Emmylou Harris Quotes

Songs are like anything else - they dictate to you which ones go together and which ones don't.

We would play, then they would play a set, then we would jam on the last song.

It's different for every song. But for 'Say Something,' I think it was Chad who had an idea on guitar, and I had an idea on piano for different songs, and we just married them together. We bounce things off each other constantly and kind of massage all these ideas into a three and a half minute pop song.

I mean, there are only so many notes. What makes something original is how you put it together.

The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.

I am not a composer of music; I sing pieces which have been written for me which gives me bigger freedom to search for pieces I want to record.

When I got my band in 1983, I knew what I had to do. If I'm going to have a big band, they're going to have to sound equally as good as what I'm used to hearing.

That said, everything's important, and every musician who plays on the record is an integral part of it.

I never considered myself a songwriter, but now since I've been working with Nick Lowe, I am contributing to an extent. But I'm the guitarist and he's not, so we compliment each other in a way.

And you don't want to just totally mess up the rhythm when you're playing with Bob Dylan.

You can be a singer, and you can be a guitar player, but putting them together is another animal.

I've tried to force a solo before, but sometimes it's like, 'That thing don't really fit, man!'

In 'Heart of Gold' at one point, there were 23 players on the stage with him. And part of what's magic about Neil is the way he interacts with the other musicians.

Led Zeppelin was a band that would change things around substantially each time it played... We were becoming tighter and tighter, to the point of telepathy.

I love playing guitar every night, and to be at this point where it's like, the songs are done and I'm happy with the way they are on record, and I get to hear them be reinterpreted by the live band? That's kind of the icing on the cake. It's the best.

I can't do too much musical movement with a lot of MC's, because they don't know how to follow me. But with Souls of Mischief, I could go anywhere because they are musicians - they rap as musicians, and they play instruments and produce, so they get that.

You can have the best riff in the world, but if the drums behind it just ain't vibing it, it's not gonna be the greatest riff, right? So you've gotta have someone there that can really bring that to life.

I always try, when I'm singing songs, to interpret them the way that I would've arranged them. I think about the melody first, and then I pull out my guitar and start singing it.

Being a three piece, maybe it's easier. You only have two other guys, musically, and everything else to contend with and work with.

Two people making a beat is really like one person making a beat. But you have another person's brain. So what might sound good to you, they could flip it a different way. It's really a collaborative effort, really.

I don't believe in a composer who is only able to compose, who can't play or conduct, can only use a computer. If that trend continues there will be no more symphonies, no more oratorios.

I tend to have a lot of songs ready for each record I do anyway. I always have. I was thinking, the more you write, the better chance you're going to come up with a collection of stuff that is going to work together.

I feel like once you go with a band, it's hard to go back. I just don't see myself performing without a band.

Personally, my favorite 'meat' song is 'We Got It Right.' As soon as it comes on, it transports me to a different place. And I'm really proud of our performance in the studio on that one.

What people fail to realize is that any album we did, really, 90 percent of it reflected the songs people brought in. If someone had brought in two great rock songs for 'Cornerstone'... they would have been on that record.