more difficult to write than sad songs.
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.
Just because I write some songs about bad women, though, that doesn't mean I hate women. I've written songs that show great love and respect for women too. Songs that talk about strong, upstanding women and their pain. I have women working on my music. They understand where I'm coming from. So does my mama. I always play my music for her before it comes out. Why do you think I wrote "Dear Mama"? I wrote it for my mama because I love her and I felt I owed her something deep.
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.
I know people who have written big hit country songs that are really kind of terrible songs, but for the rest of their life, they're the guy who wrote that. You've got to be careful; if you don't want that to happen, don't write those songs.
So many of my songs are based on things that either happened to me or to someone I know, but there are also ones where I've written a made-up story. All of them are about very real emotions, and I just find different ways to express them.
I haven´t written on piano since It Bites. You can tell my songs that I´ve written on piano with It Bites cause they all go like "wrooash", like Old Man And The Angel and Calling All The Heroes and songs like that. It all tends to happen very quickly, I get two thirds of the song within five minutes and then spend rest of the time trying to ruin it in my head, and then I go back to where I was from the beginning.
I've always covered some Dylan songs. I do one or two. And I do them because they're great songs. You know some people cover songs they wish they could have written, not me. I like to cover songs I know I could not have ever written.
I used to write songs that mimicked other songs that I would hear as a kid, cos I was 12 years old when I was writing those, right. And you hear a radio so all I'd write about was [sings] "hey girl, look at you", you know what I mean. I think that even doing that made it easier for me to write non-personal songs because, from a kid, I never wrote personal songs, they were always like mimicking. And now I'm just trying to understand my writing and where it's coming from.
My people couldn't have survived slavery without having hope that it would get better. And there's some songs from the 19th and 18th century that say [sings], "By and by, by and by, I will lay down, this heavy load." And I mean, so many songs that spoke of hope and understand it better by and by. Amazing songs. So that the slaves, just knowing that he, she, did not have the right legally to walk within one inch away from where the slave owner dictated, and yet the same person, wrote and sang with fervor, "If the lord wants somebody, here am I, send me." It's amazing.
I have written quite a lot of songs about dealing with my feelings surrounding the disease. I have written songs about the fear and anxiety I have around my disease, and the fear of it coming back. Some of my songs might seem like relationship songs, but are more about my relationship with that struggle.
Related Authors
Ani DiFranco Quotes
American
Musician
Bob Dylan Quotes
American
Musician
Brian Eno Quotes
British
Musician
Bruce Springsteen Quotes
American
Musician
David Bowie Quotes
English
Musician
Drake Quotes
Canadian
Musician
Elton John Quotes
English
Musician
George Harrison Quotes
British
Musician
Henry Rollins Quotes
American
Musician
John Lennon Quotes
English
Musician
Madonna Ciccone Quotes
American
Musician
Moby Quotes
American
Musician
Nicki Minaj Quotes
American
Musician
Patti Smith Quotes
American
Musician
Thom Yorke Quotes
English
Musician
Tori Amos Quotes
American
Musician