black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there’s a lot of subtlety. That’s what I’m proud of.

Ben Folds

I feel like a quote out of context.
BEN FOLDS

Context Feels Folds
It’s a tough thing to know that when you’re making your album, you’re going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.
BEN FOLDS

Numbers Pressure Real
To the modern ear, it seems soft. When you hear it against other things, it seems vulnerable. Lyrically and musically, though, this is more subtle. And, yes, it’s asking a lot of someone who’s used to being hit over the head with bright neon to listen to this.
BEN FOLDS

Ask Lyrically Modest Somehow Vulnerable
My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that’s the right song to not fight the lyric.
BEN FOLDS

Fighting Job Song
In many ways, I’ve chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don’t like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible.
BEN FOLDS

Records Self Sound
But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that’s the center of it, that is it. It’s almost like there’s something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you’re a songwriter that sings your material.
BEN FOLDS

Church Musician Writing
The less I talk in bars, write emails, express myself in an emotionally lewd way outside of my songwriting, the more I have to do it through my music.
BEN FOLDS

Bars Email Writing
If the melody is telling me this is what the song is about, then I’m sort of forced into confession, autobiography or fantasy. If I don’t do that, I’ve hamstrung the melody.
BEN FOLDS

Confession Fantasy Song
I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.
BEN FOLDS

Gigs Pain White
Rock and roll is – and should be – a kid’s place.
BEN FOLDS

Kids Rocks Roll
The nature of honesty is that if someone has information or knows something about you that you don’t want heard, then they have power over you.
BEN FOLDS

Honesty Over Want You
Everything I write is personal, really. Even when I’m sarcastic, it’s quite personal. And on this record, from the production to the singing to the performances, I got it really honest.
BEN FOLDS

Sarcastic Singing Writing
I’ve gotten to the point where I realize that I need to tell my truth in music and not walk around blabbing my mind.
BEN FOLDS

Mind Needs Realizing
People learn at the rate they are going to learn.
BEN FOLDS

Learn People Rate
You can’t really control how people hear stuff. It’s hard to remember that. I have to let go of it.
BEN FOLDS

Letting People Stuff
You never know when you put out an album that’s unique whether it’ll get beat up for it or not.
BEN FOLDS

Albums Beats Unique

Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there’s a lot of subtlety. That’s what I’m proud of.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there’s a lot of subtlety. That’s what I’m proud of.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Folds Quotes