Singer Songwriter Quotes

SPEAK OF TROUBLE highlights the abilities of Lowell Sostomi as singer/songwriter and brings together a talented band of musicians with amazing dexterity, loads of energy, and very original arrangements. Im impressed. ~ Gordon Lightfoot

I'm almost a black singer. And without the backbeat, it's singer/songwriter. There's a definite choice to be made there, every time. And I love the sex of singing with a beat; I like the sexiness of it. I think it's really where I'm from. ~ John Waite

Ryan Alvanos is an offbeat, insanely inventive singer-songwriter who sneaks up on you with a sly wit and subtle power. ~ Steve Morse

After a while, though, you realize that a whole slew of young singer-songwriter piano players are getting compared to you. That's when you feel the passage of time is occurring. ~ Tori Amos

I'm not just a singer-songwriter doing songs in the key of me. ~ Arlo Guthrie

I didn't do music to live; I lived so that I could do music. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I never intended to set out and be a singer-songwriter. I just sort of became one because I put out my own record. ~ Jenny Lewis

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer. ~ Robert Wyatt

The way I work, I'm not a confessional singer-songwriter. ~ Andrew Bird

John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction. ~ Pete Seeger

As a singer-songwriter who gets up on stage and sings about those things that make me vulnerable is an amazing experience. You get up on stage and effectively take your clothes off in front of thousands of people. ~ James Blunt

We singer-songwriter people, we're used to getting up and doing our own thing in front of people, and we're it. We're the band, artist, writer, producer, front man. We're the whole thing. You develop, it's not smugness, but this self-reliance, that can limit your creativity. When you're willing and able to invite others into it, you wind up getting a piece of work that's bigger and better than anything you ever imagined it could be. ~ Andy Wilkinson

You can go out and find ways to make your own record and get it out there now. If you really want to, you can be heard. Keep things simple. Learn to go out and play solo. That's a really really good thing to learn, if you're a singer-songwriter. Don't be dependent on a band because you may not always be able to afford one. ~ Steve Earle

I've made music for grownups most of my life as a singer/songwriter - often with my band, Nine Stories - recorded many albums, and 10 years ago I started recording kid's music, too. ~ Lisa Loeb

If anything, I want to be seen as a singer-songwriter rather than a pop artist. ~ Lykke Li

A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared. ~ Van Morrison

When I started out, I wanted to be Billy Joel. The plan was to be a singer-songwriter of that ilk, and, then, I got waylaid - that's probably an unfair way to say it - from being a rock star by the musical theatre stuff, which I love doing. ~ Jason Robert Brown

I didn't get into music to become a blues musician, or a country musician. I'm a singer-songwriter. In my book that means I get to do whatever I want. ~ Justin Townes Earle

I feel like fans who like old Southern rock and country, and more lyric-driven songs in general, have come to country radio. I think that's why you see country radio growing and albums selling: People are craving a little more of the singer-songwriter stuff going on in country. ~ Charles Kelley

On her new LP, Shatter, Jude Johnstone examines heartbreak and loss with such tender resignation that I wept in acknowledgement of its artful simplicity. A lesson in melodic grace delivered by as fine a singer-songwriter as any I know. ~ Rodney Crowell

When Annunziata said she loved me or any of her thousands of other friends and beloveds, she was really saying, at least in my mind, "God loves you." To quote the singer/songwriter James Taylor, she showered the people she loved with love, always showing the way that she felt without holding back. Even as her body could barely contain her soul any longer, she'd open wide the gates of herself with a smile, that giggle, her twinkling eyes, and she'd let the supernatural love flow through her. Walking out of the chapel after her funeral, a woman I'd never seen before stopped me and said, "You're Cathleen, aren't you?" "Yes," I croaked, tears rolling off my nose as I fingered the prayer card with Annunziata's picture on it. Slipping an arm around my shoulders, the woman explained that she was one of Annunziata's former students and said, "She loved you so much." I know. ~ Cathleen Falsani

If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with. ~ Michael Jackson

Very unique: I was a singer-songwriter-guitarist. Very unusual in the late Seventies to find a singer-songwriter, and on top of that, a guitarist. ~ Andy Kindler

Independent thinkers have always been a threat to those whose courage lies in the masses. ~ Bill Madden

Music is exciting and easy to enjoy, the rhythm and voice.
It does not need interpretation. That is why it is called the Universal Language. ~ Ellen J. Barrier

I think I come under the singer/songwriter badge. I've always written songs right from the very beginning. Because of my style of playing people tend of me more of a guitar player than a singer sometimes. ~ Bert Jansch

I studied piano and viola and voice in high school and music composition in college. For many years before I became an author I was a singer songwriter, writing for Disney and Sesame Street. I believe in perfect rhymes - no cheating! ~ Sarah Weeks

I think one thing you could probably say for all my albums is that they're all pretty eclectic pop. There's always a little bit of urban influence, some dance, a little bit of country, singer-songwriter, pop-rock. I like everything! On every album you can find that. ~ Kelly Clarkson

A young female essayist saying they're influenced by Joan Didion is like a young female singer-songwriter saying they're influenced by Joni Mitchell. ~ Meghan Daum

You don't just wake up one morning and decide to become a singer-songwriter. ~ Karen Elson

You mean like Cat Stevens? The singer-songwriter? I bite back a snicker. "I'm surprised you've heard of the man," Mr. Scott says dryly. "I'd assume he was far past your age group." "I make it my business to know a lot of factoids, most of which are useless in today's contemporary society."

"What's its name?" "Hawn," he says. "Like Han Solo?" "Not Han. Hawn. H-A-W-N." I pause, hand in the middle of pushing my hair back from my face. "Goldie Hawn?" Mr. Scott sighs, as I laugh. ~ Kristen Callihan

The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand. ~ Steve Earle

I always did go against the singer-songwriter form. I think I've always had a lot of storytelling songs. ~ Jill Sobule

I like country music. I'm not going to lie. I'm from the South, and I grew up on it. My dad was a country singer-songwriter, so it's in my blood, and I love it. ~ Kim Dickens

And that's the kind of thing people think, you know, that if you sign up to be a singer-songwriter you know how to deal with people setting up hate websites, or people being obsessed with you and crying when you touch them, but you don't, and you just have to deal with. ~ Jessie J.

And I realise the only way to tell the others
is through the way my voice can take these broken words
and turn it into music.
Turn it into poetry.
And I sing to make myself come alive,
but also for you,
because I'd like this to mean something.
To not disappear with the dark I will enter one day
and so now I will tell.
If not for you, then for my own heart,
because it tells me to,
and I'm learning to listen. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Most people in the U.K. discovered me playing a standard on Parkinson. In America, it was on VH1 singing an original called 'All At Sea,' which is a contemporary pop song. So the people that know me there tend to think of me in the singer/songwriter category. ~ Jamie Cullum

I think Everclear is a weird combination of a singer-songwriter and a hard-rock band. That's why some people really dig the band, and some don't. ~ Art Alexakis

If you're a novelist, you have sort of themes that run throughout novels. You start a novel and you finish a novel. With record-making in the singer-songwriter world or whatever it is that I do, it's a little different because there is no specific arc that is necessarily, like it's not a concept record. ~ Amos Lee

I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up, or at least a singer/songwriter. ~ Katey Sagal

One of my favorite artists is Tom Waits, whom most people think of as a wonderful singer-songwriter and a great poet. I certainly think of him that way, but I also know him as a terrific actor. You know, that persona that he puts on when he's doing his music comes from being an actor, figuring out a persona. ~ Jeff Bridges

I detest love lyrics. I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on 'love lyrics'.

You're a young kid and you hear all those 'love lyrics', right? Your parents aren't telling you the truth about love, and you can't really learn about it in school. You're getting the bulk of your 'behaviour norms' mapped out for you in the lyrics to some dumb fucking love song. It's a subconscious training that creates desire for an imaginary situation which will never exist for you. People who buy into that mythology go through life feeling that they got cheated out of something.

What I think is very cynical about some rock and roll songs -- especially today -- is the way they say: "Let's make love." What the fuck kind of wussy says shit like that in the real world? You ought to be able to say "Let's go fuck", or at least "Let's go fill-in-the-blank" -- but you gotta say "Let's make love" in order to get on the radio. This creates a semantic corruption, by changing the context in which the word 'love' is used in the song.

When they get into drooling about love as a 'romantic concept' -- especially in the lyrics of sensitive singer/songwriter types -- that's another shove in the direction of bad mental health.

Fortunately, lyrics over the last five or six years have gotten to be less and less important, with 'art rock groups' and new wavers specializing in 'nonjudgemental' or 'purposely inconse ~ Frank Zappa

I love being a very personal singer-songwriter, but I also like being a scientist or explorer. ~ Bjork

What happened was, I always wanted to be a singer/songwriter kind of guy like a James Taylor or Crosby, Stills and Nash type of thing; I went to a lot of coffee houses and used to watch all those guys, but I never had the nerve to get up and do it because singing seems so personal and intimate to me. It was too revealing. ~ Kevin Nealon

I would advise anyone starting out as a singer/songwriter to play live as much possible. You never know who might be in the audience. ~ Vonda Shepard

It all takes time and lessons and places, but I'm learning to listen to my restless heart, telling me to go, go, go! ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Life is 99 percent attitude. Yet for the majority of people, it is the remaining one percent that dominates 99 percent of their life. ~ Bill Madden

I knew that I wanted to be a singer/songwriter when I was much younger and, um, I've been able to, you know, to realize that dream and I'm very pleased with that ... I want to branch out. I want to write. I write poetry ... Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing emotion-very powerful emotions. ~ Annie Lennox

I really want to be just a singer-songwriter. That's who I am. ~ Jessica Simpson

I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress. ~ Anita Baker

You always have to work to become a better singer, songwriter and performer. ~ Luke Bryan

I think the singer/songwriter genre is going to be like bluegrass and jazz. You can make a living at it, but it's not part of the musical mainstream anymore. ~ Steve Earle

I've been close friends with Katy since teenagers, before she was Katy Perry. She's always been a great resource for me to pull from and watch - from her choice of how public she wants to be about her personal life on down. I also watched her develop from the coffee-house singer-songwriter I knew to her be to playing arenas and killing it. ~ Bonnie McKee

It was the vehicle that propelled me to international stardom. ("Harder They Come") I was known as a singer/songwriter before that, but people did not know me as an actor. It showed the world where the music I contributed to create was coming from. It opened the gates for Jamaican music, internationally. ~ Jimmy Cliff

The generation I grew up in was the beginning of "stand up for yourself," whether being a singer-songwriter or a feminist. In my college years, the feminist movement was really coming to fore, so we wouldn't have put up with guys treating us less than equal. ~ Bonnie Raitt

I always saw myself as a singer-songwriter, a solo-artist, that's why working with other artists was never satisfying for me. ~ John Legend

Adam Ezra writes with the heart of a troubadour and sings like a rock star. He is truely a fresh voice in singer/songwriter scene. ~ Catie Curtis

The stores and the things like that, the business side of things came out at the point when, I'd say probably in the early '70s, it looked like the year of the singer-songwriter was over, 'cause music changed in our time and the spotlight was out. ~ Jimmy Buffett

Stopping Trump has nothing to do with having a left-leaning political bias - it has to do with having a bias for truth and human decency. ~ Bill Madden

I think being a singer-songwriter ... your job is to tell a story that other people can't really tell themselves. ~ Gabrielle Aplin

I'm a folk singer-songwriter. I am pretty poppy though. ~ Vance Joy

For me, the intent in a song is to sing it. I compose songs, meaning I'm writing words to be set to music; I'm intending it to not be recited. I'm a singer-songwriter, and I'm a poet, and there really isn't a contradiction, at least for me. ~ Cornelius Eady

Getting on stage, for me, was a huge thing when I first started. And back in high school, everyone was in rock bands and I was a singer/songwriter. It just seems kind of lame. ~ Tyler Hilton

I'm a closet singer-songwriter. That keeps my creative juices flowing. ~ Zoe McLellan

Audrey Auld is a great singer songwriter. She holds a unique place in contemporary Americana/Roots music. I believe that this uniqueness is largely due to the fact that she is Australian. This affords her a totally different attitude as an artist than traditional American contributors to this genre. Audrey is one of the most honest original artists I know. ~ Fred Eaglesmith

I'm sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It's just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist. People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that's partly my job this time around. ~ Bonnie Raitt

That moment when you realize not everyone is going to like you, it's a nice one. ~ Luke Hemmings

As much as I love being a singer-songwriter, I love throwing down on stage and letting it all out. ~ Tift Merritt

Nina Simone was a gifted and prolific singer, songwriter and pianist who became a powerful presence in the civil rights movement and paid a professional price for it. Behind the scenes, she struggled in a fractious, sometimes violent relationship with her husband and manager and with mental health issues that strained other relationships, including with her only daughter. ~ Michel Martin

My first instrument is piano, I play some piano and guitar. So my solo music is more like real singer/songwriter type stuff. ~ Nikki Jean

Anyway, in my performance style, I'm a singer-songwriter. People can call it neo-soul or R&B or whatever. But at the core, when you see me live, I'm a singer-songwriter. ~ India.Arie

Gordon Lightfoot has created some of the most beautiful and lasting music of our time. He is Bob Dylan's favorite singer/songwriter - high praise from the best of us, applauded by the rest of us. ~ Kris Kristofferson

Steve Isaacs (MTV VJ): When I was hired at MTV, in August of '91, I was "musician guy." I had long hair, and I was a singer-songwriter. And then the next month, Nevermind hit. It was the most perfect time to have an experience like this. I became the silly MTV grunge poster boy. I was wearing flannel a lot. I loved Nirvana, I loved Pearl Jam, I loved Alice in Chains, I loved Soundgarden, I loved Screaming Trees. when I talked about Whitney Houston on-air you could see me die in my eyes a little bit. ~ Mark Yarm

It's a whole package, singer/songwriter. I like writing but I like performing just as much. ~ John Hiatt

Video is a funny thing. It's one thing to be an artist, singer-songwriter, and use words and create pictures in people's minds. And then be asked to do video for it, to actually give a certain visual for your song. ~ Melissa Etheridge

I get ticked off a lot because I don't think she [Faith Hill] gets the respect she deserves. I tell her all the time, "If you were 300 pounds and dog ugly, people would think you were the greatest singer in the world." They have the tendency to look at her and never really listen to her. The reason it works is she's a fantastic artist. It's almost embarrassing for me to sing with her sometimes. ~ Tim McGraw

Since I was old enough to understand what a songwriter/producer is, I've had a curiosity about how Max Martin creates what he creates. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from him. ~ Taylor Swift

The capacity to reason is a special sort of capacity because it can lead us to places that we did not expect to go. ~ Peter Singer

The Yiddish mentality is not haughty. It does not take victory for granted. It does not demand and command but it muddles through, sneaks by, smuggles itself amidst the powers of destruction, knowing somewhere that God's plan for Creation is still at the very beginning. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

I like to sing because my mother was a singer. She sang to me all the time, so I learned to love singing. I did have a career as little 10-year-old George Benson. I made my first record as a vocalist, but I've been playing guitar since I was 9. ~ George Benson

I think with any songwriter the first 1,000 songs are always terrible. ~ Graham Russell

I suppose what's happened recently has confirmed suspicions I voiced in the book, and I think made clearer some of those things that I point out. For instance I have a section of the book where I talk about the possibility of torture. ~ Peter Singer

After a while Zeinvel said, "I haven't forgotten her. If there is a Gehenna, I want to lie next to her on one bed of nails. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

I'm not trying to be a pop singer. ~ Sharon Jones

When I was in college, being a magician was not the classiest thing to be. It was like being a folk singer before Bob Dylan. ~ Doug Henning

There is a British pop group called God. At a recent book signing the lead singer introduced himself and gave me a cassette. I have heard the voice of God. ~ J.G. Ballard

No one remembers the singer. The song remains. ~ Terry Pratchett

I remember an old Singer sewing machine at home that belonged to my grandmother. It had a pedal. My mom taught me how to use it when I was 12 years old. I used to find it so intriguing, how a flat piece of material could be made into an object that had so many uses. ~ Bibhu Mohapatra

Singer/songwriters spend two or three years making an album, and then it goes up for sale and everybody pirates it and you don't make any money. Whereas, writing a film score you still get presented with a paycheck. ~ Cliff Martinez

So many people are concerned with being the perfect 'something.' Whether it's the perfect singer, the perfect sexy girl, or the perfect feminist. I don't want to be the perfect anything. ~ Halsey

The desire to be seen as superior and singular- and, conversely, but similarly, inferior and individual, is a big topic ... They have a term for the syndrome- it is called terminal uniqueness ... we all refuse to be part of the crowd, to walk in the middle of the road in the safety of others. We all think were special. But the problem is, as I point out to Dr. Singer all the time, I actually am special. ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

Ethics is inescapable. ~ Peter Singer

A young songwriter shouldn't think he or she doesn't stand a chance because someone has big corporate people behind him. Never look at it like that. ~ Ronald Isley

A story to me must have some surprise ... I must have a passion to write the story. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything. ~ Carly Simon

I don't know if I should say this, but I feel more like a singer than an artist. ~ Jessie Ware

I have come to the conclusion - and I don't know why it took me so long, but nevertheless, I'm here now - that a lot of people tell me they don't get enough guitar on my albums. So I decided to do an album where the guitar would be the singer, playing the melody. ~ Carlos Santana

Q: Do you have any advice for upcoming writers who want to pen weird stories?

A: READ, damn it. Fill your brain to the bursting point with the good stuff, starting with writers that you truly enjoy, and then work your way backward and outward, reading those writers who inspired the writers you love best. That was my path as far as Weird/Horror Fiction, starting with Lovecraft, and then working my way backward/outward on the Weird Fiction spiderweb. And don't limit your reading. Read it all, especially non-fiction and various news outlets. You'd be surprised by how many of my story ideas were born while listening to NPR, perusing a blog, or paging through Vanity Fair.

Once you have your fuel squared away, just write what you love, in whatever style and genre. You'll never have fun being someone you're not, so be yourself. When a singer opens their mouth, what comes out is what comes out.

Also, don't be afraid to fail, and don't be afraid to walk away. Writing isn't for everyone, and that's totally fine. One doesn't need to be a writer to enjoy being a reader and overall fan of genre or wider fiction. ~ T.E. Grau

As discussed earlier, humans who lack the reflective self-awareness of normal adults, such as those with particular forms of amnesia or very young children or those with certain mental disabilities, still are self-aware and still have an interest in continuing to live. There may, of course, be a difference between the self-awareness of normal adult humans and that of other animals. But even if that is the case, it does not mean that the latter have no interest in continuing to live, and it does not justify treating the latter as commodities. Singer begs the question from the outset by maintaining ~ Gary L. Francione

I see in the papers that the singer, Frank Ifield, popular in the fifties, is planning a comeback. I remember reviewing his debut at the Palladium under the insane misapprehension that he was blind. (I had him confused with a blind vocalist who bore a similar name.) I watched agape with admiration while he strolled around the stage with every appearance of knowing where he was going, and I burst into spontaneous applause as he strode down to within a foot of the orchestra pit without the least sign of fear. By the end of his act I was misty with tears at the thought of his courage. I often wonder what he thought when he read the review in which I congratulated him on the gallantry with which he had overcome the handicap of sightlessness. ~ Kenneth Tynan