Gordon Lightfoot Quotes

Well, I make every song I sing personal. I've never chosen a song that wasn't.

A song has a life of its own. It's an autonomous thing, separate from your own experience, almost. And the mere repetition of it means it's subject to change; it means approaching it differently, expressing different emotional aspects of it. It doesn't feel like wallowing.

Even if somebody wanted to tell me what one of my songs meant to him or her, I can't do it - I would be probably put to tears every time.

I don't really like to talk about what my songs are about.

I'd rather people interpret the songs and get whatever they can out of them instead of thinking about me crying in a room with a guitar.

I think when you've lived a bit, you read more into the songs. I do, anyway. And you're sort of living the songs rather than performing them.

It's very strange when people get so focused on what a song means, what actual events inspired a song. That gets people really excited for some reason... But that's what's great about music - however people interpret it, whatever they see, is what I want to be there for them.

The songs are about things that we were thinking and we wrote 'em down, and when you listen to 'em, whatever you think it's about... THAT'S what it's about!

Some of us get a feeling when we hear music and we feel music, and you want to figure out how to continue to feel that.

Singing intimately is almost like thinking into a microphone, so it helps to have the song buried inside you.

People relate to songs so differently. No matter what it's about in reality, people create their own meaning behind it and connect with it on their own terms.

When you're watching a movie and find yourself getting emotional, it's because you're bringing something personal to the images. It's the same thing with acting. You're bringing the essence of your core emotional being to that moment.

I think folks who are resistant to engaging in art become less so once they encounter art that really reflects them.

I won't get into it any more than to say that there are parts of me in all the songs that I write.

I love telling a story through song. It helps me take it to a deeper place.

People should listen to my music if they just want to know me better.

Making music is so spiritual. I'm not a spiritual person, but music is sacred to me.

I knew what the story behind 'Dreams' was. It was about Stevie Knicks' relationship. But when I sing it, it's about sharing some sage advice with somebody.

With songs, it doesn't matter what song it is; every time I go out and perform it, it's like the first time I'm performing it, the first time I wrote it. If it's not, then I'm not going to do it that night.

That's my favorite part about songwriting, the way you write a song, and someone else might hear it a different way.

If you look at the big rock hits I've had - 'High on Emotion,' for example - the songs I write have to have a real meaning. There has to be depth.

I play some places where the people are right at my feet, and you can see their expressions. It's kind of more like playing in your living room. It's almost easier to play in front of thousands of people in an arena scene, in some ways, but you don't get the personal contact.

After talking to people and meeting them every day, I realize that a song can be written from one perspective with an objective in mind. What is crazy about it is that many different people can take one song a totally different way. That is so cool, since music is a universal thing and a very personal thing.

All of our songs, no matter what record they're on, mean a lot to us.

Music can inspire immediate emotional reactions, even if the only person who hears it is the person creating it.