People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.

Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.

I always loved that old song ‚Banks of the Ohio‘ – it was always such a man’s song, so I’ve always wanted to record it.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

My mother knew how to read music and everything. But I just kinda learned off of records. And so, I was listening to records and I’d play ‚em over and over.

I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He’s not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.

You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don’t have to be in love with anyone.

Everyone my age probably grew up listening to the ‚perreos‘ of Plan B.

I don’t think anyone ever plans to change line-ups, but it’s something that comes with being in bands. I was in a band once and there were always problems – members come and go – and some of the world’s biggest bands have changed line-ups loads!

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

I don’t know if it’s changing already with ‚Joanne,‘ but my intention is to bring people together that don’t know each other and that would maybe feel awkward, but somehow be brought together by the music. That’s what I wanted to do. Because that is pure and authentic to my family history and what I stand for.

There’s something about pulling out a real tape from a shelf and looking at it and knowing that ‚Everlong‘ is on it, or ‚Best of You‘ is on it, and it’s really special.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

If you hear Anarchy in the UK today your hair stands on end. It gives you the shivers.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

I think what made it difficult for people to get, and still makes it difficult for people to get, is the theatrical nature of the work and the fact that, my music doesn’t exist without the performance-art element.

Most people wouldn’t know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.

I wish I could tell you me and my rock band were traveling around, strung out. No, we were a family band. Straight Partridge Family.

In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can’t replace the magic of four people in a room playing.

I was part of Jazzercise class. It was an aerobics routine accompanied by loud music, sounding quite awful to me. Jazzercise was popular in the ’80s and ’90s.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

I do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

It’s almost schizophrenic who I portray in my music.

What I like about music is the songs you can remember the lines of in a single second.

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

Environment is very important to me. Sometimes I have to perform during the day for festivals, and my music does not work in the daytime. It is nighttime music.

I’m not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.

I get a thrill meeting kids who are into alternative music.

If this were all to go away tomorrow, all the big success, I would still be very happy going from bar to bar playing music for people.

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

People are already finding ways to make their music and play it in front of people and have a life in music, I guess, and I think that’s pretty much all you can ask.

I’ve been on tour since I was 16, and I always do meet-and-greets before and after shows, so you kind of build these friendships with people. I have girls come up to me and tell me exactly what’s going on in their love lives.

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down.

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited – that has music and rhythm and time.

I don’t know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate – it feels like I’m singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story.

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

Music is my shining light, my favorite thing in the world. T get me to stop doing it for one second would be difficult!

I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.

I have to work really hard to get the record deal – I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind – like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature – that gets in the way of writing great songs.

There’s a reason why the Foo Fighters don’t blast out Nirvana songs every night: because we have a lot of respect for them. You know, that’s hallowed ground. We have to be careful. We have to tread lightly. We have talked about it before, but the opportunity hasn’t really come up, or it just hasn’t felt right.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

People like music when they’re in love, but they don’t need it as much. You need music when you’re missing someone or you’re pining for someone or you’re forgetting someone or you’re trying to process what just happened.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

Sometimes I do need to go to karaoke, sometimes I need to relax.

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything – why can’t I?

I love being a part of the country-music community.

It’s so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.