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The music business is a weird business. Sometimes licensing doesn’t happen because some business component that you never knew about stops it.

Ben Folds

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
Im really good at writing almost hits.
BEN FOLDS

Almost Fold Good Writing
It’s like being in the position of – in half of the industry’s mind, you’re kind of a cult-following, independent rocker. And on the other hand, you’re a sellout. But neither one of them are right.
BEN FOLDS

Hands Independent Mind
I always feel very lucky that I am forced to make records at certain times. If I was forced to make 2 records a year, I would write twice as many songs. I can’t make myself finish something unless I am forced
BEN FOLDS

Always Myself Record Times Twice
I feel like a quote out of context.
BEN FOLDS

Context Feels Folds
White people don’t sing together very often, and when they do, it’s about the celebrity of the song. The singing at my shows is all about harmony.
BEN FOLDS

People Song White
I think a lot of good directors listen to music while they’re working. The songs just don’t become a part of the film. They’re replaced.
BEN FOLDS

Director Song Thinking
The press is like any business. Its a group of really intelligent individuals that ends up being one slathering, one-eyed, drooling monster.
BEN FOLDS

Group Intelligent Monster
I’m older than I was, and I’m still washed-up, and I haven’t changed my music one iota. It’s just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.
BEN FOLDS

Easier Nice People
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
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
I think people use temp music quite a bit, but the people who write the temp music don’t ever really learn that their music was inspiring a movie.
BEN FOLDS

People Thinking Writing
And all I really want to say is you’re the reason I want to stay.
BEN FOLDS

Happy Love Reason Want
I start songs all the time. If I weren’t so lazy, I would finish them. It’s like when I have a deadline I have to.
BEN FOLDS

Song Writing Years
Everybody knows it hurts to grow up…and we’re still fighting it.
BEN FOLDS

Fighting Growing Hurt Up
The reason I stop playing songs is usually because I get sick of them, and then they find themselves back into the set list at some point.
BEN FOLDS

List Sick Song
I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest so I can be for you what you want to see.
BEN FOLDS

Feels Want Withholding
People learn at the rate they are going to learn.
BEN FOLDS

Learn People Rate
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
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 I’m in a relationship and my girlfriend is sleeping with other people, I don’t need to know who it is; I just want to know how she feels about it.
BEN FOLDS

Girlfriend People Sleep
I’m romantically inclined. No human being on Earth is not attracted to other people. There is no fairy tale that they only have eyes for you. You just choose to act on it or not.
BEN FOLDS

Earth Eyes People
My parents told me I must get married. I was seen as a failure if I didn’t do it.
BEN FOLDS

Failure Married Parent
Everyone, when you’re a teenager and you’re growing up, you do feel like your life is dramatic enough to be on a TV screen, but we know that it’s not.
BEN FOLDS

Enough Grow Up Screen Teenager
The clock never stops, never stops, never waits. We’re growing old. It’s getting late.
BEN FOLDS

Growing Reality Waiting
Everyone grew up with a piano in their living room, so rocking out on the piano was accessible – it wasn’t an upper-class thing. Now pianos have become very much a piece of furniture.
BEN FOLDS

Every Furniture One Piano Room The Piece
I want people to listen to my lyrics and be okay with themselves. The people who have it the roughest are homosexuals who come out of the closet.
BEN FOLDS

Closets People Want

The music business is a weird business. Sometimes licensing doesn’t happen because some business component that you never knew about stops it.

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The music business is a weird business. Sometimes licensing doesn’t happen because some business component that you never knew about stops it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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