“'Shooting Star' started out as the arrangement on the record, and it's...” — Paul Rodgers Quote

'Shooting Star' started out as the arrangement on the record, and it's developed into a real audience-participation song, just from playing it.

I was 17, and it was my first summer in London as a professional singer. One hot, humid evening, I heard that the Jimi Hendrix Experience was playing in a blues club above a pub in Finsbury Park. I was flat broke and couldn't afford a ticket, so I went along just to stand outside and listen.

I honestly have really deep reservations about releasing everything you ever did. Every time somebody farted in the studio, now it's out there.

I've always been a Jeff Beck fan. Who isn't? He is in a league of his own.

There are so many different things that lend themselves to what makes a song magical, that go beyond just the lyrics or the composition. But arrangement and production and performance have such huge stakes in what makes that sort of lightning-in-a-bottle moment.

I'll hear a phrase around me that someone says... I'll write it down in my notebook, and as soon as I'll sit down with my guitar, I'll come up with the rest of the arrangement there.

When I sing a tune, the lyrics are important to me. Most of the standard lyrics I know well. And as soon as I hear an arrangement, I get ideas, kind of like blowing a horn. I guess I never sing a tune the same way twice.

It had a very good arrangement by Herbie Hancock, but it used existing pieces.