I think the true test of a pop song, for me, and I've talked to a lot of other writers about this, is you take your demo, you pop it in your car and you drive down Sunset Blvd. to Santa Monica, and that's the Hollywood car test.
It would be inappropiate, undignified, at 38, to conduct friendships or love affairs with the ardour or intensity of a 22 year old. Falling in love like that? Writing poetry? Crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photobooths? Taking a whole day to make a compilation tape? Asking people if they wanted to share your bed, just for company? If you quoted Bob Dylan or TS Eliot or, god forbid, Brecht at someone these days they would smile politely and step quietly backwards, and who would blame them? Ridiculous, at 38, to expect a song or book or film to change your life.
I always felt like I could combine good pop songs that are easy for people to like with a real person and a real mind and integrity. So maybe I bring people into that pop world who don't usually find themselves there because there's not enough stuff for them to get excited about otherwise. I try to be genuine. I try to be real. It's such a subjective thing, but I try to convey an emotion.
I've never really gotten into the whole labels thing. There were times I would cover a pop song, and people would say 'You sound really country.' I gave up on that whole thing a long time ago.
I admire pop songs that are perfect at three minutes.
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.
Pop music has greater power to change people and to affect people because it's a universal language. You don't have to understand music to understand the power of a pop song.
Yeah, except that when I write pop songs I have pretty strict constraints that I impose on myself. 69 Love Songs is a constraint. That the titles have to begin with "I'"s is a relatively strict constraint. Charm of the Highway Strip is all travel songs. And I am free to change the plot slightly to accommodate something that happens to rhyme conveniently.
Well, there are certainly original things to say. But I'm not sure that a pop song is the appropriate format to say them in.
Well, things hold up even if they sound dated. It can be very difficult to listen to 80s pop songs with really, really gigantic smashed drum sounds. You just want to turn that gated reverb down on the snare. It sounds wrong now. It sounds amateurish. And ugly. But at the time it sounded state-of-the-art. So yeah, I think it's important not to sound state-of-the-art in a way that anybody else is going to sound. Or you'll quickly sound like yesterday's state-of-the-art.
When I was working on the music for this I didn't want to just use pop songs as the score - most movies do it and I've done it before.
Creating a decent pop song is a challenge - and occasionally, once in every decade - it's kind of fun to do that.
Do we really have to wander around apologizing for enjoying plot, just because James Wood and a few dozen other arch-aesthetes sniff at it? It's like being careful not to sing pop songs in the shower because some guy in the local alt-weekly is a music snob.
I listen to a wide variety of music of all genres, but sometimes you just need a cheesy pop song.
There's nothing like getting feedback that's positive and supportive. That's what I'm all about. I'm really just genuinely doing good music. I'm not looking to be on the cover of magazines and I'm not in it for the fame. I'm not in it for selling or the biggest Pop song in the world. I have to go for critically acclaimed. I'd rather go for my peers that I look up to say "I listen to her record." I'd rather do a small little touring venue that has two people who support me as opposed to thousands of people. I mean if it happens, it happens but I'm doing it for me.
When it's a pop song, I don't really want to do pop songs, but they exist and sort of come out by accident.
Making a record's a real fight for me. I'm constantly fighting with this thing inside of me that says I should be sitting in a room with Matthew Shipp or I should have Han Bennink on drums or this song should be playing for the next 20 minutes in my head, not a silly little pop song. It's constant.
I prefer to feel uncomfortable by participating in projects were I am not the specialist. I am always the one who knows nothing. Playing with jazzmen and knowing nothing about jazz. Playing pop music and knowing nothing about how to structure a pop song. And the funny thing, which still surprises me, is that I continue to be invited to play by new people, from different areas, every day.
If you listen to my record, I'm just honest about stupid stuff most normal people wouldn't put in a pop song.
I think, 'How could anybody mock a good pop song?' It is timeless; it transcends barriers; it breaks down every single type of social barrier that you can possibly have. It can deal with the most difficult subjects, even if it abstracts the subject matter.
My mom and I are very honest with each other, almost to a fault. But that's just the way I am in life. If you listen to my record, I'm just honest about stupid stuff most normal people wouldn't put in a pop song.
I'm totally convinced I can write the perfect pop song.
It's a real gift to be able to have the works of brilliant, great people to learn from and build from. It gives you so much more to draw on, and then you don't have to be all about three-chord pop songs. I don't really like that kind of writing.
To look for some kind of insight or meaning in pop songs is not really - well there's plenty of other places where you should probably look first before you start looking for it in a pop song.
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