A Quote by Sigrid
Writing songs about having a nice time - 'Oh I'm so happy on tour with my band' - I'd find it really difficult to write a good song about it.
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I think from a major-label perspective, if you were on the flip side of things and that's the world you were used to working in, your interpretation could be, "Oh, they're having trouble writing songs," when really it's like, "No, I'm not ready to write songs, I don't want to write a song right now, if I did write a song, it would be forced."
The way to write really good songs is to write about the things that happen in your life and where you are in the moment, and writing about stuff that happens in your 30s is not the sexiest song subject.
We're a live band. Some bands write their songs in the studio - we don't do that. We're playing songs on this tour that were written three days before the tour. And it feels good to try these songs.
I find that I end up liking songs if I really have an idea of something I wat to write about-some problem in my life or something I want to work through; if I don't have something like that at the root of the song, then I think I end up not caring about it as much. I gravitate towards some kind of concept or idea or situation that I want to write about. Very often I have to write, rewrite and come at it from an opposite angle...and I end up writing the opposite song that I thought I was going to write.
It's so easy to write songs about misery and hard times and sadness. It's much more difficult to write songs about happy and chirpy stuff.
All those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, in many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio, we build the songs that way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.
There are no limitations with a song. To me a song is a little piece of art. It can be whatever you like it to be. You can write the simplest song, and that's lovely, or you can just write a song that is abstract art. ... A lot of my songs are very serious, I'm like dead serious about certain things and I feel that I'm writing about the world, through my own eyes. ... I have a love for simple basic song structure, although sometimes you'd never know it. ... Most of the songs I wrote at night. I would just wake in the middle of the night. That's when I found the space to write.
I do find it easy to write songs about heartbreak; it comes really naturally to me. It was a little bit more difficult for me to break my mould and tackle different subjects. You know what it's like because you're a writer. You don't want to tread on the same territory. Writing about the personal stuff was a little difficult because I'd worry about who would read it and who would be offended by it.
I always try to write the best song I can in the moment, and those songs are often going to end up on Death Cab for Cutie records. I don't set out to write a solo song or write a band song. I just write, and where that songs ends up is kind of TBD.
Good songs are what a good band is all about. When you have a good song that stands up to the test of the time, that is the most important thing.
Most of the time I write my best songs just from feeling a strong emotion, so whether I'm just really angry or really sad or really happy, I immediately sit down at a piano and I begin writing a song.
One of the nice things about being in a band is that you depend on each other for ideas, so it's not all up to me to do everything myself. There's always that fear that you'll run out of stuff. The most difficult part for me is writing lyrics, and that starts to get difficult after you've written, like, 120 songs.
I try to write songs just for the song itself. I don't try and think about where it's going to end up, that way you're writing for the good of the song.
I have a hard time writing happy things. I really just don't find it that interesting for me personally to write about that.
I do write nice songs about the guys who are nice to me! Eventually, I'm sure one of them will write a response - that's a pretty scary concept, actually! But I make sure I only write bad songs about the ones who deserve it.
When you first start a band all you think about and spend your time doing is writing songs, play shows, in the simplest way and the simplest formation of the band. It's about the gear, and that guitar that one day you will buy. It's a beautiful time. I'm grateful for having that time. Then life flips upside down, all of a sudden you are strapped to a rocket ship, you get a hit, then it is tough to keep grounded.
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