There's always a group of songs that I'm working at. Some of them are 10 years old, and some of them are just a few weeks old. I'm always trying to adjust these songs to some position where I can bring them to completion.
When I start to write a song, I have the words and I have the melody, and then it's just a matter of making it to the end. I think if I have something that I could identify as a talent, it would be that I can finish a song. I kind of know intuitively where the melody should go.
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.
When I'm doing interviews, I'm doing interviews, and when I am writing, I'm writing. I sit there with a musician and I write. It's the same process since I started writing in my twenties. I like to come in and leave with a finished song.
I am never excited to play through a song all the way, because it can reveal more flaws that mean more work. For some reason, I always have an irrational fear that the song will never be finished.
'Chandelier' took, like, four minutes to write the chords, then, like, 12-15 minutes to write the lyrics. Probably 10 or 15 minutes to cut the vocals.
'Float On' was a fine song, but I was still writing the lyrics on the last day we were working on it and deciding if it was something we wanted to put on the record.
When I'm in the studio, I don't finish the song and say, 'That's going to be a big ringtone.'
Pretty much all the programming on our CDs is done by me personally, so I've kind of been able to have complete control of what sounds I'm looking for to complete a song.
I never complete a song until I'm actually going to make a record.
I'm never sure if I'll ever write another song, what the song will be about and if what initially sparked the beginning of a song might complete it.
I finished your song, she said. Our last song. And I want to play it for you.
I probably take about a month to write a song, depending on how much time I can dedicate to it, and it depends on how many hours a day there are and how many days in a week and weeks in a month.
To finish a song is the best feeling in the world.
'Somebody That I Used to Know,' like a lot of the record, was a bit of a struggle to finish. It was written fairly quickly - I wrote it in November 2010 - but it took six months to find Kimbra and really realize she was the right vocalist to make the female part come to life. There were constant hurdles.
One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
Some songs take months to get right, but 'Let Her Go' was so easy. I was no more pleased with it than any other song I'd written.
It is such a gift to be able to write songs in general, but when you can share it with somebody, it is just such a pleasure. It is such a happy moment when you finish a song, and you are just like, 'Wow - that was great.'
A lot of getting a song done is booking the studio time.
My process is really about little bits of inspiration. I just record them really quick on the guitar or something. I have a huge folder full of them. But if I start a song, I finish it.
There's no real high like finishing a new song, playing it a thousand times in your car, and freaking out with your co-writers.
The first line of the song is always the hardest thing to write. And then after that, the song should - unless it sucks - it should write itself.
The thing that makes me want to proceed and finish a song is when it really touches me and makes me feel something.
It's a very interesting thing because I can start mixing a song and leave the room and come back and maybe just slide one lever to a certain point, and it just - it's a certain feeling that it gives you when you know it's right.
A song isn't finished until it's played live, and then it moves on.
