Song Quotes

• A rhyme doesn't make a song.

  

  Dorothy Fields
  • Song

• We have a history in country music of writing about the darker side of things - maybe not as much in modern times, but there's a lot of cheating and self-deprecation. We sort it out in song, in country music, as a genre.

  

  Chris Stapleton
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Country

• I know 'Hallelujah' isn't actually a Christmas song, but it has that cozy, haunting vibe that sounds like a winter's night and belongs by a fire.

  

  Bonnie McKee
  • Night
  • Fire
  • Christmas

• I don't wake up in the morning and say, 'Jeez, I feel great today. I think I'll write a song.' I mean, anything is more interesting to me than writing a song. It's like, 'I think I'd like to write a song... No, I guess I better go feed the cat first.' You know what I mean? It's like pulling teeth. I don't enjoy it a bit.

  

  Jerry Garcia Grateful Dead
  • Up
  • Great
  • Writing

• I write songs very quickly, so the 20 minutes of joy I get out of writing a song doesn't compare to the two months of joy I get engaging with the people who like my music.

  

  Halsey
  • People
  • Music
  • Writing

• I never was a liner note junkie. I didn't know who produced records or there was such a thing as a straight songwriter. I always assumed that everybody that was singing a song wrote it or made it up.

  

  Chris Stapleton
  • Up
  • Song
  • Singing

• I sequence during the entire recording process. The sequencing changes as I'm recording and as I'm listening. From when I'm, like, four songs in, I start trying to figure out which song should come after which. Which is important, and it changes as the album goes.

  

  Dr. Dre
  • Important
  • Trying
  • Listening

• I wanted to write a song called '#1234' that would act as a homage to The Ramones.

  

  Kevin Morby
  • Song

• The theory is that you don't play a song the same way twice because it's jazz. That's where I'm coming from.

  

  Van Morrison
  • Song
  • Way
  • Play

• You just do you like when you're doing any other song. It's nothing different. Some people are like "How's it like working with Kendrick Lamar?" and really, it's like working with anyone else that I work with.

  

  BJ the Chicago Kid
  • People
  • Work
  • Different

• I was in band that played mostly covers for a while, and the bands that we would cover were, like, the alternative rock bands of that day: we did a Jane's Addiction song and a Faith No More song. All the kind of alternative radio of that time, the late '80s, basically.

  

  Jason Mantzoukas
  • Time
  • Faith
  • Band

• Elvis Costello's song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It's storytelling and it's deeply intelligent and clever.

  

  Chip Esten
  • Writing
  • Intelligent
  • Clever

• When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it - why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s - 'Nick of Time' and other songs I was surprised I came up with - it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say.

  

  Bonnie Raitt
  • Up
  • Time
  • Why

• As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.

  

  Serj Tankian System Of A Down
  • Different
  • Writing
  • Challenge

• I think the best songs that come to me are ones that you sort of listen for. The ones - when I listen to some of my old stuff, I can tell when I had a good idea, but I forced it through, and I can hear myself - the bit that I've written, which sounds clunkier than the stuff that just sort of comes.

  

  Nick Lowe Brinsley Schwarz
  • Thinking
  • Ideas
  • Sound

• Twenty-seven people sang 'Wind Beneath My Wings' before I got around to it. A lot of people saw the movie that I sang it in, Beaches, and what they came away with was that song. They turned to their loved ones and said, 'You know, you are the wind beneath my wings!' The song expressed how they felt in a way a simple 'I love you' would not have.

  

  Bette Midler
  • People
  • Writing
  • Movie

• If you can't write your song in half an hour, you're in trouble - which is always true.

  

  Garth Hudson
  • Writing
  • True
  • Trouble

• My musical background in Tyler, Texas was quite outstanding. Uh, I grew up with, uh, with high school teachers who were in bands, they could play music. And we had a nine piece band there in Tyler, and I joined them when I was about, oh, 15 years old and traveled all over Texas in that band, playing for the elite oil people. Hah. And um, I was making about 50 bucks a night, and uh, it taught me, they taught me how to find my timing and to learn the songs that I wanted.

  

  Carl Gardner
  • People
  • School
  • Night

• I had this song called Helter Skelter, which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise.

  

  Paul McCartney Paul McCartney and Wings
  • Ridiculous
  • Noise
  • Cuz

• It's really weird when we're out of the country, whether we're in Brazil or Greece or some crazy place like France or Germany. When you hear your song on the radio or in a store, and you're in a different country, it's really freaky and surreal.

  

  Gary Rossington Lynyrd Skynyrd
  • Different
  • Country
  • Crazy

• I think there are some songwriters who are just brilliant who can write and then I think there are some songwriters who can like me I have a problem writing chorus lyrics but I can write a song in a story like that.

  

  Charles King
  • Writing
  • Song
  • Lyrics

• There are producers that have been my friends for many years that I'm still a big fan of, from Boyz Noize to solo acts. Justice. It really varies. All the way to like...sometimes I'll just find some dude out of Chicago that makes a great house song. I'm feeling a lot of the deep house stuff, Jamie Jones.

  

  Alain Macklovitch
  • Great
  • Friends
  • House

• You have to insulate yourself - I'm talking about from everything, people can be talking to you and you won't hear 'em - that's how you write a song. And I haven't been able to do that over here 'cause I'm so busy and then, when I am off, I want to get away from music.

  

  Mel Tillis
  • People
  • Music
  • Song

• The thing that I love about acting is the fact that I can help people feel things, know themselves or feel less alone. It's my form of expression, in the same way that someone might paint a picture or sing a song in that you're hoping that it moves somebody outside of their own way of thinking.

  

  Naomi Watts
  • People
  • Thinking
  • Help

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