When I am seriously composing, sometimes a phrase will come into my head, a catch phrase. When I was writing pop songs for a few years, as a career, separate from my folksinging career, I used to write songs for pop singers.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
So much of my career has been about saying things the way people say them, using melodies not that I can sing but that the people can sing.
I usually don't write songs by people calling me and saying, 'Write a song about this.' Usually I'm just going with what I want to write, so you never know.
I'm a sucker for pop melodies, things you can't get out of your head.
In our world, as artists, the only time I'm allowed to express myself is through song.
I don't rely on catchphrases or really like sing-along. I just do whatever I feel. Whatever the beat makes me say, I do that and I run with that. It's been working for me, so I'd be cool with that.
Like all artists, I go through creative spurts.
I never walk into the studio and say, I'm going to write a song called... 'X' or called 'Slow Me Down.' I write a ton of lyrics, often the title is somewhere in those 10 pages of... I call it brain vomit. It's kind of like whatever comes out of my head and I'm unabashedly just writing it down.
Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.
I've never written lyrics. I get up in front of a microphone, and I just sing what comes to the top of my head.
When I'm writing a song, I'm just making stuff up as I go along.