Stephen Sondheim Quotes

So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.

Stephen Sondheim

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Quotes to Explore

• There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.

  

  Beck
  • Different
  • Writing
  • Song

• I wouldn't want to cover a Hank Williams song in a country-western way. It doesn't occur to me instinctually to re-create productions. I'm interested in re-creating songs. Putting different clothes on them.

  

  M. Ward
  • Different
  • Country
  • Song

• 'Paper Planes' was an accident. It wasn't a song we made for the masses. It took two years to get popular, and there were many fights about censoring the gunshot sounds.

  

  M.I.A.
  • Song
  • Years
  • Popular

• Personal relationships are usually my biggest inspirations for writing my songs. The best way for me to write a song is to visualise the story in my head, and I start humming a melody, and before you know it, a song is born.

  

  Nadia Ali
  • Writing
  • Song
  • Best

• I think that kids need to grow up watching what I grew up watching - great entertainment; you know, Judy Garland and all these musicals that bring song and dance and acting all together in a polished way.

  

  Tammy Blanchard
  • Up
  • Great
  • Kids

• The buzz you get when you're playing a song and everyone is screaming and dancing and what have you and singing along is incredible.

  

  Aaron Johnson
  • Song
  • Singing
  • Everyone

• It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. If I start writing a song, and you try to have a conversation with me, you're a bad person.

  

  Halsey
  • Writing
  • Bad
  • Song

• To write a love song that might be able to make it on the radio, that is something that is terrifying to me. But I can definitely write a song about that chair over there. That I can do, but to sit and write a pop song out of the clear blue sky, that is very difficult and I admire the people that can do it.

  

  Barry Manilow
  • People
  • Song
  • Write

• Both my grandmothers had upright pianos, and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up, and then I learned how to read music. I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the notes. She'd make the mistake of playing the song once, and I could play it.

  

  Valerie Simpson
  • Up
  • Music
  • Believe

• I didn't used to do shows, because I used to be so shy. We'd perform, and I'd be at the back, thinking of another song. I was so shy, I ain't never getting in front of the camera; I would never get on stage.

  

  Young Thug
  • Thinking
  • Song
  • Camera

• For me, a perfect pop song is something like 'This Year,' by the Mountain Goats.

  

  Jack Antonoff Fun.
  • Song
  • Perfect
  • Mountain

• 'God Made Girls' was such a success for me. I'm so blessed to have over half a million downloads on that song. I was the highest-charting new female in 2014, and I couldn't have done that without Big Machine and their support.

  

  RaeLynn
  • God
  • Done
  • Success

• I was once sitting on a tube, and someone was playing my song so loudly through their ear phones next to me. I just stayed silent and chuckled to myself.

  

  Sam Smith
  • Song
  • Myself
  • Silent

• The one hit song that I have tremendous gratitude for is Boots, because it has a life of its own. It's like being identified with a brand name.

  

  Nancy Sinatra
  • Life
  • Song
  • Gratitude

• If Mozart were around now he would write a killer rock song.

  

  Vanessa Carlton
  • Song
  • Rock
  • Now

• She’s a nice girl – I just feel very honoured that she wanted to sing my song. I used to scream for her in Times Square and now I work for her. When I was 13 she was the most provocative performer of my time. I love her so much! Britney certainly doesn’t need any freakin’ tips from me! Britney Spears is the queen of pop. I was learning from her.

  

  Lady Gaga
  • Time
  • Work
  • She

• When we did that album (Vol. 4) it was like one big Roman orgy-we'd be in the Jacuzzi all day doing coke, and every now and then we'd get up to do a song.

  

  Ozzy Osbourne Black Sabbath
  • Up
  • Song

• I try to find little things that you can do to move the song along and things that serve the song.

  

  Benmont Tench Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
  • Song

• The people that only listen to one song from a record and flip around that much, if that's the only way they listen to music, they're probably the kind of people that like music as something to drive to, you know?

  

  Britt Daniel
  • People
  • Music
  • Song

• The thing is, when you have a child with someone, like it or not, you're going to have to have a continuing relationship with them.

  

  Lesley Manville
  • Relationship

• Sadly, many people in our biggest cities are at the mercy of industrial food.

  

  Kimbal Musk
  • People
  • Food
  • Mercy

• You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.

  

  Kamala Harris
  • People
  • You
  • Circumstances

• There must be a lot of shy actor in puppeteering. His work is the puppeteer's statement. It's his outlet. If I had to face the audience myself, as Jim Henson, I'm sure I'd be just a bit shy. But when it's your puppets that face the audience, it's different. That I can do very easily.

  

  Jim Henson
  • Work
  • Different

• So many good songs get written fast, because you know exactly what has to work.

  

  Stephen Sondheim
  • Song
  • Knows
  • Written