Top 100 Quotes About Rock Songs
#1. What we feel most comfortable doing is playing loud, screaming rock songs.
Dave Grohl
#2. I know I express myself best singing love songs, and Jim Steinman gave me my rock style, which I have always wanted. I can express myself best putting a lot of emotion into singing rock songs.
Bonnie Tyler
#3. The reason we did 'Land of a Thousand Dances' and 'Gloria' on 'Horses' was because I liked repetitious, three-chord rock songs, but I didn't understand that I could write my own. I didn't realize that you could use those chords a million times.
Patti Smith
#4. Honest, I listen to classical mostly. It keeps my mind fresh to write rock songs.
Don Dokken
#5. The bands that wrote the big, heroic rock songs - I really wanted to make a record like that.
Sheryl Crow
#6. I knew the words to 25 rock songs, so I got in the group. Long Tall Sally and Tutti-Frutti, that got me in. That was my audition.
Paul McCartney
#7. There were incredibly few rock songs making it out to the airwaves until the '80s came along.
Joe Elliott
#8. A moment comes when you cash in whatever credibility a guy can have who plays and sings rock songs for a living, and you put your chips where you think they might do some good.
Bruce Springsteen
#9. Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.
Jerry Garcia
#10. I'm glad people think I'm a badass. I'm a rock and roller, and I'm an R&B and a blueswoman. I don't do fairy music, although I love Celtic music and sensitive music. There's a balance between ballads and kick-ass songs.
Bonnie Raitt
#11. Me personally, I side more with punk rock bands. I grew up with The Misfits, The Dead Boys, The Damned, Dropkick Murphys, and early AFI. That was the stuff that really got me into music. Song writing wise, bands like Alkaline Trio were very important to me for beginning to write songs.
Andy Biersack
#12. In country and R&B, there's much more of that division between writers and performers, and that's where you see more of those [crossover] songs, but you don't get a lot of that coming out of the more pop and rock side of things.
Alan Light
#13. My task is set before me, girl
My mission clear and true
There'll be black knights and dragons, girl
But I will always come for you ...
Emme Rollins
#14. Our songs did not transcend being R&B hits. They were R&B hits that white kids were attracted to. And if people bought it, it became rock & roll. That's marketing. Why couldn't it still be R&B? The bass pattern didn't change. The song didn't change. It was still 'Yakety Yak' and 'Searchin'.'
Jerry Leiber
#15. It wasn't just about flashing lights and pinball machines blowing up and things like that. It was about using encores, bringing back the good songs and using techniques that I knew about from rock performance.
Pete Townshend
#16. 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
#17. As much as you don't want to say you are a vengeful person, when someone drags your name through the mud and plays press games and puts things out there like that, you are kind of like, alright. US Weekly will be gone next week, the songs I am writing won't.
Kid Rock
#18. I felt frustrated by the limitations of rock and the lifestyle of touring around on a bus and playing the same songs over and over. So I went back to school to study music, and one of the things I got into was the Italian opera composer Puccini.
Rivers Cuomo
#19. Aren't all the best songs about a girl? It doesn't matter if it's metal, if it's country, if it's blues or rock and roll; all the songs that make us remember and make us want to sing along are about the best kind of girl, the kind you can't live without but can't ever get ahold of.
Jay Crownover
#20. I tried to stick with what I knew best, which is writing rock n' roll songs and melodies. I am as passionate as I was when I was 20.
Gary Cherone
#21. New York was the inspiration for The Heart of Rock and Roll and Workin for a Livin. There are a lot of songs in the streets of New York.
Huey Lewis
#22. I have so many songs, it's ridiculous. I love so many different types of music and tend to write all over the map, style-wise. R&B, rock 'n' roll, screamers, pop, good-time songs.
Taryn Manning
#23. When I was 5, I started taking singing lessons, and then, after 'School of Rock,' I started taking guitar lessons. I would always write songs and play them for my friends, and I would play my guitar on the set a lot.
Miranda Cosgrove
#24. I decided that in order to become a big famous rock star, I would need to write my very own songs instead of wasting my time learning other peoples music too much. It may act as an obstruction in developing your very own personal style.
Kurt Cobain
#25. We played more rock music when we were writing the script. 'Renegade'. All of the Styx songs. All of the old '70's and '80's music, that's the stuff that's pounding in the background while we were doing this stuff. It's a part of those movies.
Todd Farmer
#26. I love to sing big rock and roll songs; I love to sing country-pop stuff, and then I love to sing soft, sadder beautiful songs.
Elle King
#27. I don't tell 'U.S. Weekly' which parties I'm going to. I write songs.
Kid Rock
#28. I've never been good at rock'n'roll songs, anyway; either I'm blessed or I'm cursed, but whatever I write comes out sounding old.
Justin Townes Earle
#29. A lot of [my] songs have a sexuality to them, a vibe to them ... I call it sexy rock and roll.
Scott Stapp
#30. I never thought of myself as a rock singer. I was interested in songs like 'Heart Like a Wheel,' and I liked the others for about 15 minutes.
Linda Ronstadt
#31. The Ruts were a great punk rock band from England whose songs were as excellent as their time together was short.
Henry Rollins
#32. Anyone who's got a guitar, you like to pick it up. I can play a couple of songs, some '50s rock and roll, a bit of Elvis. That's it, really - I'm not a musician, I'm not a singer.
Aaron Johnson
#33. Democracy can tie your hands in a rock 'n' roll band, you know? It can be a great thing, but if you've got a certain amount of vision and you write a lot of songs, it's sometimes better to have your own band and make your own decisions.
Jason Isbell
#34. I know every Skynyrd and about all Johnny Cash songs.
Kid Rock
#35. Most people don't listen to classical music at all, but to rock-and-roll or hillbilly songs or some album named Music To Listen To Music By ...
Randall Jarrell
#36. The program director at a radio station, by the way, is not the superstar. If he was a superstar, he'd be out creating songs, but he's not. But he wants to act like he has control and power.
Kid Rock
#37. I don't understand the mentality of a rock fan, being obsessed with two or three songs from 25 years ago. I'm not that kind of a fan.
Sebastian Bach
#38. Radio is paid by advertising. They decide what songs to play that'll keep people listening. And that's what promoters and the Classic Rock people do.
George Thorogood
#39. Billy Rankin is a true Glasgow rock legend. He has everything going for him: he's a brilliant guitarist, he writes killer songs, he's worked with the best, toured the world and he is one handsome-looking chap. I know all of this because Billy told me.
Robert Fields
#40. If I were a rock star, I'd have Taylor Swifted him and written one of those anthemic I don't love you anymore songs.
Lauren Blakely
#41. Times were changing. Clothes were changing. Morals were changing. We went from romantic loves songs like I used to do to rock 'n roll. Now that has changed to rap. So, there's always a new generation with new music.
Bobby Vinton
#42. All the songs we do are basically about one of three things: booze, sex or rock n roll.
Bon Scott
#43. Writing songs, that's what gets me going. Not the drugs or the sex or the rock'n'roll behaviour, it's the music.
Noel Gallagher
#44. Keith Richards on change - "It's gotta go up and down. Otherwise, you won't know the difference. It would be just a bland, straight line, like lookin' at a heart machine. And when that straight line happens, baby, you're dead.
Jessica Pallington West
#45. With a pop album you can listen to one or two songs from it, but a music album is really an experience. It's not something a whole lot of rock bands do.
Dylan Baldi
#46. Paul McCartney is a genius ... Paul married Rock & Roll
to beauty, and forever raised the bar for composers,
musicians, and fans ... an incredible solo performer ...
the creator of our favorite songs ...
Alec Baldwin
#47. There is a limited supply of excellent songs, but I am not the only one. Paul McCartney, one of the best songwriters of all time, has only produced manure for the past 25 years. Rock musicians over 30 only produce unimportant material.
Noel Gallagher
#48. If I write songs and I think they sound good, then that's it. That's what I do. I'm not a technical musician, which is fine for rock and roll.
Creed Bratton
#49. Help them to learn songs of joy, instead of burn, baby, burn.
Paul McCartney
#50. To me the most important thing is getting into a studio and making an album that is 12 or 14 amazing songs, getting up onstage, and making people happy by livening the rock.
Dave Grohl
#51. The new album is a childhood dream come true. Got to sing with Ronnie Spector, got to cover a bunch of songs that were influential in drawing a line between the punk form and original rock and roll.
Jerry Only
#52. Rock stars are like prophets. There's something about somebody who can get up on a stage and sing. And then when they write you songs, forget it, okay?
Pamela Anderson
#53. Steve Perry versus Arnel Pineda. At his confused expression, I explain, The guy on YouTube who gained a following for covering Journey songs ... then eventually became the new lead singer for the band?
Christina Lauren
#54. My mother's records were formative for me, but when I became a teenager, I wanted to find songs that she wasn't hip to. She was so hip, though, that I had to go outside rock n' roll - so for about 10 years, I only listened to hip-hop, house and techno.
Jenny Lewis
#55. My music is rock. I listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers and I listen to one of my songs, and if I don't give you the same emotion, then I go back and re-spit.
Kanye West
#56. This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.
John Mellencamp
#57. Hit songs did not come out of musicals. Pop-rock was creating the hits. There were very few songs that made the charts out of any Broadway musical.
Stephen Sondheim
#58. Starship was a whole different thing. It was pop rock. It made more money and had more hit songs than Airplane. There was no cultural or social ethic behind it. For me, it was like selling out. I was the only one selling out. The rest enjoyed doing what they were doing.
Grace Slick
#59. I've never done songs with people just for the sake of the great combination. I've always done songs with friends.
Kid Rock
#60. Berry's On Top is probably my favorite record of all time; it defines rock and roll. A lot of people have done Chuck Berry songs, but to get that feel is really hard. It's the rock and roll thing-the push-pull and the rhythm of it.
Joe Perry
#61. Queen songs are not about the life of a rock star - they tend to be about the lives of normal people, which is why I think the songs connect so much. We're very lucky that they seemingly connect with every generation.
Brian May
#62. There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound ... We're musical primitives.
Andy Warhol
#63. 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
#64. A statue stands in a shaded place
An angel girl with an upturned face
A name is written on a polished rock
A broken heart that the world forgot
Martina Mcbride
#65. Some of the best rock riffs ever written were by Jimmy Page, and I can't really name the songs, but some of the stuff he did on his first and second records is beyond brilliant.
Joe Perry
#66. Some songs are just going to be acoustic with just maybe some light background stuff going on and maybe violin or something like that. Or sax - I mean, I'm definitely having some sax. That's just what I love. It's going to be jazz-rock stuff. That's what I'm aiming for.
Phillip Phillips
#67. For music, I always just played music myself - and, I had rock bands and wrote songs and put bands together that were loud, but not especially good. That was sort of the place music had in my career.
Michael Cerveris
#68. I think my music is definitely country but it's got a little bit of that rock flair about it. I always try to find the things that everyday people deal with in their everyday lives and situations in the songs that I sing.
Jason Aldean
#70. 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
#71. Some people come to our shows and think they're gonna spend the night just listening to love songs, and they're pretty much surprised cause we do a lot of rock and roll.
Bobby Hatfield
#72. My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that - so I've tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the '60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson's songs.
Todd Rundgren
#73. There are songs about abortions, about slashing your arms with razors, about imagining your own funeral in New Orleans, about rock stars cheating on their wives, sex.
Courtney Love
#74. If people had good albums, they'd be buying albums. But people are buying singles because they only have good songs.
Kid Rock
#75. The '60s was a magical time in the music business. So much creativity and talent. I think a lot of it came from the fact that we had grown up before rock n' roll. We listened to all the great songwriters and big bands, songs with great lyrics and melodies. I think that really influenced everybody.
Frankie Valli
#76. Funny songs aren't usually that good. Like Weird Al and maybe a couple of Beatles songs, but it's kind of hard to bring humor into rock music in an interesting way.
Win Butler
#77. For every Foo Fighters record, we've had two or three beautiful, acoustic-based songs, but they never usually make their way to the record, because we want to make rock records.
Dave Grohl
#78. I think the world is ready for some rock 'n' roll. Some real time guys that play their own instruments, write their own songs, and sing the music and have a good time doing it.
Vince Neil
#79. No matter how long you play rock n roll songs might change just as the balls are there, the rock balls. And that's what's important to us.
Bon Scott
#80. Roadrunner wanted to make Born in the Flood the next Nickelback, but I didn't want to be that. I didn't want to be a huge rock star playing songs I didn't like. I didn't want to be stuck playing 'Anthem,' the song everybody liked but I didn't want to put on the record, for the next five years.
Nathaniel Rateliff
#81. If you want break it down, rock and roll is about saying what you can't say in normal life to girls, so you have to say it in songs.
Marilyn Manson
#82. I just cut songs I love and that represent what I want to say. And if it crosses over, that's very flattering. It's cool to know that with people listening to rock and rap, I'm sitting on their iPods along with that stuff.
Luke Bryan
#83. The songs that I like are the ones that you can't visualize, that are just cries from the heart - those very straight, direct songs that make rock & roll music so wonderful.
Nick Cave
#84. People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had 'The Who' and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the '80s had other songs and bands. It's a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally.
Jennifer Egan
#85. When I began to cover songs for YouTube, they all tended to be in the super pop-genre.. as in, smash-hit songs. My writing process was heavily influenced by this - I went from a more heavy punk rock style to straight up sugary-sweet pop.
Alex Goot
#86. All of my favorite songs can bring me to tears. Some are rock, some are blues, some are love ballads. That's why I play music - to touch other people as I have been touched.
Kelly Blatz
#87. Every girl likes to just rock out when they put music on in their room - I learned that personally when fans would tell us how much they loved to make up their own dances to Cheetah Girls songs.
Sabrina Bryan
#88. There're songs to make you smile, there're songs to make you sad. But with a happy song to sing it never seems as bad.
Stevie Wonder
#89. The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I've performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.
Rupert Holmes
#90. 'The Beatles' did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minimalist aggressive rock.
Chris Cornell
#91. I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.
John C. Reilly
#92. I love the songs we've written together [with Ivo Moring] and believe that Rock music is coming back with a vengeance. There are a lot of new and exciting things on the horizon and the next chapter is going to be amazing.
Wendy Starland
#93. My music is the chicken soup kind. I want people to get a good feeling in their soul from these songs. Roots rock, heartland rock ... whatever you want to call it is OK with me.
Kate Voegele
#94. Stylistically speaking I would put us in the pop/rock vein. Although our songs tend to have a darker or moodier current running through them than usual pop/rock. I would say our music is very honest. We're not trying to be anybody or anything for anyone
Sherri DuPree
#95. My father's a musician and my mother's a singer. My dad's originally from Brooklyn and he was a Latin percussionist so I've always had instruments around the house. He used to have a show like a 1950s rock and roll show with Little Richard music. They would do doo-wop songs and stuff like that.
Bruno Mars
#97. Obviously I got known for some other songs early on, and some of those were rock'n'roll songs. Some of them were melodic pop songs. And I've done lots of different things, as you know, but every so often I get drawn back.
Elvis Costello
#98. I don't write songs thinking about formats, where is it going to get played, who am I gonna please, what's the outlet for it.
Kid Rock
#99. ...there is a void in my guts which can only be filled by songs.
Jessica Hopper
#100. Pat Benatar might need a rock band, but I can just sit with a blues guitar for an hour and a half and do folk songs and great contemporary ballads, and not many people can pull that off.
Bonnie Raitt
