A Quote by Otis Blackwell
I'd hate to be a songwriter starting a career today...Al Stanton walked in one day and said, 'Otis, I've got an idea. Why don't you write a song called "All Shook Up"?' Two days later I brought the song in and said, 'Look, man, I did something with it.'
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I started to write the song. And I was in Gladewater, Texas, one night with Carl Perkins and I said, I've got a good idea for a song. And I sang him the first verse that I had written, and I said it's called "Because You're Mine." And he said, "I Walk The Line" is a better title, so I changed it to "I Walk The Line."
Every day you can write a song but some days there is just some magic in the air and something special about the catch; other days you write all day on a song line or idea.
I wake up in the morning and I say 'Ahh! Today's the day for a song! I'm going to write a song today!' And I do. I write a song.
There was a film called 'FM,' and we were asked to do the title song. And I said, 'Does it have to have any specific words?' And they said, 'No, it just has to be about FM radio.' It took a day or two to write.
I was about to walk on stage at the Kansas Speedway - I was playing a NASCAR race - and I said to Scooter Carusoe, who was standing side stage, 'I want to write a song called 'Wanna Be That Song.' Then I put my earphones back in and walked right out on stage.
You can't write a song out of thin air. You have to feel and know what you are writing about. ... Talent is only a starting point. You've got to keep working that talent. Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there. ... Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it. ... The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. ... After you get what you want you don't want it. ... Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold half a million copies. ... The song is ended, but as the songwriter wrote, the melody lingers on.
The songwriting did come naturally; it really did. Like Joe said, the first song we ever wrote together was the song that got us signed, you know, so it was either luck, fate, or something in between.
Frank called me one day and said, 'I have an idea for a movie, why don't you come over and I'll tell you?' So I went over and we sat down and he said, 'This picture starts in heaven'. That shook me.
A song that sounds simple is just not that easy to write. One of the objectives of this record was to try and write melodies that continue to resonate...Everything that happens to you influences your writing...The writing process for me is pretty much always the same-it's a solitary experience...I have yet to write that one song that defines my career...Beck said he didn't believe in the theory of a song coming through you as if you were an open vessel. I agree with him to a certain extent.
I started playing bass in my friend's band for some reason. It was just something I did because, well, he asked me if I wanted to play bass and he played me this song - Nirvana's version of "Molly's Lips", the Vaselines song - and he said, "You can do this! This is not hard!" and it's like a two-note song. I learned that and then I thought I was a genius.
I got the idea for the song 'Bad Company' when I saw a poster for the Jeff Bridges movie, and it reminded of an old Victorian picture that I'd once seen, and it said, 'Beware of bad company.' So I sat down at the piano and started to write the song.
I like the idea that a song can be something that you can lean on, both for the songwriter and for the person who hears the song.
Everyone has their own experiences with song. It means one thing to me and it means something entirely different to somebody else. I have a song called 'Apple Cherry' which is a song about unrequited love and to this couple in London, they fell in love to this song. The girl in the relationship called me and said she wanted to propose to her girlfriend could you sing 'Apple Cherry' while I do it? I was like 'Really? That's not a love song about getting together'.
Some years later I met Queen Elizabeth II, in our capital Ottawa at a Canada Day celebration. David Foster and I were doing the show and we both met her afterwards. She told me how much she loved the Canadian Railroad Trilogy. She looked at me and said, "oh, that song", and then said again, "that song", and that was all she said.
When I was five years old, me and my cousin got into a fistfight because when "That's the Way (I Like It)" came on the radio, he said, "That's my song," and I said, "No, that's my song."
As a songwriter I hate this whole, 'If it's a sad song, it has to sound like a sad song thing.' And that goes all the way back to my days with the Format. I'm an insane narcissist, so if I have to get something off my chest, I'll get something off my chest.
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