Sharon Jones Quotes

I get really nervous right before I go on stage. But once I'm performing, I always love it. It's like being in a different world.

No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose.

I think on a stage in front of thousands of people is a wildly invigorating and amazing experience, and it requires a certain skill set; then being in the studio, and being curled up in the fetal position under the piano, that requires another skill set.

I do a lot of performing, but don't get a chance to go to the studio and write good music.

I write songs on guitar and that's about how good of a guitar player I am. I can write songs on it.

There is plenty of people I'd love to collaborate with, would love to produce with, would love to write songs with.

I love to write honest songs that name real people, then get up onstage and live out those emotions in front of 15,000 people.

Performing is one of the best feelings I know!

If you're up there [on stage] thinking about what you're doing, you're just not there and it's not going to happen.So trying to learn how to overcome those - which is a normal thing to do. You're in front of a lot of people. People are going to get very self-conscious. So you have to learn to sort of overcome that tendency towards self-consciousness and just blow it wide open. And you jump in and join all those people that are out there enjoying what you're doing together.

The drumming helps a lot when I'm producing songs or writing songs. My knowledge of drums helps more in that aspect, (although) I don't know, man; I'm not great at any of them.

I like entertaining people. I like being on stage. I like being in the life. This is what I do. This is the only thing I know how to do besides rob people and fight. Even when I was robbing people, I was entertaining them. But that's just what I love doing.

I have no shame in making music that maybe, if you listen to it long enough, you'll realize you've heard this or that part of it before. I'm still very excited by an amazingly written song, so that's really the thing that I work on when I make records with people.

The performing part of it, that's what I live for. I've always told people that's what I was born for. I believe, with the proper things around me, and everything I need as a performer; band, and all that kind of stuff, I still feel to this day there's no one that can touch me. Still.

I like the process of writing songs. It makes me feel good.

I'd hear a tune in my head and the words would come. And then, very suddenly it just stopped. It seemed too stilted to try and learn how to write a song, to go to round robins and to learn things from other people on how to write a song. So I just stopped and did other things.

I'm not unfamiliar with music, and I really do write music. I've gotten a talent for it. I don't have the technical skills, but I do plan to learn.

It takes a lot of courage to be a performer.

I'm not one of these people who sits down and writes to say I'm gonna write a song about this or that, or a specific subject. The songs actually kind of write themselves.

As a comedian, I can walk out in front of 5000 people and not worry about a thing. Not a thing, believe me. But to stand up a face a camera and crew of maybe 15 guys and get up tight about it - to me that's weird.

It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.

For me, being onstage for an hour and a half, my confidence was really huge for me. Doing eight shows a week for a run, I was like: "I'm actually doing this." And now I feel more confident going into something.

I like sitting in the dark and watching people far more talented than I'll ever be sing my songs and say my words. It's thrilling.

New songs are why artists go on the road. That's why I go on the road. It's a three-prong play. Writing: You're intrigued. Recording: It brings it to life. And then you want to share it.

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. ... I'm probably writing music now for the same reason as I started writing songs when I was 14-to meet women. ... If you make music for the human needs you have within yourself, then you do it for all humans who need the same things. You enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings. ... My songs are like my kids.

I can put some chords together and maybe write a song, but I'm learning every day. And that's the fun part.