M. Ward famous quotes

One of the great things about music is that it has the capability of time travel - you smell a certain smell in the room and it takes you back to your childhood. I feel like music is able to do that, and it happens to me all the time.
-- M. Ward

#Smell #Childhood #Able

I get most of my inspiration from older records and older production styles, and that ends up rearing its head in the records that I make.
-- M. Ward

#Inspiration #Style #Records

I believe in working with songs that have personal value for me.
-- M. Ward

#Song #Believe #Personal Values

I always prefer other people's interpretations over my own, so I'm not very quick to make explicit what exactly a song or record is about.
-- M. Ward

#Song #People #Records

Certain things you have to stumble on to. They can't be preprogrammed.
-- M. Ward

#Certain

I find that the time that goes by is actually your best friend when you are making a record. The passing of time gives you perspective on what you recorded and what you wrote. If something sounds good to you 12 months after you recorded it then chances are pretty good that there's something valuable about the part or the song.
-- M. Ward

#Song #Giving #Perspective

I'm somebody who doesn't feel the need to be in the driver's seat all the time. I appreciate the perspective of being in the passenger's seat sometimes, and I feel fortunate for that because I've learned a lot from that perspective.
-- M. Ward

#Appreciate #Perspective #Needs

When you work on a record for three years, it's a great sense of relief when it is finally out in the world. It just feels good.
-- M. Ward

#Years #Feel Good #Relief

I definitely don't see myself as much of a singer, because my upbringing is really based around the guitar, learning chord progressions and that sort of thing. So the singing aspect of what I do has been a secondary adventure.
-- M. Ward

#Adventure #Guitar #Singing

I don't like the way recording to digital sounds. Most of the time, when I'm recording to two-inch tape, I still have a romantic vision of how songs sounded coming out of the radio when I was younger, and how they sounded coming out of my little four-track cassette player.
-- M. Ward

#Song #Player #Two

When I first started making music, it was learning other peoples songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.
-- M. Ward

#Song #Writing #Ideas

I treat the act of making a record very much like working in a laboratory, experimenting with sounds and ideas... Whoever chooses to latch onto it, great; whoever doesn't, that's fine, too. The reaction always pales in comparison to the weight of the act of production.
-- M. Ward

#Ideas #Sound #Records

The songwriting style, to me, is superior... there was a certain amount of joy in it, no matter how sad the song is. You get joy in listening to these Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison sad lyrics. I'm attracted to songs that have balance between the darks and the lights and giving them all equal opportunity.
-- M. Ward

#Song #Opportunity #Light

I had the naive, simplistic idea that producers and writers and artists of the time helped in a minuscule way to change the mind-set of America.
-- M. Ward

#Artist #Ideas #America

It's no fun for me to cover a song and produce it the exact same way as it already exists. When I hear that happening, I have to say, 'What's the point?
-- M. Ward

#Song #Fun #Way

I get most of my inspiration from older records. Most of the records that I listen to were probably made before I was born, and I was born in the mid-'70s. I don't know why, exactly, I'm drawn to those sounds.
-- M. Ward

#Inspiration #Sound #Records

I love the idea that I planned my career. I did not. It started out by getting invitations from artists that I really love and respect, to share a stage... I've been very lucky in that I haven't had to create a five-year plan. It's evolved.
-- M. Ward

#Artist #Years #Careers

The South of France is one of my favorite places in the world.
-- M. Ward

#Favorite Places #World #France

My grandparents are from Mexico, so I grew up with great Mexican food.
-- M. Ward

#Grandparent #Mexican #Mexico

The best live recordings capture elements of surprise onstage.
-- M. Ward

#Elements #Surprise #Element Of Surprise

It might be a meaningless moment, but those sparks that ignite the song.... It's mystical maybe, those magic moments. And to make music for a living, to perform these songs over and over, you have to safeguard those sparks. If you can do that, they'll last a lot longer...
-- M. Ward

#Song #Writing #Over You

I like using concrete imagery, but I don't feel that's what it's about. It's a combination of concrete and abstract to take the listener somewhere they know better than you. That's true for music, seeing a painting, watching a movie... it's all some kind of an escape.
-- M. Ward

#Writing #Kind #Painting

If I'm writing... even a piece of a song... I write it down. If it still resonates six months down the line, a year, even five, those are the ones you put in your bag and you take to the studio. You come to realize, the ones that don't make it, they were only meant to live for that moment in your notebook or on the 4-track-and plenty of songs never get any farther than the 4-track.
-- M. Ward

#Notebook #Song #Writing

I have a very strong belief in God.
-- M. Ward

#Strong #Belief #Belief In God

I learned a long time ago that fame and money is not a ticket to happiness.
-- M. Ward

#Happiness #Long #Tickets

I love the sound of Elmore James, the sound early guitarists like him got just by using minimal means.
-- M. Ward

#Mean #Sound #Guitarist

I do watch 'American Idol' sometimes. It's not really that pleasurable... I take that back. It is the epitome of a guilty pleasure. Sometimes there's some good singers on that show.
-- M. Ward

#Idols #Watches #Singers

I'm somebody who gets a lot of inspiration from dreams.
-- M. Ward

#Dream #Inspiration

I've worked with just as many talented women as I have talented men, and I feel fortunate enough to have that great balance.
-- M. Ward

#Men #Balance #Enough

It's a luxury to not have to just be performing with other people to have my music heard.
-- M. Ward

#Luxury #People #Performing

I don't really watch TV series because I don't want to get hooked on them and have them suck up all my time.
-- M. Ward

#Watches #Want #Tvs