A Quote by Roy Harper
At school, I was always daydreaming and fiddling in inkwells, but I had to learn to grow up and become articulate. And doing that was what brought me into writing songs. It's like therapy for me, because it exposes what I'm really thinking.
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I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written... Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn't have much of a social life going on.
I didn't grow up thinking I was pretty; there was always a prettier girl than me. So I learned to be smart and tried to be funny and develop the inside of me, because I felt like that's what I had.
I was a real unfocused academic student, always fiddling around in class, or doing something silly and thinking of something else that had nothing to do with school.
I went to this boy's choir school when I was growing up, and I think that the first time that I consciously started making music was when this one kid joined our class. He was an amazing pianist and would come up with all these ideas. I've always had a really competitive side, so I saw him doing that, and was like, "I have to try writing songs as well."
I won't say that writing is therapy, but for me, the act of writing is therapy. The ability to be productive is good for my mental health. It's always better for me to be writing than vegetating on some couch.
I write songs when I need to. That's how I write songs: when there's something that's bugging me. If something's troubling me, and I don't really know how to articulate it to people directly - my friends, my family, or my girlfriend - then I'll write a song about it because I know I can articulate it that way.
For me, the hardest part is getting up and writing, that's the hard part. I always felt like I could teach someone to direct if I really had to. I feel like it's a skill that's passable, but writing... writing is the worst. That's what I'm doing right now, it's just the hardest thing that you'll ever do.
I grew up in a time when there were very few women in the physical sciences. And people started to ask me, 'How did you decide to become a scientist?' And I couldn't really answer. I always knew I'd grow up to have a lab because my dad had one.
During my career as a standup and actor, I realized it was very frustrating for me to get hired because Hollywood was hiring a different kind of brother, you know, and I was doing political humor... In order for me to really have a long career, I'm going to have to learn how to write and produce for myself... I had no idea I was really going to like it and I'm very fortunate to be successful. But the idea was to always eventually create something for myself. That was the idea from the beginning when I went into writing and producing.
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.
I grew up playing football and hunting; and went to military school and then into the Marine Corps. Kindness is not a valued trait. That`s why I had to learn kindness. As I grow older I'm finding it's something I definitely need to put focus on, thought and practice. Kindness actually comes from the heart, so it's really stretching inside of me. It's been quite a magical journey for me to learn to be kinder in my dealing[s] with other people.
I would get songs sung to me, like 'Old Man River, 'or kids would call me Mississippi and things like that. At the time, I wished I had a name that blended in more with my surroundings. Now, though, I've really learned to love it. From fifteen, I really liked it. It felt appropriate. Before that, I don't think it quite fitted me. I had to grow into it.
I came from a very musical family, so I grew up singing karaoke with the family. My family said 'do this' and brought me to singing lessons. I had always been writing poems and songs.
I was always writing. I was writing in high school because it was a really competitive school for class clowns; I used to have to write all of my snaps and my disses the night before and then act like I was making it up the next day.
I have so much music that I do. Just like how a visual artist is always sketching something but they might not share it, I'm always writing songs or coming up with melodic lines on piano or guitar. It's therapy. It's always happening.
I read the reviews sometimes, but I don't let it really affect the next album because, for me, when I approach an album, it's usually coming to me pretty naturally. It's not like I set out, like, "Okay, I'm going to write an album this month." It's more like I'm just always writing songs and eventually I start to realize that a group of songs sort of fits together, and I go from there in putting together the album and themes and artwork and things like that.
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