Nick Cave Quotes

Whether it's string writing or whatever, I try to write for what each instrumentalist can do best.

Jeff Lynne is an arranger, and I think it's probably much easier for him to go ahead and play a part himself than to try to show somebody else what he wants. But it's hard for me to say; I barely know Jeff.

When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It's an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It's a unit.

Although I have guitars all around, and I pick them up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics, and I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me.

In some ways, it's more rewarding to hear someone interpret a piece of music that you're a part of.

In The Go-Go's, my philosophy is that I contribute whatever the song requires. I never think, 'What can I put in here to show off the latest trick that I just picked up?' What I think is, 'What's required from me as a drummer to make this a better song?'

Just like using an instrument, a song calls for different things.

Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of a performance liberty, you're making a compositional choice. I don't know a serious performer who hasn't made compositional decisions, who hasn't engaged in the art of composition.

I wish I could play music. I think I get as closeas possible with the editing of the films. Over the years musichas been an even more important influence than-or as important as-film.There's no doubt about it. Painting, movement, dance, sculpture-it'sall in cinema.

A Cat Stevens record isn't just Cat Stevens' ideas. It's Cat Stevens and all the musicians who play with Cat Stevens, right?

That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer.

Whoever hired me might've just heard 'Refugee.' Well, I'm not the secret to 'Refugee.' The secret to 'Refugee' is the song. But if somebody really good calls me up to play on something because they like the way I played on 'Refugee,' then I wind up playing on another really good song.

I shall always respect the composer. If I embellish, it is his idea I am embellishing.

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

Music. It's all creativity right here, right now.

Writing music and lyrics, you tend to become a control freak - sitting alone in your room with a bare light bulb over your head, writing communist manifestos.

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it's hard to get up the courage to say, 'Can I sing this part,' or, 'I want to play guitar.'

That said, everything's important, and every musician who plays on the record is an integral part of it.

The real architecture happens within the works themselves, and that was done by the composer. That's where the real skill is. In putting together a program, you're more a curator, but that's important as well. And then the interpreting of it is where our big job is.

For me making music is part social, part interaction, part collaboration.

If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.

Composers are the only people who can hear good music above bad sounds.

I am an interpreter of music rather than a composer of it.

The creative part for me is making songs, and that's what I really love the most, and that's what I've always done for every band I've ever had.