A Quote by Reeve Carney

I don't actually like explaining the meanings of my songs, because I think people can take away more from it if they use their imagination. — © Reeve Carney
I don't actually like explaining the meanings of my songs, because I think people can take away more from it if they use their imagination.
I really don't know what exactly all the songs mean. Sometimes other people have meanings and when I hear them I think, 'That's really a better meaning than I thought, and perfectly valid, given the words that exist.' So part of what makes a song really good is that people take in different meanings, and they apply them, and they might be more powerful than the ones I'm thinking.
I don't really like over-explaining the songs. Everyone constantly asks what the songs are about, and I think the thing is that the songs definitely all have stories in them; it's just nice to let people decide what they are. I think it's important that people hear it themselves rather than having me annotate it.
The songs themselves do broaden out as time passes and take on subtly different meanings, take on more meaning, I find.
Because of things like 'The X Factor' and 'Autotune', the real art of communicating a song is not treasured any more. But singing other people's songs can be an intensely personal experience. I want the songs to be vessels that people fill with their own imagination, the same way that I fill it with my thoughts and feelings.
I think TV companies don't take as many risks any more, it's a bit more prescriptive. There are more channels but there seems to be actually less main network channel comedy. You can't offend people as easily, people take things very seriously now. I think that's down to social media though because people can have little tribes of offence.
I always hate explaining away songs, because for me they mean something, and for other people, they'll mean something absolutely different.
I am not interested in political writing, because it's limited in its scope. I try to write general, human kinds of songs, which suggest more than they explain. You can take a lot of different meanings, but hopefully everyone feels some kind of recognition.
I've always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.
But actually just yesterday we raised the key of one of my songs two steps up, so my voice is obviously responding. It's a muscle, and the more you use it, the more you use it right, the more you should get out of it. So yes, I sing.
I admire when people take the harder path, not because they are masochistic and want to beat themselves up, but because you actually kind of learn more and I think you grow more.
Titles are relatively arbitrary to me; they take on meanings that aren't really my meanings. 'Sound Of Silver' was just, like, I made the studio silver, and I wanted the record to sound 'more silver.'
Henry Corbin creates the world - most of all his examination of the imagination and what the imagination was for him. Some philosophers would think of the imagination as a synthetic ability, how you put different things together. Artists more think of the imagination as creativity. So I really like the way that he presents the imagination as a faculty that allows one to experience worlds that are not exactly physical but are real nonetheless.
I honestly don't like Photoshop. I think when people Photoshop things, all of a sudden you're like, 'That's not even me anymore.' It takes away the natural beauty of a person. I think Gisele [Bundchen] had just said something like there's no more rawness, like the little quirks. You know, I have a gap in my teeth and sometimes people take it away. But I'm like, 'I love my teeth.' You know, that's me.
I don't think songs have to be like these super-#1-smash-hit-sounding songs, because I think it's more important that it's like, 'Hey! This is coming out of me. This is something I connect with. This is something that I like to sing.'
Getting to do 'December Songs' in a cabaret-style format was so interesting because it's like a one-woman song cycle that actually tells a story. It feels like a theatrical experience more than a cabaret because I didn't talk in between. We went from one song to the next, nine songs in a row - bam - I told the story in half an hour.
These guitar institutes and things like that, I think they take away people's identity and they're actually encouraging a lot of people to play who are not naturally good players anyway, but they're telling people that anyone can learn to play.
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