A Quote by Robin Pecknold

I only write maybe one or two songs every couple of years that I think are good enough to play alone without other stuff happening. — © Robin Pecknold
I only write maybe one or two songs every couple of years that I think are good enough to play alone without other stuff happening.
I have a folder of scraps and pieces of paper with stuff, ideas for songs from the last 25 years; just little things, maybe early songs that I finished, but didn't think they were good enough.
I first thought maybe I'd do a banjo presentation record, where I'd play a couple of songs and get a bunch of other players to do the rest. Then I realized I had enough of my own songs to do an album of them.
I like to write pop songs and the stuff I write is fairly poppy, so I thought maybe my lot in life was to write pop songs for people. It never felt right writing songs for other people to sing, though.
I never was one to go into an office and write. For one thing, I had a job. I was cleaning the ashtrays and setting up the studios at Columbia for a couple of years and working every other week down in the Gulf of Mexico flying helicopters. I didn't really get to just write songs for about five years.
I can't stress enough how important it is to write bad songs. There's a lot of people who don't want to finish songs because they don't think they're any good. Well they're not good enough. Write it! I want you to write me the worst songs you could possible write me because you won't write bad songs. You're thinking they're bad so you don't have to finish it. That's what I really think it is. Well it's all right. Well, how do you know? It's not done!
I write most of my songs to beats. I play around on guitar, but not enough to where I can compose my own stuff or play solos. I can accompany myself 'cause most songs are, like, four chords.
So, I would write songs... I sort of loved it and hated it in the sense that I would be like, it's never good enough, and I didn't think it was that good, but I always kept striving to write better and better stuff.
Most of the stuff that people look at on Quora today was not written in the last month. You write something really good, and maybe it's the definitive answer on the Internet for the next 10 years. Maybe it's only a year, but not like a tweet, where it's only relevant for a day or a week.
In the years that I've seen concerts, when I've paid to see somebody I want to see, there would be a certain amount of songs I'd want to hear. So whether it's stuff I want to play every night or not - or stuff I've been playing for years or stuff you get tired of playing - you have to play what people pay for and make it fair for them.
I started to play the guitar for a couple of years, which was fun. I still bring it out once in a while, could bust out a couple of songs, but I'm not very good at it.
We played it as long as we could play it on that CD and I think it might be 50 minutes, maybe. What you have to do is play a couple of songs and then get off the stage because everything that trails it sounds stupid.
In the years that Ive seen concerts, when Ive paid to see somebody I want to see, there would be a certain amount of songs Id want to hear. So whether its stuff I want to play every night or not - or stuff Ive been playing for years or stuff you get tired of playing - you have to play what people pay for and make it fair for them.
I've always thought of music in the long term. I've always tried to write songs that people could listen to a couple of years later and maybe longer.
I think of myself as a tomgirl. A boy who's girly in every presentational aspect. And I play guitar and write good songs.
In the case of two actors connecting with each other and trusting each other, our bodies have memories without us having to consciously think about it, so rather than think, "Oh, I must think about my daughter dying," you just let that go and trust that you have all the emotions you need in there, and by losing yourself in the scene, that stuff kicks in without having to spend the day thinking about horrific things happening to your own child.
It's such a risk to write a novel that it's easy to become conservative - you're spending what would be, for me, a couple of years of my life on a single idea. Which is maybe one of the reasons I write stories - if it doesn't work, you've only lost a month.
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