Songwriting Quotes
-
I don't really have a set-in-stone process or formula. Sometimes the melody is there and I have to chase down the lyrics. Sometimes, the song is there and I have to make the melody fit. What I've learned so far about songwriting is that I can't force a song. If I try to do that, it's hollow, and people know a hollow song when they hear it. It's the song they stop listening to and forget about. I'd prefer not to write those kinds of songs.
-
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.
-
I think it was Tommy who told me, 'When your song is called 'XYZ' or whatever, every line has got to make sense against your title.' He showed me little methods of proving to yourself whether the line belongs, and ways of finding out whether you were able to get more out of a line if you tried.
-
[The publication of his first poem] was wonderful ... but it taught me early on that the only thing that really matters is writing the next poem. Publication is best seen as a happy accident.
-
We have a camp up in the Adirondacks with no electricity, and I find that it's one of the most fertile places for me as far as songwriting because there isn't much to do.
-
Songwriting is a very frustrating art form. You have to get on tape exactly what's playing inside your head...
-
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.
-
I swear I have at least one good song idea a day. But if I don't get pen to paper in ten seconds, it's gone forever.
-
That's really where my heart is, unfortunately - I'm less interested in songwriting and more into just making noise.
-
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.
-
I could never teach a class on songwriting. I'd tell them to goof off and find a good hideout.
-
I've done so much songwriting and I know how to do it.
-
I've used songwriting as a tool, I've used it as a way of being able to talk about how I feel.
-
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...
-
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.
-
I don't enjoy songwriting.
-
I don't believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it's a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Songwriting's never been a natural art for me; it's always been a bit of a struggle.
-
With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.
-
Step out of your comfort zone to get a feel for how things are done differently. Don’t take the easy way out with songwriting. Be very patient with yourself and others.
