Quote

Writing songs is not something I wanted to share with people for a long time. It was precious to me. I didn't want someone to crush it. I waited until I felt strong enough to take the criticism.

The whole point of music is being able to share your story. I've been songwriting for a long time, usually while on the road, as a way to get my feelings out.

I've written songs before, and I don't want to share them with anybody. It's really personal for me, that sort of creative outlet where you put your emotions to paper or put to song. I don't do it that much anymore, but to let someone in on that outlet and to have it susceptible to judgment is scary.

I'm usually really drawn to a song, and I know it would be good to cover if it sounds like something that I could write, or I wished I could write. Sometimes a writer just sounds like they're in your head, and that is really cool for me.

I just try to tell a story with a song, and be able to try to transmit the emotion to you. That's all I'm really trying to do.

The tricky thing about songwriting is that, more often than not, what you consider to be your best work generates a collective shrug, and something you've simply tossed off bowls people over.

My approach is so simple; every song I sing, every story I tell, every move I make, must move the audience to laughter, tears, or inspiration. Otherwise, why do it? It's the communication.

The idea of songwriting is a transformative thing, and what I do with songwriting is take situations that are quite ordinary and transform them in some way. Apart from things like the murder ballads, the songs I write, at their core, are quite ordinary human concerns, but the process of writing about them transforms them into something else.

When it comes to sitting down and composing, there is no hesitation, no concern, no critics breathing fire down my neck. For me, writing a song is the purest part of all. No one can mess with that.

Sometimes when you're a songwriter, you kind of have this egotistic thing: you just want to write something that you love, and you don't care about if people like it or not, but personally, I want to write something that people can jive to.