My best album is called In Search Of A Song. That was my best shot right there. My finest hour, as they say. I could listen to the whole thing all the way through. There's nothing really crammed into it.
I don't go into any album with a concept or a deliberate direction. It's more letting the best music that really appeals to me at the time, the best songs that I find after many months and years of search and sifting through my collection, and asking radio people and journalists. It's really an ongoing search that's as much daunting as it is somewhat exciting.
I make up cassettes all the time - to take on the road with me - a song from this album, a song from that album. That's the way I listen to music; it's like one of those K Tel things: it's from all over. I listen to Fred Astaire, I listen to African folk music, I listen to Talking Heads.
My album is called 'Zero to Infinity' and none of my songs are going to have cheap, dirty lyrics. Every song, in a way, is a women empowerment song. Every song, even if it's a dance track, you'll be dancing on it, but it's the right thing.
I grew up in a house full of musicians, and my mum really taught me that when you listen to an album, you respect that it's somebody's art, and that the B-sides are just as important as the singles, and we should really listen to the album all the way through the way it was intended to be listened to.
I did this thing for HBO called 'Strip Search' with Sidney Lumet, who was one of the best directors I've ever worked with. We actually had a rehearsal period before we shot, which is unusual.
When you listen to a Yes album, you should listen to the whole thing through headphones with the lights off.
When I listen to a song, I don't say, 'Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.' I'm thinking, 'That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.'
I listen to 'Purple Haze' a lot. If I'm in the gym, I listen to that album the whole way through sometimes.
That was like the best start I could've had, the best way I could've started in the music scene. I owe [Jack Johnson] a lot for the beginning of my career and setting me off on the right path, and that's the coolest thing that ever could've happened.
As a writer, you're always trying to say the best thing. You're always thinking about what's the best thing to say, and what's the hardest way to say it, and what's the best line? Sometimes the best line is the simplest line. Sometimes the best line is the line that evokes more feeling than actual wordsmithing.
I just don't think people listen. I mean, they can't listen to a whole album closely without checking their iPhone or wanting to skip to their favorite song, or putting something else on, practically. That's why the zone out is a good thing.
Even though we didn't actually record it as the Move I had already written a song called 'Dear Elaine,' which I subsequently put on the Boulders album. I thought at the time that was probably the best song I'd written.
Even though we didn't actually record it as the Move I had already written a song called 'Dear Elaine', which I subsequently put on the Boulders album. I thought at the time that was probably the best song I'd written.
I believe that in life, you have to give things your best shot, do your best. You have to focus on what needs to be done, do the right thing, not the popular thing.
I was reading a Time magazine interview with an author named Brené Brown. She said, "People that fail seem to ultimately do the same thing they think works over and over again." I had an epiphany and called my manager and started a creed with my producers. I promised we'd do whatever was best for the song and the album - no ego would get in the way.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.