I love the name ‘Stella McCartney.’ It’s a beautiful name the way it rolls off the tongue. A couple of years ago, I wrote a cello concerto and used that as the basis for the rhythmic and melodic structure of the main motif of the cello part. Michael Bacon Read Quote
We have a camp up in the Adirondacks with no electricity, and I find that it’s one of the most fertile places for me as far as songwriting because there isn’t much to do. Michael Bacon Read Quote
A lot of times, people assume that I write all the songs: that I arrange them and I stick Kevin up there as kind of a puppet or something. It’s absolutely not that way. In fact, he writes probably 60 percent of the songs, and I write probably 40 percent. Michael Bacon Read Quote
Music is completely not reality. There’s nothing about music that has any meaning at all. A lot of people disagree with that, but it’s basically true. You can listen to a piece of music, and fifteen people will give you fifteen answers of what it’s about. Michael Bacon Read Quote
My whole life, I’ve always had one foot in the classical world and one foot in the rock, pop, and folk world. Michael Bacon Read Quote
When I first started writing songs, I was probably about ten or twelve years old, and the first thing you think as a songwriter is, ‘Can this be a hit? Can this come out, and people are going to hear the song and like the song, and then they’re going to like you, and you’ll get famous and rich?’ That hasn’t changed a bit. Michael Bacon Read Quote
Even though, theoretically, being a composer and being a songwriter are the same thing, in my brain, they are completely different. When I am in my composing mode, I go into my studio and turn that part of my brain on like a faucet. And when I finish, I turn it off. But with songwriting, that process is much more elusive. Michael Bacon Read Quote
I was a staff songwriter for Combine Music Publishing in Nashville for seven years. I’d sit around with a groups of friends with a Yamaha piano and a tape recorder and crank out songs. Michael Bacon Read Quote
