Songwriting Quotes

• I've always known that I was a gifted person. ... I've always felt like I would be punished, severely, if I didn't continue to make use of that gift. It's very important that you don't let the muscle get flabby. It's really hard, as an old human being, to press as much weight as you pressed when you were a kid.

  

  Merle Haggard
  • Important
  • Writing
  • Kids

• I do more writing by myself than with anybody else. My best thing is sitting...around somewhere with a guitar, and having an idea. You never know where it'd come from. Songwriting is a God-given talent.

  

  Charlie Daniels
  • Music
  • God
  • Writing

• Holy Joy were a cult '80s band led by the wonderful songwriting genius that is Johny Brown.

  

  Irvine Welsh
  • Joy
  • Band
  • Genius

• But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging.

  

  Warren Zevon
  • Songwriting
  • Line
  • Between

• I feel like I'm creeping closer to finding the situation that triggers songwriting, which is obviously an extreme of an emotion.

  

  Laura Marling
  • Feel
  • Finding
  • Songwriting

• I think my favorite thing is songwriting.

  

  Carlos Ponce
  • Think
  • Favorite
  • Songwriting

• I wasn't born with a natural talent for songwriting.

  

  Natalie Imbruglia
  • Born
  • Talent
  • Songwriting

• Songwriting was definitely first. I started singing, and then I was rapping; then I went back to singing. As I was growing up, I just taught myself piano and guitar.

  

  William Singe
  • Growing
  • Myself
  • Definitely

• There are no rules when it comes to songwriting, so I'd turn Carter family songs from the 1930s into pop songs.

  

  Carlene Carter
  • Family
  • Rules
  • Songwriting

• I was able to apply ukulele to whatever I'm trying to write. It's become part of songwriting for me, the knowledge I gained from hearing the melodies come out, and then applying that to guitar or vocals.

  

  Eddie Vedder Pearl Jam
  • Melodies
  • Vocals
  • Ukulele

• Even when there's not a joke or a hook, the first line has to be good and snapem to attention. Songs ain't novels. You don't have 30 pages to slowly wrap somebody in. They're more like short stories or poems. If the first line hasn't grabbed them, you won't get to the second line. Once you've developed an audience, you may have some luxury and trust, so you don't have to knock 'em over the head with line one.

  

  Dan Bern
  • Writing
  • Song
  • Attention

• Songwriting is reliant on inspiration, which ideally you don't have that much control over. Songs kind of half make themselves, and then you have to finish them.

  

  Edwin Farnham Butler III Arcade Fire
  • Song
  • Kind
  • Inspiration

• I don't work at being ordinary.

  

  Paul McCartney The Beatles
  • Work
  • Writing
  • Ordinary

• Great songs aren't written, they're rewritten

  

  Daniel Shipley
  • Great
  • Song
  • Written

• The idea of taking a song, envisioning the overall sound in my head and then bringing the arrangement to life in the studio...well, that gives me satisfaction like nothing else.

  

  Brian Wilson
  • Life
  • Writing
  • Song

• We spent a long time learning the craft of songwriting, Roger Glover and I, for a few years before we joined Deep Purple. You learn about the percussive value of words, and you learn about rhyme and meter. You learn that you can't transform a poem into a song lyric, mostly because the spoken shape of words is different than the sung shape of words. You wouldn't use the vowel 'U' or the vowel sound 'ooo' for a high note for example, its very difficult.

  

  Ian Gillan
  • Different
  • Long
  • Song

• I like the songwriting. I don't ever listen and then go back and change stuff. For me when I wrote the song, it's always really fun and exciting.

  

  Chris Owen
  • Fun
  • Song
  • Stuff

• I've come to recognize songwriting as something that I do, and I want to be good at that. At that craft, if you like. I want to practice it.

  

  Alexander David Turner Arctic Monkeys
  • Songwriting

• I've never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I've only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

  

  Taylor Swift
  • Growing
  • Thought
  • Sadness

• Songwriting is something that I own - it's my property, it's my music, it's my voice.

  

  Nick Jonas Jonas Brothers
  • Voice
  • Property
  • Songwriting

• The best quote about songwriting I ever heard, that I borrow to tell people, was from John Lennon, that it’s like a sculpture. You look at this block of stone and imagine that you can see some form within it, and you just keep chipping away until it is revealed.

  

  Boney James
  • Imagine
  • Sculpture
  • Quote

• I am really heavy into songwriting.

  

  Teyana Taylor
  • Songwriting
  • Heavy

• When a lot of musicians change styles, their songwriting suffers because they want to be different.

  

  Noel Gallagher Oasis
  • Different
  • Change
  • Style

• The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

  

  Tim Finn Crowded House
  • Trying
  • Joy
  • Conscious

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