I picked up the guitar at 11, but even before then, I was writing songs on the organ.
— Tracy Chapman
We all must live our lives always feeling, always thinking the moment has arrived.
When you feel like you've had a good show, you go backstage and you talk to yourself about it, and if you have a bad show you talk to yourself about it.
Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control.
My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it.
I often write either really early in the morning, or really late at night.
I dressed up as a veterinarian for a Halloween costume party. I had the lab coat. I got a couple of stuffed animals for patients and put bandages on them.
I may be revered or defamed and decried; But I tried to live my life right.
Growing up in Cleveland, I learned about singing from my mother, who had once sung professionally and who admired Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin.
I'm a hopeful cynic.
We have more media than ever and more technology in our lives. It's supposed to help us communicate, but it has the opposite effect of isolating us.
Some things remain fragments, just the lyrics and melodies or a line or two or a verse.
Love's a recurring theme through my work.
I learn all these things about the record talking about it after it's finished.
Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs.
At this point in my life I'd like to live as if only love mattered.
You have to pay attention to the moment and make it the best it can be for you. I've been trying to do that. It's really made a major difference for me. I'm a happier person.
With other people, you're always swapping music. Somebody is always listening to something you've never heard. It's a great way to hear all sorts of new things.
The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together.
People's real hopes and dreams can be distorted and misdirected and packaged until you're not sure what you really want or what you even really need.
I see some recurring themes: things that feel threaded together, some symbolic references, and songs about some of the big questions, like death. There are a lot of references to weather, too!
I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about.
After it's finished, sometimes I can trace a path that goes back to the possible source of inspiration.
