A Quote by Martin Gore

Once I'd chosen the songs, it seemed like it would just be a question then of recording them. But it's a case of trying to re-invent the songs; taking them in different directions.
My first songs, I would just record them on this little tape recorder, and then I didn't start recording songs I really liked until my friend gave me a 4-track (recorder) and that's when my ideas really started coming together.
I've always enjoyed taking pre-existing sound, songs I like, songs I want to share, and manipulating them and trying to do my own version. So just knowing there's that potential for that thing out there that I haven't discovered yet, really gets me motivated every day.
I write all my own songs and they are just simple melodies with a lot of lyrics. They usually have to do with current events and what is going on in the news. You can call them topical songs, songs about the news, and then developing into more philosophical songs later.
When you hear kids singing your songs it just validates them, they sound like real songs when you hear them back, it's quite refreshing. Like songs that could have been around for a hundred years.
Since I'm known for recording other artists' material, I'm absolutely deluged with mail from all the publishing companies. They take all the songs that've been lying around the office for months and throw them at me. Most of them are terrible, but you have to listen... just in case.
I've always been a big fan of taking old songs and completely turning them on their head. Having no adherence to the fine tradition of the original version. Rearranging them and taking a different approach to them.
I would go on the iTunes chart and see the hottest songs, then I'd cover them. People would go on YouTube and search for those songs. That's how I got my views. I'd post two or three songs a week.
I would say the songs that have different lyrics. I always write the music first, and there's a couple of songs on this box set that have different lyrics from what ended up on the final recording.
The songs came from a more solitary place and I hadn't played them with many people before recording. So I just added the layers of people who are in my life, and built up the songs.
I do pay performance royalties on others' songs I perform live, but I'm not recording these songs and putting them up for sale.
I remember hanging out at Starbucks. There were these older guys who would sit around and play Crosby, Stills & Nash songs. I was just so in love with music. I would just go hang out with them, and I would try to sing and harmonize with them. I didn't even know the songs.
We're not just going to take some songs from a focus group in Nashville where people are sitting around in a circle having appointments trying to write catchy songs so they can sell them to a band like us.
Writing the songs and producing the songs and arranging them and recording them is your canvas and your palette and your brush.
By the time I wrote those first three songs for his new CD ... I wanted to push the poetics as hard as I could push them, and not decide the songs were finished until I committed them to whatever the recording format was. I went through drafts right up until I recorded every single one of them.
I'm good with songs I haven't written, if I like them. I'm glad I didn't write any of them. I already know how they go, so I have more freedom with them. I understand these songs. I've known them for 40 years, 50 years, maybe longer, and they make a lot of sense. So I'm not coming to them like a stranger.
The best tunes are songs with a face. You recognize them. You know them. It’s like a person. They have a face that’s outstanding. Other songs don’t have a face. You just hear them, that’s all. The really good ones are few and far between.
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