But then you have to write a song, so at that point, I picked up the reins and started to write lyrics.

So the name of a group has to say something. The name has to be strong.

You have to have a strong title. It's got to say something.

We played at a club called, the Elbow Room. Don Carlos, the nightclub owner, was very hip and a very important person who made a big impact on my life.

Mr. Fantasy was the only song that was scribbling on a piece of paper.

This kind of music was just hitting England, so we were getting this following in clubs in Birmingham just cause we were trying to do something different.

They gave it to us for about five bucks a week, and we just went there to live. Probably the first band that ever did that back then and it became the famous cottage.

We all ended up jumping up and down, hugging each other when Ali won;cause Ali is the greatest.

I turned everybody on so, psychologically, I guess I was pushing the boundaries creativity.

For me, naming bands was the forerunner to really writing lyrics, because I work off titles.

I was half asleep lying there writing this lyric in my head at about 3:30 in the morning. I woke Steve up with this idea and then we went into the living room where there was a little upright piano and finished the song. I wonder where that piano is now?

After that, I specifically started writing lyrics. I would like sweat and think and get it all together.

There I met Gordon Jackson and Dave Meredith who were playing in local bands.

We loved everything. We wanted to be able to do anything.

You try to be moody when you're young and it had a good ring to it.

Far From Home was also my idea from a magazine I'd seen.

But then you have to write a song, so at that point, I picked up the reins and started to write lyrics.

Traffic was very, very free. It was great.

We all had a desire and appreciation for such a wide range of music.

You know, I had the ability like a catalyst to really get everybody hyped up.

I have to confess that a strong contributing factor was that I had just taken what was probably the first acid ever made, given to me by a guy called Johnny Fellows, who had just returned from America.

I have always had a tremendous amount of energy and any band I was ever in from the age of fourteen, I would always be the one who would describe the future and vibe everyone up.

Guys would hang out in groups just to be with the music.

Because I would just tell everyone it was going to be great and just put that belief in them.

This was an important part of my life. But it was also sad that we didn't play there, cause we had such alot of fans that were waiting for us and Brazilians are great people. It's now my second home.

Everything that Traffic ever did, I'd give Steve a complete lyric, titled, written out with the verse, the bridge, the shape and rhyme and then Steve had to figure out how the meter of the words would fit musically.

I think you do better when you are really up for it, cause passion goes up.

We all ended up jumping up and down, hugging each other when Ali won; cause Ali is the greatest.

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

I guess a good song is a good song is a good song, ya know.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.

The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.

Peace Train is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions of human beings.

I love listening to Radio Head's 'Everything in its Right Place' because it's all major chords, it makes you feel really good. It's soothing, it's got a beautiful voice, crazy textures. When I'm down I listen to that song and it really makes me feel good.

I've always wanted to sing, just as I've always known that one day I would have my own niche in the annals of song. It was a feeling I had.

I have eighteen titles in the German language. I had a number one song in 1965.

Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold half a million copies.

There's a lot of rage... you have to express it somehow. If I didn't express it in song, I'd become incredibly violent.

I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high d is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

It's like, it's up to the people to fall in love with the song. The record company can only do so much.

People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.

I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken.

A song has to become as much a part of you as a tailored suit.

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.