A Quote by Tony Oller

I write most songs randomly. They don't always deal with something I've been through but something I think is important to tell. — © Tony Oller
I write most songs randomly. They don't always deal with something I've been through but something I think is important to tell.
I think it's good to have a balance. Everything I write about, it's not something I necessarily might have went through, there's songs where I might have an idea, sometimes it might be a melody or something that I like, I make up a story to go with that melody. But I do think it's most important to have honest songs.
I have been singing since I was two years old, my parents tell me, and started to write songs when I was fifteen. Eventually, my friends and my parents knew that this was something I liked to do. They also knew I had a dream of making my own album. They have always been encouraging me to do something about it, and so I did. So I went to a local radio station in Tromsø, and there I got to record a couple of songs.
One mistake with beginners in writing is, that they think it important to spin out something long. It is a great deal better not to write more than a page or two, unless you have something to say, and can write it correctly.
My aim is always catchy songs, or songs with meaning and I want to write music people can relate to, about things anyone could go through, just real, honest music... songs that mean something, songs that are inspired by true life events.
Songwriters I've always been drawn to are people who deal with something of depth in the lyric writing. ...I've always been influenced by the folk song, the storytelling tradition in folk music. And so for years I wrote mostly story songs. I still do that, but as I've gone on, it's gotten a little more personal. I used to write mostly in the third person. I write a little more in the first person now.
It's not nuclear physics. You always remember that. But if you write about sports long enough, you're constantly coming back to the point that something buoys people; something makes you feel better for having been there. Something of value is at work there...Something is hallowed here. I think that something is excellence.
I don't think I could write about something I've never experienced or felt; all my songs are about things I've been through.
Whenever I write songs, it's my outlet for a certain feeling. I just don't as often feel compelled to write when I'm not really sad about something, or wanting to sort through something dark.
I think I have a vested interest in thinking that the lyrics are important, but I think for us it's important that we all write things that mean something to us, and I think we're not really in the business of writing la-la-love-you chart pop songs. It needs to have a personal pulling in the gut for me, to want to write anything about it.
The reason you write [songs] is because there's something you want to say that is important to you - enough to go through all the torture of writing.
I feel really privileged that I've been able to be an activist and a musician for over 20 years now, and I've always been able to say whatever I want. I think that's something we Americans really take for granted, but it's a big deal, and it's not something most people in the world are able to do.
A lot of the songs I write are like songs that I've never been able to find on any record, but that I've always wanted to hear. Or maybe in a style I already loved, but I was looking for something in it that I wasn't hearing yet.
A lot of people deal with things that are bad. Once you've been through something, you grow from it and you take a lot in. You can always turn it into something positive.
I've always learned how to deal with my problems through my words, through my education, and through my intelligence, which I think is important and the best way to deal with an issue.
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.
I don't think songs have to be like these super-#1-smash-hit-sounding songs, because I think it's more important that it's like, 'Hey! This is coming out of me. This is something I connect with. This is something that I like to sing.'
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