Songwriting Quotes
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I always have to remember that I am the narrator, but it doesn't have to be about me. A lot of songwriting is about trying to use what part of me is valid in telling the story. I don't want to overcook it, you know? Sometimes it seems that's really where the work is.
Ryan Adams
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That's really where my heart is, unfortunately - I'm less interested in songwriting and more into just making noise.
Sufjan Stevens
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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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It just seems like musicians want to sell a few records and put out a perfume line, and I think it's so sad that there are so many musicians who don't want to change the world.
Moby
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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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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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I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.
Ezra Furman
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Back then, the business depended on bohemians. ... They needed Kristofferson and Roger Miller ..It was the tail end of something...the last Tin Pan Alley. ...and we were the night shift! They gave us keys, because they knew the best songs weren't written in daylight.... We got our keys taken away several times...me and Guy Clark.
Steve Earle
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I've done so much songwriting and I know how to do it.
Esther Renay Dean
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What songwriting does better than almost anything is empathy - it's incredibly empathetic. The reason people sat around in bars when they were bummed out and listened to country songs is because it made them feel better in the long run.
Steve Earle
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Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep. It's always in the middle of the night, or you're half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them...
John Lennon
The Beatles
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I'm from the generation that's always been recording, from the very beginning. I learned to play the guitar on the four-track. I started listening to music at a time when people were doing recording at home, when the discussion about songwriting correlated to the discussion about producing and engineering. I think that's a description of my generation.
Sufjan Stevens
