Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" When I first started to sing, I just swung at it with an axe. "

Related Quotes:

" The success of 'Take Me To Church,' I never imagined it. I never imagined that it would work on radio, that it would find its way onto the charts, even at home and certainly not in America. "

" If I don't think something's worth saying, I don't think it's quite there, I'd rather just not say it, to be honest. In that case, I'd rather wait 'till the thought is ready, 'till I feel like I'm happy with everything. "

" I remember writing lyrics for 'Take Me to Church' for a long time before I even had a song in mind for. It's not that I was trying to write that song for a year, but sometimes you just kind of collect lyrical and musical ideas and don't actually complete the song until you feel like they work together and have a home. "

" I'm reading a lot of poetry because it's a lot easier to dip in and dip out when you've got 10 minutes to yourself. "

" I'm uncomfortable with selfies and status updates documenting mundane pieces of my life, which I don't think should be of interest to anyone else. "

" It's funny: Your relationship changes with a song over time. After a year or so, you're a different person, so your songs, you don't connect with them like you did. "

" I wish I had more time to read. I'm always traveling. "

" It's a surreal experience filming promotion with Ryan Seacrest and meeting Top 40 pop artists. "

" I try to be happy. I try to face things without regret or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can. "

" I think it all started with Nina Simone. When I was maybe seven or eight, I used to listen to one of her albums every night before I went to sleep. For me, her voice was everything. "

" Anyone close to me will be familiar with my frustrations with certain aspects of social media: the behaviour it encourages and attitudes towards the self it can breed. "

" I've been a total Tom Waits dork for a long, long time. "

" Certainly in the case of having to answer questions about where a song comes from, it's a hell of a lot easier when you say, 'I've removed myself from it.' But they start from quite a personal place. They always do. "

" I try to face things without regret, or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can. "

" There are a lot of recurring themes that I resonated with when I read 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.' "

" When you play to an audience, you come away energized. It's the promo that really breaks an artist. Some lad sitting on a box trying to create a drum sound in a dry little studio. Everyone goes, 'Great - okay, now on with my day.' You go back to the bus, and you weep. "

" A lot of the 'leave' campaign was centered around a thinly veiled xenophobia, just 'control our own borders.' It's not a good look. I don't think it represents Britain; I don't think it represents the U.K. all too well. It breaks my heart for my generation in Britain who are going to suffer. "

" We have such a culture of discrimination and hatred, and one that has scapegoats and affects people so extremely. That's something that very easily crosses borders. "

" If you can say something beautiful in a very terrible way - I was always drawn to that. "

" I love a lot of Irish folk music and Irish folk songs. "

" I found the experience of falling in love or being in love was a death: a death of everything. You kind of watch yourself die in a wonderful way, and you experience for the briefest moment - if you see yourself for a moment through their eyes - everything you believed about yourself gone. In a death-and-rebirth sense. "

" I'm not quite used to being seen through the eyes of fans yet. Being met with squeals and screams - I haven't gotten used to that. "

" Some of the earlier stuff I did in studio with producers was very pop-directed, which I was uncomfortable with. "

" My musical education was grounded in blues and Chicago blues - John Lee Hooker and Otis Redding. "

" When I write songs, I try to remove myself a little bit. Obviously, they're very personal to me, but it feels easier if I feel like I'm writing characters. "

" The more I come to L.A., the more it's amazing. "

" You grow up and recognise that in an educated, secular society, there's no excuse for ignorance. You have to recognise in yourself, and challenge yourself, that if you see racism or homophobia or misogyny in a secular society, as a member of that society, you should challenge it. You owe it to the betterment of society. "

" Governments do not care about your Facebook-assembled opinion. Incompetent politicians don't read your tweets; there are reasons for them being out of touch. Change does not come about for 'likes' on a page, though the ideas for it may start there. "

" Rarely do I finish a song lyrically before I have a musical idea there, but then again, rarely ever would I finish a song musically before starting the lyrical ideas. So a lot of the time, they come in tandem, or they just come at a glance. "

" If I fall into a city, I fall into a scene, and I just don't want to get distracted and enjoy myself too much. There's too much work to be done. "