Lionel Richie

You go to the Grammys and you just kind of sign up for your seat, but they don't give me anything for the first 10 years of your life.

And then finally you walk up one day and they call off Truly and I said, whoa, that's pretty cool.

And that was the beginning of the ride.

My mother was an English teacher, so I caught hell just trying to go to school every day and using the proper English.

So, mom, can I go somewhere?

I don't know.

Can you?

That kind of situation.

So, you know, my problem with trying to write lyrics was, or should I say write a song, is what's the subject?

So whatever the subject is, that's the most important thing.

It's called the hook.

So if you write, you know, all night long, or you write hello, whatever the case may be.

Then if you have the hook, you'll write now the verses.

It's only four lines per verse, but you have to go back and put that together.

My problem was I would never write the verses until the Commodore said,

we like it because there's nothing worse than finishing a song and you get halfway through it.

Now you spent your whole life on this thing.

And all of a sudden you say, we hate it, next.

So I would just go, here's the hook.

I'm not going to put any more work in.