Songwriting Quotes
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Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter. ... I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.
Melissa Manchester
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Bringing up issues that are hard to deal with is a challenge for me, and I think that's what draws me to song writing.
Brett Dennen
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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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One of the great things about songwriting; it's not an intellectual experience
Keith Richards
The Rolling Stones
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Songwriting is kind of like a craft. It's not something that just comes in a dream. You've got to work at it.
Sean Lennon
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There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.
Nick Cave
The Birthday Party
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Teasing out the way the world might look through another's eyes is what makes the creative process so fascinating and enjoyable.
Stephen Carter
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I don't think people care about the mechanics of songwriting.
Mick Jagger
The Rolling Stones
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I started just concentrating on songwriting when I was abut 20; I'd been in rock bands six or seven years, kinda got that out of my system, I said, "ok, you ain't gonna be a rock star, you don't look like a rock star, it probably ain't gonna happen. So what you should do is write songs and maybe other people will do your songs."
Billy Joel
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I've been sort of writing sketches for songs on my own forever and putting them down on cassette tapes. Yet for years and years and years, my main songwriting outlet was as a member of Sonic Youth, and for most of our time together, our best songs were written in a group setting, where the four of us were getting together in a room.
Lee Ranaldo
Sonic Youth
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Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.
Tommy Shaw
Styx
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I don't force it. If you don't have an idea and you don't hear anything going over and over in your head, don't sit down and try to write a song. You know, go mow the lawn...My songs speak for themselves.
Neil Young
Buffalo Springfield
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I love songwriting ! It's my Number One passion other than performing. Well, actually it's like wearing three different hats: songwriting, recording and performing. They're all completely different and draw on different types of skills. With recording, there are so many different phases of production, and you have to be very careful because you can polish it until it doesn't shine.
Delbert McClinton
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When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It's inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.
Dave Grohl
Nirvana
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My songwriting process is based on a formula: Color, tone, words. When I hear production, I initially identify the color that resonates with me. From there, I am able to translate the color into tone or emotion, which may depend on a number of things.
Ravyn Lenae
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Songwriting is the cheapest psychiatrist I know.
Billy Joe Shaver
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Songwriting was very tough for me... I would go in and sit and hope for inspiration to come, and it was rarely forthcoming.
Leon Russell
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When I write, I never know the endings. What I think works in my stories is the fact that when I write, I really want to find out what is going on-I'm writing for myself as a reader. It's like when you dream a dream. I want to know what's behind the door. If I navigate, it's from a place that's totally intuitive.
Etgar Keret
