Song Quotes
-
I think if you're creating music, and you love the song, holding it back is just doing it an injustice.
Shawn Mendes
-
We were the best team in the world: European champions in 1984, we qualified without a hitch and 86 was to be the swan song for a very experienced side.
Michel Platini
-
Oftentimes, when music is just blasting out it seems like it's overcompensating for something missing in the song's structure. When I think of the music that I listen to constantly, it's never like an assault.
Babatunde Adebimpe
-
I've forgotten lines all the time. Sometimes I switch verses in a song. It's just hard not to when you're doing the same thing all the time.
Josh Young
-
There are three things I was born with in this world, and there are three things I will have until the day I die-hope, determination, and song.
Miriam Makeba
-
I am a composer first and foremost, and have always believed that being able to write memorable melodies is what sets musicians apart. My songs bring images to the listener's mind. The object is to transport my listeners to another place, some place sacred and spiritual that will make them glad they took the ride.
Bradley Joseph
-
I got this book called 'How to Write the Popular Song.' I read that and went through all the things they suggested, and I learned how to do it.
Leon Russell
-
Those situations were just taking over my entire life. It was fun to write in a way, because it helped me take a really bad situation and a really sad situation and make beautiful songs out of them. When I got half of the song written it was like, "Oh, this is great." It was like the one thing that was making me happy again.
Nicole Atkins
-
That's pretty much how every song of mine works - I start with gibberish and melody and phrasing. I speak it naturally first. And then I think about lyrics that fit into that.
Kelela Mizanekristos
-
I think if you listen to our records, they come at different points in your life. When people say to me that Stars records have themes, I think what they mean is we write songs - or try to write songs - that are timeless. We try to write songs that catch you at the right time in your life, and that you can hold on to. We write kitchen sink songs. If you're doing the dishes or you're driving to your mom's funeral, or if you're getting over having done MDMA and you feel sad, you can listen to Stars because we're not going to demand of you that you be cool.
Torquil Campbell
Broken Social Scene
-
So writing a song is much harder than doing a classical piece for me, because in a classical piece, I can just let the mood dictate what's going to happen.
Glenn Danzig
-
I was starting to play the ukulele at the same time I was having all these conversations with [the late Ramones guitarist] Johnny Ramone, these intense tutorials staying up late and listening to the music he grew up on, and picking up what's a great song and what makes a great song. He was all about lists and dissecting songs, like what's a better song by Cheap Trick: "No Surrender" or "Dream Police"? Sometimes you'd be surprised by the answer. It was an interesting dichotomy between hanging out with the godfather of punk rock and starting to play the ukulele. They came together.
Eddie Vedder
Pearl Jam
-
I never judge my song titles; I just spit them out.
Alejandro Ghersi
-
'The Taxi Ride,' from my second album, is one people want to hear a lot. I'm consciously trying to walk on the sunny side of the street, to really lift myself into a place of greater positivity, and that's a sad song.
Jane Siberry
-
I've been to New Zealand before, many times. And of course it has a significance to me because I do have something that's very special in New Zealand. I have 10 Guitars, which is a very popular song, and I understand it's like the second national anthem over there.
Engelbert Humperdinck
-
My grandfather lived across the garden from us, and in his attic he had a lot of radios, appliances and inventions that he had made over 50 years, such as a keyboard called a clavioline, which can be heard on some Beatles songs - it was popular in the 60s. So we had all that at home.
Michel Gondry
-
Recording a Hindi song takes me around 40 minutes whereas a Kannada song takes me about two hours. The music isn't a problem, since the notes used are universal. The language is the problem. I try my best to get it right, as I'm sensitive about respecting every language, since all of them are sacred in my heart.
Adnan Sami
-
I've had many songs where I've gone, 'Oh, my God, this song is going to be huge!' but it wasn't the right artist, or something just didn't happen. It didn't make the song any worse. It just didn't line up. That does happen.
Linda Perry
4 Non Blondes
-
It's a mystical quality of music, that music isn't really concrete, and it's communicating abstractions about imaginary worlds. At least, my music's like that. It's not real. It's unreal, it's all fabrication. To write a song about Obama would suddenly break the spell.
Sufjan Stevens
-
What do you want me to do,
To watch for you,
To see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain,
and love, will see you through.
Robert Hunter
Grateful Dead
-
Atlas, we read in ancient song, Was so exceeding tall and strong, He bore the skies upon his back, Just as the pedler does his pack; But, as the pedler overpress'd Unloads upon a stall to rest, Or, when he can no longer stand, Desires a friend to lend a hand, So Atlas, lest the ponderous spheres Should sink, and fall about his ears, Got Hercules to bear the pile, That he might sit and rest awhile.
Jonathan Swift
-
The Armstrong record that I personally like the most, is a recording of a song by Harold Arlen called, "I Got a Right to Sing the Blues" . Most of Armstrong's solos tended to stick pretty close to the melody. But for some reason, it's like he let go of the tether and suddenly he's playing this beautiful high, almost abstract line that's floating above the beat. I compare it to the way that a 19th century operatic tenor might have sang an Aria because he's just completely let loose of the background and he's making this magic sort of flying above the staff.
Terry Teachout