Ben Folds Song Quotations

The reason I stop playing songs is usually because I get sick of them, and then they find themselves back into the set list at some point.

The way I see it, there's only one melody for any song.

My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that's the right song to not fight the lyric.

If the melody is telling me this is what the song is about, then I'm sort of forced into confession, autobiography or fantasy. If I don't do that, I've hamstrung the melody.

My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that's the right song to not fight the lyric.

With a song, it only takes a couple of minutes to go back to the beginning and try it again to see if it works. The novel freaks me out because, what if you get into the eighth chapter and think, 'Let's go to the top and see if this works again? It's going to take me three weeks.' I'm in awe of that.

I start songs all the time. If I weren't so lazy, I would finish them. It's like when I have a deadline I have to. I always feel very lucky that I am forced to make records at certain times. If I was forced to make 2 records a year, I would write twice as many songs. I can't make myself finish something unless I am forced

White people don't sing together very often, and when they do, it's about the celebrity of the song. The singing at my shows is all about harmony.

I think a lot of good directors listen to music while they're working. The songs just don't become a part of the film. They're replaced.

I was pretty much a dork growing up. Going up in front of a crowd and being an idiot was a relief when I was a kid. But talking to two or three people at once and being myself was impossible. And being myself while singing a song was more than impossible; I would've rather died. I get really nervous and tend to want to be an idiot.

I had to play a George Harrison song at a benefit a couple nights ago, and it was really hard for me. Obviously it wasn't my world.