Top 100 A Great Song Quotes
#1. As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.
Lyle Lovett
#2. 'She's Dynamite' was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n' roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n' roll.
B.B. King
#3. I think that a great song needs the full package. I think that a great song needs everything from lyrics, to melody, to music, and it needs to be interesting and it needs take you in and swallow you and swish you around, and then regurgitate you back in better form.
William Beckett
#4. It's not a great song unless it makes your DNA remember Eden and your spirit long for Home.
Mark Lowry
#5. I would say a great song [is where] you like everything in the song. The lyrics move you, the beat makes you want to dance and you feel invincible when you listen to that song. A good song I think you can listen to but you get tired of it really fast.
Aino Jawo
#6. 'If You Could Read My Mind' was written during the collapse of my marriage. It's a great song. No one has any gripes about it. I wondered what my wife and daughter might think. My daughter is the one who got me to correct 'The feelings that you lacked' to 'The feelings that we lacked'.
Gordon Lightfoot
#7. When I write, I don't really focus on duets or anything like that, or whether I'm going to feature this or that rapper. I just focus on just making a great song and figure out the rest later.
John Legend
#8. A great song can make you cry and transport you to another dimension.
Charli XCX
#9. We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it.
Rick Wright
#10. There's just a natural human element to a great song that feels immediately satisfying. I like the song to create a mood.
Rick Rubin
#11. A great song awakens something in your body / mind / spirit or history that you had forgotten about. It ignites some emotional kindling that you didn't even know you had stored. It awakens you to a possibility for the future - be it hope or excitement - that you never knew was possible.
Greta Salpeter
#12. The hack songwriter will write the absolute truth every single word, whether it makes a great song or not.
Paul Westerberg
#13. The difference between a good song and a great song is a good song is one that you know, you'll put on in your car or you'll dance to it. But I think a great song you'll cry to it, or you get chills. I think a great song says how you feel better than you could.
Taylor Swift
#14. I'm nosey, and I have a great imagination. So it's not necessarily things I have to go through, but it's things people I know or my family is going through, and I hear about it, and I think, 'That sounds like a great song.'
Becky G
#15. A great song that gets played so often you can no longer hear what made it great.
Andy Selsberg
#16. And you have a record company behind it, this is a key too, you need people to fight for your records, at least a little bit. So if you have a great song, it's catchy, and you've got a little bit of help, I think that's all you need. But there hasn't been that in music.
Joan Jett
#17. I'm a Fool" may not be a great song, but Sinatra's shattering performance of it transcends the material. His emotion is so naked that we're at once embarrassed and compelled: we literally feel for him.
James Kaplan
#19. Feeling has as much to say as the words do. You can have the greatest words in the world and if they're not believable, they don't strike a chord and they're not said convincingly, it's not a great song.
Sam Phillips
#20. I think Badfinger was the epitome of that type of music before the power pop term was coined. 'No Matter What is always gonna be a great song on the radio. There?s probably two or three others off their records that are as cool like 'Day After Day'.
Robin Zander
#21. Even if I know that really it's not a great song, even if it's a naff song but I have a good memory of it, then to me that's a great song.
George Ezra
#22. A good song is a nice set of chords and some good lyrics; a great song is a song that reinvents itself over time. That you can always find something interesting in the more you listen to it - it keeps revealing something to you.
Bryce Dessner
#23. A great song should lift your heart, warm the soul and make you feel good.
Colbie Caillat
#24. Writing a great song is not a simple task, but I feel like when everything comes together and you sing it in a certain way that no-one else can sing it, when it's written in a certain way that's perfect for the way that you're performing it, that those are the things that make a song great.
William Beckett
#25. I just like a great song. I just wanted to be this true reflection of what is in my heart and it ended up becoming my life which was kind of surreal, but I do enjoy writing for other people.
The Rocket Summer
#26. I think there's thousands of good songs in the world - the songs that we can all sing along to, songs that are just so catchy they end up being in your head. But I think a great song is something that emotionally engages with you and connects with you.
Ella Henderson
#27. I think a great song appeals to older and younger people and it makes you think. It's also honest, and it also doesn't hurt if it's fun to sing along to.
Kacey Musgraves
#28. I live my life in growing orbits which move out over this wondrous world, I am circling around God, around ancient towers and i have been circling for a thousand years. And I still dont know if I am an eagle or a storm or a great song.
Rainer Maria Rilke
#29. I think the difference between a good song and a great song is ... honestly, I think the lyrics, because if you have a really solid melody and solid track and everything is there but then the lyric is just okay, then you've got a good song.
Bonnie McKee
#30. Any musician with a slight level of self-awareness can be taught to write a 'good' song. A great song is completely original. It feels as if the performer is the only person who could bring it to life.
Greta Salpeter
#31. I grew up listening to all kinds of music, everything from country to rock, pop, R&B and even rap, so for me, music is music and a great song is a great song.
Jason Aldean
#32. A great song is one that is around even when I'm not.
Tessanne Chin
#33. We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it's timeless that we as humans are going to feel something for that and there's going to be a real appreciation.
Art Garfunkel
#34. I can't remember the first song I learned to play on bass, but the first song I learned to play on guitar was 'For Your Love' by the Yardbirds. That kind of was the beginning for me. I thought it was a great song and I loved the open chord progression at the beginning of that song.
Geddy Lee
#35. I don't write a great song every day. I don't write a great song every couple weeks. It comes in such random times.
Macklemore
#36. If you can take it to the next level and really tell an interesting story in a unique and fresh way, then I feel like that's a great song.
Bonnie McKee
#37. A great song will say how you feel better than you ever could.
Taylor Swift
#38. But when I hear a great song, I can't help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.
Taylor Swift
#39. I've never used the word jamming. It's a matter of finding a great song and learning the chords, then slightly altering the vocal melody, and matching a classic chord progression with another chord progression.
M. Ward
#40. I live my life in widening circle That reach out across the world. I may not ever complete the last one, But I give myself to it. I circle around God, that primordial tower. I have been circling for thousands of years, And I still don't know: am I a falcon, A storm, or a great song? [I, 2]
Rainer Maria Rilke
#41. Songwriting is something I really need to work on. I don't have very many songs but I really love it. I would love to be a great song writer some day.
Norah Jones
#42. A great song should make you stop everything that you're doing. You should be so into it that you just can't imagine doing anything else for that moment. You wouldn't even dream of picking up the phone.
Kara DioGuardi
#43. I feel like, when you turn on the radio and you hear a great song, you know it's a great song, and you sing along. We all know what a great song sounds like, so we all have that instinct, it's just being able to accept your own instincts when you write that song.
Kiesza
#44. I think 'Invisible' is a great song, but I don't know how accessible it is.
Bono
#45. Not being a natural songwriter ... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Bonnie Raitt
#47. You can't plan to write a great song. It just happens to you. It drops in your lap. It's the same thing with a woman.
Neil Diamond
#48. At the end of the day, all people want to do is hear a great singer sing a great song. They don't care about what vocal changes it went through. You can't screw up a great song and a great singer.
Vince Gill
#49. That's the evergreen nature of a great song. They can be resurrected. They can be covered. They can find new relevance due to changing circumstances in history.
John Legend
#50. Some songs depend heavily on the character, but, for the most part, a great song begs for reinterpretation every time it is sung, even when in character.
Kelli O'Hara
#51. When I'm writing songs, I write visually. When I'm writing the words down and I listen to the melody and the lyrics, I start seeing the video form. And if I can get through a song and from the beginning to the end have the whole video in my mind, I think that's a great song.
Christian Kane
#52. Cowriting is very personal. A great song is an honest song, so you have to be able to open up to the person in the room. It's like a blind date. I know in the first five minutes if it's gonna be weird.
Liz Rose
#53. Looking at the original lyrics [of "A Song For You" ] as I was preparing it, I thought, "Wow! I feel like it was written for me." That's what a great song does. You don't have to do a lot of homework. You can just say the words and it springs to life.
Cheyenne Jackson
#54. I'm still looking to write a great song ... You always are. You know, you never think, 'Well, that's enough ... that's good enough.'
Paul McCartney
#55. I always feel like when I've listened to a great song I know it, 'cuz it's the only time I'll ever get goosebumps or something like that.
Ella Henderson
#56. I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.
Rainer Maria Rilke
#57. It takes a lot of good songs to write a great song!
Sydney Sierota
#58. A great song will be great forever - it's timeless and classic in that way.
Kacey Musgraves
#59. That was when Neil discovered Jack Nietzsche. They went off and pretty much came up with that by themselves, but I thought it was a great song, and I was more than happy to do my harmony parts on it.
Stephen Stills
#60. 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
#61. Crossfire's done very well. I knew it was a great song, but I didn't know it would be so big.
Brandon Flowers
#62. Even Crazy Horses is a good song, by the Osmonds. I've known many bands who have covered that. It's just a great song. I bought it in a brown, paper bag because I didn't want anyone to know I had it.
Joe Elliott
#63. A great song is a great song, whether it's on vinyl or CD or cassette or reel to reel or mp3. Then again, that might be an overly optimistic view, but I do think that great music will transcend the medium in which it is delivered.
Moby
#64. I grew up listening to hits, and if I write something I feel, I think that's pretty mass appeal. I'm not very elitist with music. Love is universal; a great melody is universal; it goes around the world; it's not just American. A great song can touch the world.
Diane Warren
#65. A great song for me is when I hear it and it's contagious. The lyrics and the melody, if grows on you once and you want to hear it over and over again.
Easton Corbin
#66. I think that a good song is catchy, and a great song is not catchy - but it has a deeper meaning.
Courtney Barnett
#67. A song called Never. Which we never play. But it's a great song.
John Wozniak
#68. I will say that I know Nirvana did a show and played a few chords from 'More Than a Feeling' before they did 'Teen Spirit,' and it wasn't very good. But in all seriousness, 'Teen Spirit' was a great song. If subconsciously or somehow I had any influence on that, I'll take that as a compliment.
Tom Scholz
#69. Sometimes an unexpected chord change can be the difference between a good song and a great song.
Gary Talley
#70. A tapping foot isn't the best a listener can get from a song: A good song makes a listener dance. A great song makes him think.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#71. When you write a great song, it just blows you away. When you write a song that connects with people around the world - I mean like it actually transcends language barriers - you see how it can affect people, and it's quite a tall order to follow up on.
Gwen Stefani
#72. What makes a great song - you don't put it into words. You feel it. The perfect lyric. The perfect melody. It makes you feel something.
Diane Warren
#73. I write songs to handle emotional pain. I guess what they say is true: with every heartache comes a great song. I also pray and have great friends.
Matt Sorum
#74. To me, it's all about the song. Songs are what make me excited. You hear a great song and you want to record it or get a great idea and you want to write it.
Amy Grant
#75. A great song is the reason you want to jump out of your bed in the morning.
Greta Salpeter
#77. A good song stays in your head because it's catchy, a great song stays because it means something to you.
Tove Lo
#78. There's just something so amazing about being anywhere, and some music starts playing, and you just hold up your phone and can find out what it is. You never again have to say, 'That's a great song! Who is it by?'
Phil Schiller
#79. Dancing to a great song with great friends and lots of laughter makes me come alive.
Sadie Calvano
#80. I have my own tastes and I have my my own ... like, I dunno. I think it's really subjective; something that I think is a great song, is unlistenable to somebody else, which I've come to realise.
Regina Spektor
#81. We'll do a crazy video of a great song that people can actually dance to.
Mark Roberts
#82. A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!
Quincy Jones
#83. A good song should make you wanna tap your foot and get with your girl. A great song should destroy cops and set fire to the suburbs. I'm only interested in writing great songs.
Tom Morello
#84. 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' is a great classic by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, I sure love that song. I did like the classic version, a rock-oriented song, then someone heard me do it with the Grant Green approach - Grant Green and Larry Young did it, with a bossa nova beat on the funky side.
George Benson
#85. No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula ... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose.
Lauren Mayberry
#87. I've got a song on One Direction's album called 'Tell Me A Lie'. It's a really cute song - I love it. I loved that they liked it. They sound really great on it. I already have it - I'm so VIP with my copy on my computer! It does sound really good.
Kelly Clarkson
#88. I'm such a copycat."I want to try and do this like the Donovan song 'Changes'," or "I want to do this bit from Van Morrison." I don't know how else to illustrate something, because I'm not a super-great musician. In that way, I'm more like the producer.
Eleanor Friedberger
#89. I was just a little girl watching TV and wanting to be in it. My parents had no idea how to get me there, but here I am as a part of this great cast on the Disney Channel. Truly, if you just want to do this, then you have to commit to it.
Brenda Song
#90. I was drawn to love songs, but I was just drawn to great music - no matter if it's hip-hop, pop, R&B or whether it's rock n' roll or country. It could be a Garth Brooks song, and if it's a smash, then I'll love the different wordplay and different melodies. That's what I'm a fan of - great music.
Nayvadius Cash
#91. I did a song, "Court and Spark," for a Joni Mitchell tribute album that's yet to see the light of day. So she's someone I'd like to do something with, sure. I worked with the great guitar player Bill Frisell on Phantom Moon - that was fun. I'm such a fan; he's amazing.
Duncan Sheik
#92. I got signed with the songwriting deal when I was sixteen and they were really great - my publishers, who to this day are still my publishers and are like my musical family, my second family - they took me in and taught me what a good song is.
Lights
#93. If a song is funny and absurd, and it sounds great, it's just going to be that much funnier. And there's no better example of that than 'Monty Python.'
Seth MacFarlane
#94. People will pay for great services. They said they wouldn't pay 99 cents for a song but they did. We've always believed that. When you go to work, you don't work for free; nobody works for free. Nobody can say, "I want to work for free." Nobody says that.
Eddy Cue
#95. With me, it's so eclectic and all over the map that no one knows what to expect, ... It may not be a great career move, but all these things - singing with the Funk Brothers and the Dead, singing a Dolly Parton song - is great. I'm welcome to all these different worlds, and that's been wonderful.
Joan Osborne
#96. In my village, one of our priests says that love between men is a great sin- the other argues that nothing at all is sinful except weak ale, overdone meat, and building a fire in any way but his.
Peter S. Beagle
#97. On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street,
The pageant of life is passing me on multitudinous feet,
With a word here of the hills, and a song there of the sea
And-the great movement changes-the pageant passes me.
John Masefield
#98. (The Song Remains The Same) is not a great film, but there's no point in making excuses. It's just a reasonably honest statement of where we were at that particular time. It's very difficult for me to watch it now, but I'd like to see it in a year's time just to see how it stands up.
Jimmy Page
#99. I listen to Helmet - and I love Helmet, they're a great band - but every song sounds the same.
Adam Jones
#100. Every day, I hear a song and I think, 'This would be great to cover on Glee.' I like Led Zeppelin, of course, and Pink Floyd, Alice in Chains.
Mark Salling
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