Songwriting Quotes
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The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.
Nick Cave
The Birthday Party
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I think just letting go is a really good thing to do in many areas of your life, songwriting included.
Ingrid Michaelson
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Writing is a way of living other lives. It is a way of expanding your life. It's not actually living a different life, it just means that you're hungry for life. There are so many things you want to do.
Etgar Keret
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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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I get to play with pop music and mix up the style. It's fun to play with party music and nice to get into the club. My big love is songwriting. I write the lyrics and the vocals, and I work with the producers.
Nomi Ruiz
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What happens is, especially when I was writing for my band, Creedence, and it's the way I write now, I go into "guitar lick" mode. When I do, it sort of leads into a real song. I'd say to myself, your songwriting is coming up with a guitar lick, and the rest is easy!
John Fogerty
Creedence Clearwater Revival
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I've been thinking about songwriting more in terms of playing it live, and how it will sound as a band.
Florence Welch
Florence and the Machine
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In songwriting a term that we use a lot is, ‘Does this sing well?’ So for me, my job as a curator and composer was to come in and be like, ‘Ok, this sings fine, this sits well on the ear, but it could sing better if we make a few changes.'
Leland
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By the time I wrote those first three songs for his new CD ... I wanted to push the poetics as hard as I could push them, and not decide the songs were finished until I committed them to whatever the recording format was. I went through drafts right up until I recorded every single one of them.
Steve Earle
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Songwriting never gets old. There's always stuff to write about.
Tori Kelly
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To me, the guitar is a tool for songwriting, and it's fun, too. The day that it's not fun, that's when I'm not gonna play guitar anymore.
Scott Ian
Anthrax
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You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.
Conor Oberst
Bright Eyes
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My songwriting is the sum of my life experience so, yes, it’s had an impact for sure.
Matthew Vasquez
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All the characters on the album are inside me, though none are me. They are sides of me or who I was.
David Berman
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Songwriting ability is a gift. After a while, you come to realize, "I've really been blessed. I can write these things and it makes me happy, and it makes millions of people happy." It's an obligation, it's bigger than you. It's the only true magic I know. It's not pulling a rabbit out of a hat; it's real. It's your soul floating out to theirs.
Tom Petty
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
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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
