Top 100 Quotes About Songwriters
#1. I've had offers to sign a record deal, but the people I've talked to have wanted to package me and have me meet with songwriters who've written stuff for Whitney Houston, that sort of thing. That's not at all my style.
Lukas Haas
#2. I think my music is born out of the music that I personally like to listen to. I love amazing singer-songwriters and diverse artists but it's important to know your strengths.
Hoodie Allen
#3. 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
#4. I consider every one of the Disney films that Bob & I worked on, to have been the luckiest break any two songwriters could have ever had. They all aimed at quality and timelessness. That's why they live over the years.
Richard Sherman
#5. I never thought of myself as being a good songwriter. There are a ton of other people that are good songwriters, but I don't think I'm in the club. What I do well is perform, sometimes sing pretty good, and accompany myself well and arrange fairly well.
Alex Chilton
#6. Alan's publishing company was in the Brill Building, and of course, the Brill Building was where all the songwriters hung out because that's where all the publishers were.
Johnny Rivers
#7. As would-be songwriters, our interest was in black music and black music only. We wanted to write songs for black voices.
Mike Stoller
#8. Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.
Shakira
#9. Coming to a place like Nashville, which is just music music music, it's always been such an influence on me. And there are so many interesting songwriters out there, and it's such a crazy business and so many people are trying to do it, and it's all right there in Nashville.
Sandra Bernhard
#10. I decided the world was filled with plenty of good guitar players, many of them my match or better, but how many good songwriters were there?
Bruce Springsteen
#11. That's really what was wonderful for me growing up, since I got to know so many of the songwriters who liked me and thought I had talent. They would then tell me how to read a lyric and sing a song, and challenge me to try and find a different end to a song.
Margaret Whiting
#12. I think a lot of singer-songwriters get compared to each other, but I'd like to think that what I'm doing is special and specific to me.
Kina Grannis
#13. I do have a romantic interest in outlasting everybody else. There's a sort of sad machismo to singer-songwriters, I think.
John Darnielle
#14. I know great songwriters. Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions.
Barry McGuire
#15. Statistically in the UK, there are so many fewer female composers than male songwriters and they're marketed in a way that - females are marketed in a way that they're these independent unique artists writing their own stuff, and they're not, because fourteen percent of PRS goes to women.
Kate Nash
#16. When I'm writing a song, it's just me and the songwriters. Then when the song is done, there are publishers that hear it, then people in my management, then my wife and my boys and my friends, and if they're all lovin' it, it's kind of withstanding all the criticism I need.
Luke Bryan
#17. It's unfortunate we've never been just songwriters.
Adolph Green
#18. I loved hard-rock bands, and I loved songwriters who told stories.
Art Alexakis
#19. I would love to play with Rufus Wainwright. He's one of my favorite songwriters.
Sydney Wayser
#20. I'd advise all you songwriters out there, if you're getting into it for the business, go home and get a job digging ditches or something. Get a life. You'll learn a lot more, and you won't write a lot of rotten poetry.
Butch Hancock
#21. We only had enough money really to cut 10 things and be in there for a month because it's expensive, you know. And, singer/songwriters, today are lucky if they can get a deal, you know. So, we actually worked so fast that we really cut 20 things.
Graham Nash
#22. I can speak for most songwriters - those breakup love songs are so easy to write, as far as the inspiration and all that.
Lucinda Williams
#23. Man, I live in Nashville. I know how good other songwriters and singers are around here. There's a wealth of talent in this town, not to mention the people who shoot in for a week or two to try their hand on lower Broad or the other venues around town.
Jamey Johnson
#24. I keep reading about people who want to be famous - it's not that they want to be great songwriters or great actors, they want to be celebrities. That is scary because you can be famous doing some really stupid things.
Barry Manilow
#25. I appreciate a lot of singer-songwriters that the normal person doesn't, but I feel like everyone thoroughly enjoys an Ed Sheeran show.
Jacob Whitesides
#26. Songwriters are expanding time rather than compressing time. My short stories tend to be old fashioned, with a beginning, middle and end.
Steve Earle
#27. You know, there's still a lot of great songwriters out there who hand in songs. And there's a lot of brilliant singers and performers out there who sing other people's words. I enjoy doing both.
Jason Mraz
#28. Songwriters write songs, but they really belong to the listener.
Jimmy Buffett
#29. You need to understand that a skilled professional songwriter can accelerate your success as an already talented musician. These people are writing every single day, so their craft is really sharp, and it's the best songwriters who consistently get on the radio.
Kara DioGuardi
#30. Randy Newman and I grew up together in Los Angeles. We are both products of the film studio era. Randy is one of the great songwriters of our time and one of the fun people to be with.
Leonard Slatkin
#31. Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists.
Daniel Ek
#32. There has to be solidarity among the artists, songwriters and all the creative forces within that circle in order for the necessary changes to take place and for each person to get what is rightfully due.
Oleta Adams
#33. Paul McCartney, one of the best songwriters of all time, has only produced manure for the past 25 years.
Noel Gallagher
#34. It may not be the most popular but there is a place for it. I think about the kind of music I love, acoustic, melodic, and I guess it kind of took a bit of courage on my part to think I could be one of those songwriters.
Helen Slater
#35. There aren't more lady songwriters for the same reason that there aren't more lady doctors or lady accountants or lady lawyers; not enough women have the time for careers.
Dorothy Fields
#36. I don't deserve a Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. But fifteen years ago, I had a brain operation and I didn't deserve that, either. So I'll keep it.
Quincy Jones
#37. Some of my closest friends are songwriters. I'm in love with the way they can create music and magic.
Danielle Barone
#38. Songwriters might write cynical, world-wise lyrics and constantly talk about money, but most of us are downright naive when it comes to business.
Willie Nelson
#39. All the songwriters that I worked with said they'd like to work with me again. Such things serve as much inspiration for me. I regard myself a melody maker so it made me happy to be recognized for my work.
Seungri
#40. Liz [Gillies] doesn't really listen to anything new, besides Adele, Ariana Grande, and stuff like that. She loves '70s music and old '60s songs. She loves songwriters from the '70s that I hate, like Jim Croce and James Taylor, and she loves Stevie Nicks and old jazz classics.
Denis Leary
#41. Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.
Amy Winehouse
#42. I think people who are artists, actors, singers, great songwriters, they tend to have a hyper state of emotion where they feel things very, very deeply, probably more deeply than the average person walking down the street where it may affect them, but not to the same extent.
Willie Aames
#43. A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now.
Paul McCartney
#44. I had no idea when I moved to Nashville people just were songwriters. I had no idea. So I guess I was selling myself as a singer when I first moved here. But then right after I first moved, I started writing a lot.
Ashley Monroe
#45. Try not to sound like those singer-songwriters that go on and on with ten-minute, barely intelligible stories that everyone endures until the next song starts.
Loren Weisman
#46. It's basically a city of songwriters and that's what gives it it's strength, that's what gives it its lasting ability. You've got people making all different kinds of music and that's what attracts me to Nashville as Music City.
Emmylou Harris
#47. I'm trying to create a collection of stories - the 'U.F.O.W.A.V.E.' songs are all stories. I haven't really taken direct lyrical influence from other songwriters, but my dad bought me a book of W.H. Auden's poems when I was younger, and the imagery really interested me.
King Krule
#48. The music industry is not what it used to be. Being in a good band is great, and I've been lucky to be in great bands. I've done solo stuff, and that's been great. I also produce rock bands and I do co-writes, where I write with different singers in bands and songwriters.
James Iha
#49. 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
#50. If Woody Guthrie set the bar for American songwriters, Bob Dylan jumped right over it. No one I know will ever come close to possessing the beauty of melody and the use of language that Dylan shares with us, with ease.
John Mellencamp
#51. I feel there must be an enormous amount of really talented songwriters out there who can't sing.
Roger Daltrey
#52. 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
#53. The focus is on singer/songwriters now rather than huge shows. I mean, of course there's always a place for that too.
Emeli Sande
#54. Younger songwriters will ask me, 'What did you do?' And it's like, 'Well, I worked a day job, and I didn't stake anything. I didn't quit my day job. I didn't have any hopes at all. I just did the thing that I believed in, and I waited a long time.'
John Darnielle
#55. My parents were both very musically inclined, they were both songwriters and musicians, so we grew up in the house singing music together, and R&B had a huge strong arm in the foundation of my career.
Jesse McCartney
#56. I've had the pleasure of hearing The Novelists perform live. They are gifted songwriters and talented musicians with strong lead voices. This is a band with lots of heart & soul.
Daryl Stuermer
#57. Communion was born out of shared frustration in 2006. We felt that although the likes of MySpace and YouTube opened up the playing field for songwriters online, people's discovery of these new artists was only skin deep.
Ben Lovett
#58. Loretta Lynn was one of those ladies a long time ago that opened a lot of doors and paved the way for a lot of ballsy singer-songwriters who weren't just cute.
Kacey Musgraves
#59. Songwriters are still the brightest people in any room.
Bobby Bare
#60. There are certain topics songwriters stay away from because it's hard to go there. I didn't sit down and go, 'I want to write something about my dad now.'
Robert Coppola Schwartzman
#61. I got behind that pencil and nothing happened for many years, but since they put me in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, I've turned around. I took a good look at myself and said, I think it's time to get back at work.
Otis Blackwell
#62. My mother had a great vinyl collection, and she was constantly playing female singer-songwriters. I first learned about classic song structures by listening to them, and Laura Nyro particularly stood out. Her voice was outside what you'd usually hear on the radio; that really appealed to me.
Jenny Lewis
#63. When you research prolific songwriters, it is usually later in their career they write songs that they distance themselves from, or it's about other people.
Paloma Faith
#64. I think there are some songwriters who are just brilliant who can write and then I think there are some songwriters who can like me I have a problem writing chorus lyrics but I can write a song in a story like that.
Charles King
#65. And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves.
Smokey Robinson
#66. The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops. That includes the Irving Berlins and the Hoagy Carmichaels, the Harold Arlens, Cole Porter.
Ahmet Ertegun
#67. I think a lot of songwriters would agree that it's often easier to find inspiration in misery.
Grant-Lee Phillips
#68. I've just always been around great songwriters. To me, they were the standard.
Leon Bridges
#69. I didn't want to be a solo Westlife - covers and ballads - and the reason I signed with Capitol Records was because they wanted me to write songs myself. It was pretty scary, but they put me in a studio in Nashville with some new songwriters, and the results were pretty good.
Shane Filan
#70. Then on to all the terrific american songwriters, from Tin Pan Alley to the Beatles, from Bob Dylan to Paul Simon. Whoever wrote and sang in the song form I have appreciated.
Tom Chapin
#71. The line between producers, songwriters, and remixers is so thin.
Stuart Price
#72. I never trust songwriters who talk about what their song is about.
Roddy Woomble
#73. There is an old Arabic proverb, 'When the king puts the poet on his payroll, he cuts off the tongue of the poet', so throughout the ages, people in power have liked to control music, they used to throw songwriters in jail throughout history, and were assassinated.
Pete Seeger
#74. We've known each other [in Motorpsycho ] since 1985 or '86, are really different as personalities, and yet have actually never disagreed to any degree. We are really complimentary as musicians and songwriters too, and come from two total opposites in our approaches.
Bent Saether
#75. I was at a picnic, and there were a lot of songwriters. I remember praying, 'God I wish you would give me a song.' About five minutes later, my ears popped, and I saw everybody in slow motion. Nobody knew what I was experiencing.
Andrae Crouch
#76. People expect not just songwriters but all personalities to pontificate about their egos - they just wanna see someone talking about themselves constantly. I'm not interested in that.
Cass McCombs
#77. Songwriters can't explain. You get an idea and you don't know where it's come from. And if you're lucky, you have a pencil or pen and can write it down.
Pete Seeger
#78. Songwriters, you have to work - you have to wait for residuals. You have to pray that the song's going to be a hit. And then a year later, you might get a check.
Bruno Mars
#80. I've had mentors who were kind of the troubadour singer-songwriters, like Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and that's just what I've always liked - people who would talk real honestly about their lives and their circumstance.
Jewel
#81. There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.
Billy Bragg
#82. So many songwriters peak in their early 20s because they're living off their passions.
Dan Hill
#83. Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.
Andrew Bird
#84. I've never in my life bought a big piece of jewelry - like, 'I'm gonna get myself a big piece of jewelry!' Songwriters' lives are unstable and up and down. Even though mine has sort of has followed more of a going toward the sky trajectory.
Kara DioGuardi
#85. I feel like a lot of the singer-songwriters in my genre and in my generation have gotten more and more snooty about covering other people's songs. They believe that creativity is the intersect of expression.
Brandi Carlile
#86. A lot of times when songwriters get together and write a song ... somebody will come in with a hook and a lot of times they come out with something that sounds a little crafty.
Alan Jackson
#87. Most of my friends in Nashville - almost all of them - seem to have had hits in the '70s, either as artists or songwriters or producers.
Dan Hill
#88. One of my favorite songs is 'Ghost' by Indigo Girls. Emily Saliers wrote that, and she is one of the most talented songwriters ever.
Tig Notaro
#89. A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.
Mike Gordon
#90. When I first got into the music scene, I was inspired by different songwriters. I like to dress from the '50s and '60s. I like to paint a picture of that era through my music and clothes. I am inspired by a whole a lot of things, from doo-wop to gospel and soul music.
Leon Bridges
#91. I do remember actually learning chords to Beatles songs. I thought they were great songwriters.
Mick Taylor
#92. Carole King is one of my all-time favorite songwriters.
Judith Hill
#93. A lot of people do not like singer-songwriters, and a lot of people who like them do not like hard rock. It's either-or.
Art Alexakis
#94. I hate when songwriters refer to their songs as babies.
Jens Lekman
#95. There are so many great songwriters that I love and respect, it's an honor to get the opportunity to sing any of their songs.
Sonny Burgess
#96. One thing we have to remember as songwriters is that we have to consider that country music is the country's music. That doesn't mean that everybody's rural.
Randy Houser
#97. There's a lot for screenwriters to steal from songwriters, in terms of getting to the point.
Paul Thomas Anderson
#98. Singers, musicians, and songwriters don't want to use the word "acting" because we want it to be more real than that - we want it to come from us: naturally, truly, really.
Ronee Blakley
#99. 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
#100. One other thing, if it's possible, as songwriters, you should also develop yourself as record producers.
Barry Mann
