Songwriting Quotes
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As a songwriter, I try not to be sloppy; same with the music. You can be very lean, very efficient, so you're not wasting a lot of time getting' to the point. You're saying it with as pure a word or phrase as you can. That's the part that was craft. You refine and refine and refine. Maybe that's why the songs still hang on, because they're very pure. For one thing, they're very short. "Bad Moon Rising" is like 2 minutes and 12 seconds. I would try to do everything as quickly and with as little extra as possible. It was a challenge.
John Fogerty
Creedence Clearwater Revival
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Finding out that Ray Charles sang country songs but it sounded as soulful as any rhythm and blues record that kind of opened up my horizons for what songwriting was and what singers I could listen to.
Michael Kiwanuka
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I kind of talk about songwriting in the sense that it's really not my job to try to state hard truths. I'm not out to say this is what truth is, this is what's false, this is reality, this is not reality. What I prefer is to try to create a space where truth can move.
Denison Witmer
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When you're songwriting, it's like talking about your own life experience. When you're with a band, you have to compromise.
Timothy B. Schmit
The Eagles
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My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.
Dave Grohl
Nirvana
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I was always interested in science, and pre-med was arespectable thing to do while I ursued my songwriting.
Neil Diamond
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I don't think people care about the mechanics of songwriting.
Mick Jagger
The Rolling Stones
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Songwriting is such a sensitive energy. It's just a vibration of frequencies.
Victoria Monet
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Songs, and songwriting keeps me inspired, moving forward. I tend to scribble down notes, lyrics or just random thoughts on pieces of paper, backs of cigarette packs, sometimes on my shirt cuff. Rock n’ roll is closest thing I’ve got to a spiritual power. It’s been the higher voice in my life and it’s never let me down.
John Waite
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Songwriting has always been a means to an end for me. That end being a tool to try to understand myself in the world and, through observation, make sense of the world.
Ruston Kelly
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Songwriting, I have to take myself away from everybody to do. It's an unsightly act.
Nick Cave
The Birthday Party
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I've been songwriting for a long time, usually while on the road, as a way to get my feelings out.
Camila Cabello
Fifth Harmony
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I can't write from the subconscious actually, because a lot of the time when I co-write with other people, I'm writing for them as opposed to for myself. When it comes to lyrics, I tend to want to give them their voice, since it's most likely going to be on their record, or somebody else's record. And I find for more commerial-style music, people want simplicity, less vagueness, and less space to fill between the lines, so to speak. So I can't be quite as ethereal and mystical.
Gary Louris
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I think a lot of my interest in history now isn't so much in places and names and texts and public figures, but more in examining all the nuances and idiosyncrasies of particular stories of everyday people. And if that doesn't happen, then I usually transplant myself and my own stories to a particular historical event. Which is why you'll see me, the first person pronoun, interacting in a song about Carl Sandburg, or you'll find my [sic] interacting with Saul Bellow. It's sort of a re-rendering of history and making it my own.
Sufjan Stevens
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I have the same way of approaching songwriting and singing. It's always been about the pure love of music. I've always had an interest in production and arranging.
Paul Mazzolini
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I blame it never taking a break on my mother. She was a born entertainer. Leave the songwriting, the singing and all that behind, and I still would have found some way to be an entertainer. I would have never been an actress, though, because I realized early in my life, in like sixth grade, I was a terrible actress.
Stevie Nicks
Fleetwood Mac
