Barry Mann Quotes

#1. You can get stale writing with each other for a while.

Barry Mann

#2. If we were the team that won out, then life was good and we felt that we were worth something.

Barry Mann

#3. We lived, ate, and breathed pop songs.

Barry Mann

#4. You're going to have more rejection than acceptance.

Barry Mann

#5. We became the songs we wrote.

Barry Mann

#6. I think if one wants to be in a continual state of insanity one should stay married to that writing partner.

Barry Mann

#7. Cynthia's lyrics always expressed the feelings people felt but they couldn't express themselves.

Barry Mann

#8. A guitar riff played on a piano doesn't come close to the purity of it being played on a guitar but I faked it enough to get by.

Barry Mann

#9. I know at the beginning of our careers, my wife and I were gut wrenchingly competitive.

Barry Mann

#10. There's so much fear involved in trying to do something you don't know how to do that drugs and alcohol can become a big part of your life if you have an addictive personality or are very unsure, which most songwriters are.

Barry Mann

#11. You've got to really be able to accept the rejection.

Barry Mann

#12. Who put the bomp in the bomp-bomp-bomp-bomp-bomp, who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong?

Barry Mann

#13. If we didn't get the record, we didn't exist.

Barry Mann

#14. You have to be very brave in that first writing session.

Barry Mann

#15. It's amazing how a competitive nature can turn a negative into something positive.

Barry Mann

#16. If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.

Barry Mann

#17. I think that most writers who wait until they're inspired to write are just waiting for the fear to subside.

Barry Mann

#18. I quit college. I was studying architecture for about a year.

Barry Mann

#19. One other thing, if it's possible, as songwriters, you should also develop yourself as record producers.

Barry Mann

#20. I've written songs sober and I've written songs high.

Barry Mann

#21. The real danger of writing a great song when you're on something is that it might get you thinking that the only way to repeat that is by only writing when you're high.

Barry Mann

#22. It's very important, at least for me and for Cynthia, to get outside input.

Barry Mann

#23. I looked through our catalog year by year, and I saw that there were pockets of time when we wrote some terrific songs. Then all of a sudden, we'd go for another two or three months and there weren't great songs.

Barry Mann

#24. Probably most successful songwriters have an innate songwriting ability.

Barry Mann

#25. You have certain writing tools but generally creating something from nothing makes one quite mad and Cynthia and I are quite mad you know.

Barry Mann

#26. It's very hard to teach someone how to write a song if to begin with there's no creative crop to harvest.

Barry Mann

#27. We've written something like 900 songs in all.

Barry Mann

#28. I also used to work in the Catskill Mountains as a bus boy, and I performed in talent shows.

Barry Mann

#29. I get a different kind of lyric from someone else that might make me go in a different musical direction.

Barry Mann