Rostam Batmanglij Quotes

I'm all about telling stories. I like people to picture the music video in their head when they're just listening to the song.

I go to a very visual place when I'm singing. It's very cinematic and I get this feeling of space. I love when music does that.

My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that as a great compliment. That's exactly my intention.

I think the way Win Butler writes, I really identify with it. He writes very emotionally and very cinematically, and I just connect with his sensibility.

That's what writing is all about, after all, making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.

At the end of the day, I'm a fan of great stories and great songs.

I love telling a story through song. It helps me take it to a deeper place.

For me, growing-up music was always about telling stories.

I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

Whether we're talking about books, music or film, it's all about storytelling. You get a powerful new way of connecting with people once you hear their stories.

I was a storyteller for The Band. It was never, 'Hey guys, here's a song about what happened to me.' I was always more comfortable writing fiction.

As a songwriter, I'm not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

To me, the most important thing is to tell a good story. If I can do that, I think that enlightenment, respect of nature, etc. follows.

I've always been drawn to stories and telling them; whether it was through being a part of theater when I was a little kid, or film, or with music, there's just been an innate desire to feel that connection.

For a song cycle to work, you have to feel these things when you hear them and you either have an emotional reaction to it or you don't. The plotline is something that gets woven together in the back-story.

Each song, you're telling a story and acting.

Songs are like movies to me, and so you put yourself in the movie. You become a character in the movie.

I like being a storyteller. I'm bored with myself; I like to write about others. I have a lot of names in my songs: Karen, Margaret, Mary Kay. Even if it's about me, I want to put it through someone else. The music is the soundtrack to the story.

When I'm writing songs, I write visually. When I'm writing the words down and I listen to the melody and the lyrics, I start seeing the video form. And if I can get through a song and from the beginning to the end have the whole video in my mind, I think that's a great song.

I love songs that tell stories. They make you feel something, something real.

What I'm trying to do is tell good stories through music. I think some of the best songs, the best country songs, are stories.

I loved the idea of dramatic art of storytelling as a way to make sense of things. It's really what I love and what I care about.

In my songs, I try to look through someone else's eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message.

I don't know how it is for people who write fiction or literature, but for me, when I'm writing music, especially with this album, I felt compelled to hold up my end of the conversation. I want people to connect deeper with it.

You get to tell your story through your music if you choose to.