A Quote by William Clark Green

Songs come when they wanna come and I'll work at it when I feel like working at it. There are some songwriters that write every day, and I'm definitely not one of those guys. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's just kind of what I do.
The best songs that I write usually come in, like, two minutes, and I think a lot of songwriters would probably say those kind of songs that come just like that are the good ones.
A lot of times songs are very much of a moment, that you just encapsulate. They come to you, you write them, you feel good that day, or bad that day.
I don't know why I write. The honest answer is that I don't have an answer. I wouldn't die if I couldn't write fiction. Actually keel over and die - it's unlikely. But quite quickly writing has come to feel like the only thing I really know how to do. And I go a bit stir crazy if I don't write more or less every day. But that makes writing sound like a mood-regulator, a way to regulate anxiety or depression, and it doesn't really come down to that.
I write every day and I just love doing it. It's just... it's just a wonderful thing. Some of my stories work, some of them don't work. Some of them are wild and I love them, but they certainly don't fit into any kind of a normal system that I know about.
America's a funny place. Every time I've come over it just feels absolutely gigantic and massive. I've always had good shows there, but I just go and come back, feeling like another singer/songwriter in a sea of thousands of singer/songwriters. I don't really know what "breaking it in America" is or means. I just focus on touring day-by-day, and show-by-show, and see where it goes.
I do some compassionate mindfulness every day. It's like a Buddhist thing. I tell myself that I'm doing a good job, that kind of thing. It makes me feel better.
I need some time to write songs and work on my thing, but I'm just living my life and doing family stuff and letting inspiration come when it comes. But I also don't feel a desperate need to keep pushing myself into people's faces to stay cool and relevant.
There is a silver lining to every cloud and there's some awesome songs that have come from some really like bad experiences, but they're great experiences 'cause then I've got some good songs so it's all good for me.
I feel challenged every day, when I come to work. I feel like I have to step up my game, and that's a great thing.
I think it would be different to work with a guy like Kanye West or Jay-Z, those guys are so phenomenal, but just to work with a rapper, I don't think is really my thing. I really like songs, like true songs. Like indie songs.
I'm just a music fan. I like pretty much all types of music, and I feel like I can get something out of everything. It just makes work a lot more fun whenever you're working on different things all the times and usually once I work with a band I usually will want to work with them again, just because we become good friends. That sometimes is the only bad thing, is that I work with bands that I already know. That's not really the best thing in the world because I should always be keeping my eyes out on other things.
Main thing, really, is I write songs the way I wanna hear them and the way I think the people that come to our shows wanna hear them.
I just take it day by day, and I hope one day I can say I feel good - not just be cancer free, but just feel good. I'm just living every day to the fullest: I enjoy myself, I have fun, and I pray every day that it doesn't come back.
I always write to the moment. I've always been that kind of emcee. I don't wanna come in with all the paperwork and all o' that or whatever. That's good when you just an emcee from off the block that really don't have to work as hard as the next man. But when, you know... Y'all make me write like this, from, I guess, me makin' a classic and everybody callin' my stuff classic material - that makes me have to work ten times harder. But a lot o' times things just happen at the moment for me: spur o' the moment. That's just how it goes sometimes.
When I first got into the major label system, they were like, 'Hey, you're great - now write with a million people so we can get songs.' That was something I hadn't done before, and the songwriters I was working with had worked on some massive numbers - like 'True Colours.' One of the guys wrote 'Livin On A Prayer.'
My parents are the hardest-working people I ever knew: they always worked every day, all day; they had to come up with the solutions to make things work. And I think that work ethic, maybe stubbornness, single-mindedness, definitely played a role for me. I'm definitely thankful for my roots.
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