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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

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
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
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
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
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
I divorce myself from listeners who aren’t tolerant of humor. I did notice universally that, especially when it comes to weight, people look in the mirror and get the angle just right, tell themselves it’s all right, and then they go out.
BEN FOLDS

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

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

Happy Love Reason Want
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
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
What stupid f – king idiot gets married a second time if the first time didn’t work out?
BEN FOLDS

Kings Out Stupid Work
I drink a lot, probably too much. My scene while writing lyrics is always a bottle of scotch and stacks of note cards, pencil and pencil sharpener. I throw around note cards and drink.
BEN FOLDS

Cards Scotch Writing
People aren’t going to sit there very often, not your average public, and your average music-business monster is not going to take the time to notice the overtones and the undertones inside the flavor. They’d rather just have the martini.
BEN FOLDS

Average Business Overtones Public
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
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

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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