Writing Songs Quotes

When I first started drumming, when I was 14 or 15, I started writing songs. I wrote for a couple of years, but when we started 'Radiohead' it became very apparent quite quickly that I just wanted to concentrate on the drumming. ~ Philip Selway

The idea of taking a song, envisioning the overall sound in my head and then bringing the arrangement to life in the studio ... well, that gives me satisfaction like nothing else ... My state of being has been elevated, because I've been exercising, writing songs ... No masterpiece ever came overnight. A person's masterpiece is something that you nurture along. ~ Brian Wilson

I ended up writing songs by taking stock of all the different events in my life, but all those songs were bad. ~ Owen Pallett

I had been writing songs for other people for a while, and I made a demo and I put it on my Myspace, which Perez Hilton found and blogged about on his site. ~ Natalia Kills

When I start writing songs, and they come easily, I'm always very suspicious. That usually means they're reminding me of something I've already done before. When the songs become unsettling, and I feel anxious about what I'm doing, that usually means it's going to be more interesting later on when we actually record the stuff. ~ Nick Cave

In writing songs, I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie. ~ Bob Dylan

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it. ~ Neil Young

The first song I wrote and had published was titled "Just As Long As That Someone Is You". It was written in 1959, and recorded in 1965 by Jimmy Ellege. I started writing songs because I wanted something of my own to sing. I, at that time, was not aware that the songs I heard on the radio were not written by the folks singing them. I had always loved poetry, and found it easy to integrate a melody with poetry. ~ Mickey Newbury

I've just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I'm just still writing songs and what not. ~ Phillip Phillips

I realized that I started writing songs to make people feel how I felt, rather than just making them feel something. That's not the way I should do things. ~ Marilyn Manson

I think from a major-label perspective, if you were on the flip side of things and that's the world you were used to working in, your interpretation could be, "Oh, they're having trouble writing songs," when really it's like, "No, I'm not ready to write songs, I don't want to write a song right now, if I did write a song, it would be forced." ~ Beth Ditto

I've always sung in choirs and acapella groups, but when I was in college, I finally started writing songs and playing with a band, and that ignited a desire to do it full time and pour everything I had into it. ~ Rachel Platten

I think that once you start writing songs, you start developing a library of ideas that you can go and take from, so it gets easier as you go. ~ James Mercer

I don't force it. If you don't have an idea and you don't hear anything going over and over in your head, don't sit down and try to write a song. You know, go mow the lawn ... My songs speak for themselves. ~ Neil Young

There aren't any rules, as far as anything-and that applies especially to writing songs, whatever gets the point across. So you're just kind of brought up to feel-in any field, if you say you can do it, do it. There it is. ~ Guy Clark

If I was writing songs just for me I'd only play them in my living room, alone. ~ Tori Amos

When I was writing songs, I always thought I'd make more of a career out of the drawings, the comics even more than the music. ~ Daniel Johnston

I like the process of writing songs. It makes me feel good. ~ Colin Hay

When I was young, I just sat down and started playing Chopsticks at the piano. I got so far and then lost interest. Eventually, I regained it and started writing songs. ~ Otis Blackwell

People showed me this way of dealing with music, writing songs, thinking about music and shows and our community and the fact that it doesn't have to be about being popular or fashion or making money. ~ Chuck Ragan

Writing songs always trumps whatever else was on the schedule, it really is the most important and can be so fickle, you have to grab it when it's there. ~ Beth Moore

I compose my own stuff. I've been writing songs with words. I've been playing more on the keyboard because I can transpose it to sheet music on the computer. ~ Alicia Witt

Yeah, I came in at the end of the Notorious album, played on about five tracks and then we went on a tour. Then we did another album, Big Thing, and then we started writing songs together in 1989. ~ Warren Cuccurullo

I'm a 50-year-old guy making music for over 20 years. I've been writing songs since I was 20, so it's really been 30 years, and it's always been personal, but I've always told stories. ~ Art Alexakis

I really, really like writing songs. ~ Debbie Harry

I love nothing more than to perform my songs in front of a live audience. And whatever I'm doing is driven toward finding or writing songs and putting out hit songs that drive people coming to see me live. Because, at the end of the day, that's what I enjoy the most. ~ Luke Bryan

I would be involved with music whether I had a career or not. I'm always going to be writing songs and recording them. ~ Tom Scholz

I started writing songs when I was 10. It was a natural way to express myself as a kid. It wasn't until I started listening to jazz, joined the choir and picked up a guitar that my little hobby became something far more serious. ~ Kimbra

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

I have so much music that I do. Just like how a visual artist is always sketching something but they might not share it, I'm always writing songs or coming up with melodic lines on piano or guitar. It's therapy. It's always happening. ~ Erykah Badu

We have a tradition of passing our history orally and singing a lot of it and writing songs about it and there's kind of a calling in Irish voices when they're singing in their Irish accent. ~ Sinead O'Connor

I'm always writing songs, and I've got a bunch that I want to record. ~ Paul McCartney

I always played around with writing songs, but when you're spending a lot of time in bars, you have a lot of big ideas, but you don't do much with them. ~ Dave Gahan

I was working at a non-profit for five years. But I could always create music after work. All throughout those years, I was writing songs and recording music and performing around town. ~ Jussie Smollett

I think the more emotional you are, the better. I'm sort of writing [songs] as I go and I can never tell how it's going to be or how it's going to feel until I get into the studio. But I definitely think it will. I probably can't help but have the emotions in my voice. ~ Miranda Lambert

I can imagine moving out to the seaside at some point. I like Brighton, my sister lives there. I'm a seaside boy and whenever I go there, I find myself writing songs about it. ~ Marc Almond

I love making records; I love making music; I love writing songs. ~ Barry Gibb

Nothing makes me happier than writing a song that I think is good or that I want to play. Writing songs helps me. ~ Nina Nesbitt

Sam was about to travel to Asia with her boyfriend and she was fretting about what her backers would think if she released some of her new songs while she was 'on vacation'. She was worried that posting pictures of herself sipping a Mai Tai was going to make her look like an asshole.

What does it matter? I asked her, where you are whether you're drinking a coffee, a Mai Tai or a bottle of water? I mean, aren't they paying for your songs so that you can... live? Doesn't living include wandering and collecting emotions and drinking a Mai Tai, not just sitting in a room writing songs without ever leaving the house?

I told Sam about another songwriter friend of mine, Kim Boekbinder, who runs her own direct support website through which her fans pay her monthly at levels from $5 to $1,000. She also has a running online wishlist of musical gear and costumes kindof like a wedding registry, to which her fans can contribute money anytime they want.

Kim had told me a few days before that she doesn't mind charging her backers during what she calls her 'staring at the wall time'. She thinks this is essential before she can write a new batch of songs. And her fans don't complain, they trust her process.

These are new forms of patronage, there are no rules and it's messy, the artists and the patrons they are making the rules as they go along, but whether these artists are using crowdfunding (which is basically, front me some money so I can ma ~ Amanda Palmer

I never stopped writing music, I just stopped writing songs. I've been writing music continually ever since the last album of original tunes, "River Of Dreams" in '93. ~ Billy Joel

If you're writing songs by yourself, who's going to tell you if it's good or not? But if you're writing songs with somebody else, you get that immediate feedback. ~ Glenn Frey

I wrote 'Happy Man' with a couple of boys of mine. I have been writing in Nashville for a long time. Of course I was writing songs back in Oklahoma when I was a kid. ~ Christian Kane

Right now, I'm Writing song lyrics. Experimenting with a play. Toying with an idea for a documentary. I hope one of these will eventually be launched into the light of day. ~ Anita Diament

A lot of her songs were to do with Blake, which did not escape Mark's attention. She told Mark that writing songs about him was cathartic and that 'Back to Black' summed up what had happened when their relationship had ended: Blake had gone back to his ex and Amy to black, or drinking and hard times. It was some of her most inspired writing because, for better or worse, she'd lived it. Mark and Amy inspired each other musically, each bringing out fresh ideas in the other. One day they decided to take a quick stroll around the neighbourhood because Amy wanted to buy Alex Clare a present. On the way back Amy began telling Mark about being with Blake, then not being with Blake and being with Alex instead. She told him about the time at my house after she'd been in hospital when everyone had been going on at her about her drinking. 'You know they tried to make me go to rehab, and I told them, no, no, no.' 'That's quite gimmicky,' Mark replied. 'It sounds hooky. You should go back to the studio and we should turn that into a song.' Of course, Amy had written that line in one of her books ages ago. She'd told me before she was planning to write a song about what had happened that day, but that was the moment 'Rehab' came to life. Amy had also been working on a tune for the 'hook', but when she played it to Mark later that day it started out as a slow blues shuffle – it was like a twelve-bar blues progression. Mark suggested that she should think about doing a sixties girl-group sou ~ Mitch Winehouse

We were writing songs about girls when we still thought girls had cooties. ~ Isaac Hanson

In the mid-1980s to the early 1990s I was writing songs not because I particularly liked what I was doing, but because I was desperately trying to get back into the charts. I really didn't enjoy it. I didn't like the music I was making, I wasn't proud of it, like I have been before or since. ~ Gary Numan

Yeah, Under The Table And Dreaming shaped the way that I think about writing songs. ~ John Mayer

I don't write songs, songs write me. ~ Sammy Cahn

I love writing songs. ~ Sade Adu

Around the time I dropped out of college, I decided to start taking what I liked about short stories and apply it to writing songs - to make these things that would change and keep going. ~ Avey Tare

At some point, I had to make a decision: I could practice more and become a really great guitar player or I could work on writing better songs. There are only so many hours in the day, and I found writing songs more fulfilling than working on becoming this virtuoso guitar player. ~ James Iha

I can't imagine ever not making music, making albums, writing songs, doing shows. That's all I really know, and that's all I really do. ~ Pixie Lott

When I stopped trying to write songs, that's when I'm able to begin writing songs. You have to just use your life, and the things around you for your inspiration. ~ Lenny Kravitz

The most important thing is writing songs that resonate and giving people a chance to listen to them. ~ Corey Smith

Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something. ~ Luke Bryan

I love writing songs. One of the toughest things is structure; it just works when you use verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. And as soon as you become aware of that formula, you start to have a bad conscience when you write with that particular structure. ~ Rivers Cuomo

The first time I learned how to play, my guitar was out of tune. I didn't know it; I just started writing songs. ~ Brittany Howard

With anything I do, it's hard to categorize it. With any project, I just go in and blindly start writing songs and then find out which way we want to go with it. ~ Travie McCoy

The better I get at writing songs, the harder it seems to be to relate to people. But when I get on stage, I'm extremely happy. ~ John Darnielle

I've been writing songs all my life. My mom said I wrote my first song when I was two. ~ Melora Hardin

When I graduated high school, I bought a guitar and, at first, didn't really think I'd get into the songwriting thing as much as I did. But after learning a few songs of other people's to play on the guitar, I got bored with that and just started writing songs on my own, and that's kinda how it came about. ~ Sam Hunt

Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents' passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It's no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano. ~ Caleb Landry Jones

Writing songs is super intimate. It's a bit like getting naked. ~ Gwen Stefani

Yeah, I've been interested in music since I was a teenager, always writing songs. ~ Jeff Bridges

At school, I was always daydreaming and fiddling in inkwells, but I had to learn to grow up and become articulate. And doing that was what brought me into writing songs. It's like therapy for me, because it exposes what I'm really thinking. ~ Roy Harper

I care about the records I make and I love writing songs and some songs are really dear to me and they mean something. But the memory of making the records and the activities surrounding the records, the people involved in them is actually a bigger thing to me. ~ Joel Plaskett

I think I'm in a really nice position, where I'm sure I could do another show if I wanted to do one, but right now the main thing in my mind is writing songs. ~ Chris Isaak

I love writing songs. I'm a songwriter. ~ Mel Brooks

Sometimes you're trapped in writing songs and you don't have enough distance from what you do anymore and you need the talent and the years of other people to come and jump in. ~ Keren Ann

I didn't really want to write just lyrics, but I wanted to meet Leonard Bernstein. Music was always the first reason I was writing songs. ~ Stephen Sondheim

I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head. ~ Lenny Kravitz

I love what I do. I made my first record in '57. I don't think I'll ever get tired of making records and writing songs and singing and being in the music business. ~ Ray Stevens

The piano has been my friend all my life; it has always comforted me. Writing songs and sitting down at the piano is not only a business, it's a hobby I enjoy. ~ El DeBarge

I do not like people writing songs and then other people singing them. A lot of people don't even sing their own songs anymore. It's like producers these days have ghost producers; 'I don't produce, but I am a producer.' ~ Afrojack

I feel like writing songs is cheating on acting. It's weird. ~ Ester Dean

I have four shelves covered with journals that I've written. Dad and I are writing songs together. I've probably written 100 songs. ~ Miley Cyrus

I'm like the opposite of one of those comedians who's funny on stage and depressed behind closed doors . On record, I can get pretty dark, but in real life I'm very carefree. But when I'm happy, I ain't writing songs, I'm out having a laugh, being in love. I wouldn't have the time. If I ever get married, it'll be 'Darling, I need a divorce, it's been three years, I've got a record to write!' ~ Adele

I'm actually embarrassed by the idea of writing songs about myself - I imagine someone hearing them and thinking This guy is a bit self-obsessed. I don't know if I really have a persona, in that respect. I want to just make the music and hide away. ~ Max Tundra

I'm writing songs that connect to millions of people. And that happens for a reason. I don't really worry too much about people who aren't into it because that's the beauty of music. It's subjective. If every single person in the world loved our music, then that'd be weird. ~ Matthew Healy

I'll be writing songs till I die. There's just no question. ~ Alanis Morissette

I like writing songs. I like the camarderie of the and. I like touring. I love playing bass. And then there's free beer. ~ Keanu Reeves

I started playing guitar and writing songs when I was 15. I think what mainly sparked my interest was just the fact that I grew up listening to Cheryl King, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor, and was just always inspired by that sort of organic art, and organic songs and just very natural songwriting that came out of some of those artists. ~ Kate Voegele

If you want to grow in writing songs that will express the wonders of God, immerse yourself in God. ~ Tim Hughes

A lot of times songs are very much of a moment, that you just encapsulate. They come to you, you write them, you feel good that day, or bad that day. ~ Mick Jagger

The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close. ~ Randy Newman

We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians. ~ Chad Smith

Like all teenagers in the early '60s, I put down my hockey stick when the Beatles got big and picked up a guitar. We all thought we'd be rock stars. Then I got into comedy, but I'd always find a way to use my guitar, such as writing songs and doing musical parodies. ~ Rick Moranis

I remember those days right after I graduated from college. All I had to do was wake up in the morning and think about writing songs. It's not like that anymore, needless to say. ~ Josh Turner

I love writing songs with people, which is about really taking risks, throwing yourself over the falls and really seeing what you're made of and seeing how it sticks. Seeing how others react to it, and seeing also how it can become a melody and how it can really take off from your experience. It's a way of seeing life unfold on the page before me. ~ Jason Mraz

I'm not really one to be on camera, I'd rather be writing songs. ~ Jon Foreman

If you want to be a singer, you've got to concentrate on it twenty-four hours a day. You can't be a well driller, too. You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it. ~ Otis Redding

When I'm writing [songs], some days the pen just goes. I'm not in charge and I'm almost listening outside of it. That's when I realize that we all have to start looking at life as a gift. It's like listening to a color and believing that these colors have soul mates and once you get them all together the painting is complete. ~ Prince

I always loved writing songs - writing for myself and demo-ing songs, really with no intention of ever letting anyone else hear them. Finally the Foo Fighters stuff happened when I just went to the studio down the street from my house and recorded some stuff in about five or six days, and all these people wanted to release it as an album. I wanted to release it on my own, with no photos and no names on it. ~ Dave Grohl

I wrote an album about being in love. I don't think it's possible to write an album while you're in love - why on earth would you bother? I mean, Christ. If you're in there writing songs about someone rather than just being with them and kissing their every molecule, surely the person that you're with must be asking some questions as well. ~ Gary Lightbody

The visual side of being a performer or in a band is, to me, as important as the music. I know not everyone shares that same opinion, but when I'm writing songs or working on lyrics or coming up with an idea, I think about videos as I'm in the studio. If I had all the money in the world, I would have the most amazing videos ever, you know? You're saying grandiose, and big; if the song warrants it, I try to push the visuals as far as I can. ~ Tamaryn

I clearly remember writing songs [when I was young] and the power that it gave me of feeling like somebody. My whole life changed when I wrote those songs, even before anyone ever heard them. It wasn't a commercial thing. ~ Gwen Stefani

If I'm not writing songs about things I've actually been through, it ruins the idea of making music to me. ~ Austin Carlile

Sometimes, writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you're thinking, like, 'This thing is going to come to me.' ~ Alex Turner

I like writing songs all females can relate to - songs about when you're a chick and you get your heart broken and you go shopping. ~ Nikka Costa

It's what the Pixies always said about music - they were writing songs and just trying not to be boring. That was their main motivation and it worked for them. I remember reading that and thinking that was the way to do it. ~ Jonny Greenwood