I write a lot of material you've never heard that live inside my sadness. You'll hear a song that lasts six to seven minutes of just beautiful sadness. But I can't just go out on the stage to ask five thousand people to be sad with me for seven straight minutes.
I call it sacred geometry. When everything's just right and it feels really balanced, so that when it unfolds to the next part, you feel totally familiar and at ease within the song.
By the end of the writing process, which is about 80 songs per album, I look at the material and think, what's going to make a difference in someone's life.
I think there’s no greater joy than completing a song out of thin air. It’s like inventing something, but it’s invisible, you know? It’s weird. It amazes me. You can send it out in the world, and that’s the joy. It’s like giving birth to all these songs and letting them go like they’re your kids.
There's a certain feeling of giving, a certain feeling of generosity in love songs. When you sing a song of love, you're actually giving something to yourself, too. You're singing and casting these affirmations of love out into the universe.
When I sit down to write a song, I really want the message of healing to thrive and transcend all ages.
I aim to write songs in a way that you don't have to have gone to Ghana to relate to it, you really just have to have a heart.
To create an album of love, I really had - I thought it was going to be easy, because I've always written love songs. But I thought if I really want to make a love album that contributes, that actually means something, I've got to go deep.
I basically had the idea when I was 18 that I wanted to write my own songs. I knew it was going to be a long, tough road, and I was like, if I just begin now, by the time I'm 40, I'll be good at it.
I get tired of the same albums, the same look and singing the same songs. When I get bored I paint, I plant trees and just do something different. I get far away from singing.
To create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish.
It was a very bizarre experience for me, to get the songs together, go in there, and try to deliver them as I would perhaps in a live setting. But I realized that I couldn't take on that coffeehouse style that I came from and go in there and burn it up.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon would often write a song a day, so I have the same workmanlike philosophy.
I love the sound of the wind in the trees and the song of the birds and the shuffle in the leaves of my many woodland friends.
I can't predict what songs will do to the collective consciousness.
I write my miserable songs. I write songs about disgust and self-pity. We’re all going to have bummer moments. That’s not the stuff I choose to share.
Writing songs is no different than explaining to somebody what you dreamed last night: No one ever gives you crap for what you dreamed last night. "I was laying in my bed, and all of a sudden a stallion jumped on my bed and the next thing I know I was in Mars but it looked like my kitchen"... That's kind of what I do with my songs, write them in a dream-like manner. It's up to people to swallow it however they want.
My memory is not so good so my most memorable show is the last one I played. Songs are written with intention but they only emerge in the moment.
I think more obvious to others, is that I'm most vulnerable on stage. Even though I know which songs I'm going to play, I try and keep it loose and base my stage time more on what the audience is requesting of me.
When I play with the full band, you get to be larger than life, you feel larger than life, and that particular moment in the song where there's passion, you've got nine guys behind you, all driving that sound and that feeling with you. That's like surfing a huge wave, because once you start you really can't stop it, you got it going down a huge mountain.
Yoga has had a profound effect on my songs and performances. I don't meditate in the traditional style of sitting and doing nothing. I prefer the zen of paying attention, such as the meditation of yoga flow, or walking meditations. I also consider singing, surfing and gardening to very meditative.
I enjoy going on stage knowing that there's going to be that vulnerability and that transparency and hopefully things will be realized or accomplished or that confidence will be revealed. I think that's another element that people like about shows: in addition to hearing the songs that they love, I think there are some people who really get off on connecting with what's happening right now.
I do feel most at home playing live, but the feeling of getting into the studio to see the new songs take shape was really incredible.
It's from being melancholy and having my human down experiences that I learn, that I overcome, that I transform - and these realizations I put into song. That's what I choose to put in my backpack and carry with me around the world.
Sometimes touring can warp reality because you're never in one place long enough to get a feel for it. You don't interact with people long enough to know what real life is. That's why a lot of artists write songs about longing and missing people when they're on the road. I do my best to keep my mind open and I read a lot when I'm on tour, so I hope I have good things to write about. I'm constantly in the songwriting process.
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