I've covered Avril Lavigne. I like good pop songs, and I don't think there should be any kind of preconceptions about where good pop songs come from. ↗
It's a real gift to be able to have the works of brilliant, great people to learn from and build from. It gives you so much more to draw on, and then you don't have to be all about three-chord pop songs. I don't really like that kind of writing. ↗
When I am seriously composing, sometimes a phrase will come into my head, a catch phrase. When I was writing pop songs for a few years, as a career, separate from my folksinging career, I used to write songs for pop singers. ↗
It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing. ↗
I see songs not as a commodity used up when the album goes off the charts, which is often the case with pop songs. I see them as a body of work. Life should be breathed into them. ↗
At one time musical theater, particularly in the '40s and '50s, was a big source of pop songs. That's how musical theater started, really - it was just a way of linking several pop songs for the stage. ↗
Pop songs are not as graceful as they used to be. Performers today haven't gone through the regimen of learning how to write. And of course, everyone wants to own copyrights. ↗
I'm not good at happy, lightweight kind of music. I'm not really good at pop music. 'Cars' is probably the only true pop song I ever wrote. I wish I could write more, but I'm not very good at it. ↗
