A Quote by Curt Smith
When you're writing songs for yourself, as all artists do, it's about 'me.' It's about what you feel and your emotions. You're trying to get something out of your system about your experiences.
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I would then say that there are two kinds of feeling. The first is to feel in the sense of concentrating your emotions on something immediately available for your understanding: you make your understanding out of the emotions you have about it. The second is to feel in the sense of being affected without trying to understand: something is felt, you do not know what, and it is more important to feel it than to try to understand it, since once you try to understand it you no longer feel it.
You, and you alone, get to determine whether you are going to react positively about something or negatively about something - or, interestingly, have no reaction at all. Your emotions are entirely under your control. Your feelings are what you want them to be.
Everything about your life, about your body, grows! Your cells regenerate; your hair, your nails, everything grows for your entire life. And your soul needs exploration and growth. And the only way you'll get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable. Forcing yourself to get outside, out of your head.
That's what is so great about being able to record a 13-song album. You can do a very eclectic group of songs. You do have some almost pop songs in there, but you do have your traditional country, story songs. You have your ballads, your happy songs, your sad songs, your love songs, and your feisty songs.
Over the next four days, I want you to write about your deepest emotions and thoughts about the most upsetting experience in your life. Really let go and explore your feelings and thoughts about it. In your writing, you might tie this experience to your childhood, your relationship with your parents, people you have loved or love now or even your career. How is this experience related to who you would like to become, who you have been in the past, or who you are now?.
When you are writing the kind of criticism you hope you're writing, everything depends on keeping your calm or your cool. You're trying to tell someone about something that they may know nothing about. They depend on you to read or interpret as best as you can.
When you write songs, you try to tap into something that isn't straightforward in your head. Whatever you're feeling most strongly about usually comes out in your writing.
The best advice my mom ever gave me was that you have to talk about your emotions. If something upsets me, she'd say, 'Get mad about it; it's healthy for you,' and I could feel like: Good; now it's over...next!
Negative emotions will challenge your grit every step of the way. While it's impossible not to feel your emotions, it's completely under your power to manage them effectively and to keep yourself in a position of control. When you let your emotions overtake your ability to think clearly, it's easy to lose your resolve.
I sort of thought acting was just about arranging your face into emotions. I didn't realise it was about actually allowing yourself to feel the feelings, then letting your face follow. That was a big learning curve.
I'm sure you feel differently about writing than you did when you first started. When you get older and your brain changes, you have to figure out how your job fits into your life as it changes, you know what I mean? I guess everybody goes through that stuff, and I'm no exception, always trying to figure out what I'm doing with music.
You find your preferred resolutions and harmonic intervals and what-have-yous, and then you either keep writing the same thing until everybody is as bored with your songs as you are, or you try with all your might to get out of those patterns. This is what a lot of the work is all about.
You have absolutely no regard but yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what's hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside. Not only that but you're silly about it. It never occurs to you that life is serious and that there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing all the time.
It's easier to write about a place sometimes when you've left it, when you can apply your imagination to your memory and let your emotions guide the writing about a place.
Success isn't about reaching your goals; it's about striving for things, like the joy of trying to raise a family, trying to be a successful singer, trying to write good songs, trying to be a better person. It's that old thing about life being about the journey, not the destination.
The thing about being a parent it puts priorities in order. Thank God, you're not totally focused on yourself anymore. You get to put your energy out, as opposed to worrying all the time about your own stuff. It's such a relief, but when you think about it, it's like an extension of you. It's like a safer way; you feel less indulgent about it, but they are extensions of yourself, and I think you're freer to love them so unconditionally. That, we're not able to do with our own selves.
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