I'll watch a highlight tape of my kicks and I'll play a song that I like the night before the game and then I'll sing that song in my head to visually get myself ready and have positive thoughts.
I don't want to just go out and do song to song to song. I like to create things before the song actually kicks in, little things you do to excite the crowd.
All you gotta do is think of the song in your head. And it doesn't matter whether you can play it or not, you can get somebody to play it. With songs I've written, there's a song called "The Statue", which I can't play. There are songs that I've written that I've actually just hummed on - there's a song on one of the albums they have there on the Internet called "My Love Was True" and it's almost operatic. I can't play it. But I can sing it.
When I first start writing a song, I usually write the title first, then the song, and I'll sing the song in my head and think of a visual of the song. If I can't think of a visual behind the song, I'll throw the song away.
When I picked up guitar, it wasn't like, 'OK, I'm going to be Kenny Chesney.' It was like, 'I want to play a chord,' and then it was like, 'I want to play another one, then play a song, then sing while playing the song.'
I like seeing someone that can sing jazz and then flip over and sing a pop song and then sing a rock song.
Whatever be the depth of woe Along the path that I must go, I'll sing my song— My song of joy for all the love That's lavished on us from above, And count no loss of treasure-trove When things go wrong. I'll sing the sunlight, and the bright Soft smiling stars that gem the night; For gifts of good That God hath spread along my way, The lilt of birds in tuneful play, The harvests full and flowers gay, The whole day long I'll sing my song Of gratitude!
I'm one of those people that I make a song... then I write another song and then I'm like, 'But this song is so much better than this song,' and then I kind of ditch that song. It's a long process.
An audience will let you know if a song communicates. If you see them kind of falling asleep during the song, or if they clap at the end of a song, then they're telling you something about the song. But you can have a good song that doesn't communicate. Perhaps that isn't a song that you can sing to people; perhaps that's a song that you sing to yourself. And some songs are maybe for a small audience, and some songs are for a wide audience. But the audience will let you know pretty quickly.
I don't have a favorite song that I've written. But I do have a favorite song: 'Always on My Mind,' the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.
'She's a Mystery to Me' was released in 1987, when I was 11 or something, and I absolutely adored the song. This song was written by Bono and The Edge, and the story goes that Bono woke up with the tune in his head, then thought that the only voice who could sing this song is Roy Orbison.
I don't want an angry song with no silver lining ending up on my album. Then I'd have to play, or feel obliged to play, that song every night in repetition as a mantra of anger.
You hear a song like 'Wait For It,' you hear a song like 'Dear Theodosia' - if you get one of those songs in a musical - one - it's worth dropping everything to sing that one song.
I learn stuff from making music every time I go in the studio. I'm continuing to try to find new ways to play in a song or be in a song and have a positive impact on a song.
The song 'Hymnostic' is kind of a gospel song, and that song is really fun to sing with as many people as possible. And anyone can sing it, you know?
I sang my song called "In This Song." David Foster wrote the song for me. I thought that I should sing a ballad song.
I just sing the song and I sing it with conviction, meaning and I get into the mood of every song I do no matter how much time I have in between.