Quotes About Writing Songs

#1. The real challenge of writing songs isn't just writing a bunch of parts - like a verse, chorus, verse - but making something that flows together, that brings you back.

James Mercer

#2. There's always gonna be guys who are just wonderful singers and probably shouldn't be writing songs. Then there's always gonna be guys who move up the ranks writing. I don't know what's healthier or what's the best thing - probably whatever yields the best songs.

Luke Bryan

#3. I'm not going to hurt anybody other than that dick who keeps writing songs about me.

Courtney Love

#4. I've been writing songs and making music since I was probably ten years old ... so my inspirations back then, I don't know - I guess it was something that was innate. I was really shaped to make hip-hop music and love hip hop.

Hoodie Allen

#5. I really enjoy the therapeutic value of writing songs.

Shannon Hoon

#6. I'd actually say that every musician is a human being, and that not everybody likes being social. But with music, there are all these ingredients to the business that have nothing to do with writing songs or playing an instrument.

Amanda Palmer

#7. I don't have a special place or ritual for writing songs, basically I write songs whenever an idea hits me, in my hotel room, on the road, in the plane.

Kelly Jones

#8. 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

#9. I'm writing songs about New York. A lot of them carry the names of neighborhoods in Long Island. Maspeth, Montauk. I'm getting into the idea of a F. Scott Fitzgerald-esque Long Island back when New York was ... New York.

Zach Condon

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

Owen Pallett

#11. It's been an objective of mine since I started writing songs to include both intellect and energy.

Greg Graffin

#12. I have always been fascinated by dark and mysterious stuff. I guess I have a pretty dark and gloomy side. Writing songs saves me from going completely gonzo.

Gavin Rossdale

#13. I'm just writing songs about how I feel or about how people I know feel.

Elliott Smith

#14. 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

#15. My favourite thing in the world, apart from my wife and kids, is writing songs. Ever since I was a kid.

Richard Hawley

#16. I've always been in bands writing songs with friends in order to play shows or record a future record.

Frank Iero

#17. 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

#18. 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

#19. I'm still writing songs but leaving them a lot more open and not trying to control every nuance of it.

Luke Temple

#20. In this world of doubt, one thing is certain for me; that I will go on writing songs up to and - I hope, through heavenly means or diabolical - beyond the day I die.

Robyn Hitchcock

#21. 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

#22. I was washing dishes at Del Frisco's Grille and busing tables at a Tex-Mex place and writing songs the whole time. I did a lot of my writing at those jobs, thinking up melodies in my head.

Leon Bridges

#23. 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

#24. Music for me is this thing that's sort of saved my life over the course of my whole life, whether it be writing songs or listening to other people's stuff.

Matt Nathanson

#25. I've been writing songs since I was a little boy. You know, I think I wrote my first song when I was 11.

Kris Kristofferson

#26. It must have been when I was 14 or 15 that I started tentatively writing songs and was able to convey an emotion and a lyric with what I wanted to say.

Lorde

#27. 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

#28. 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

#29. When I was 11, I decided to start rapping, playing guitar, and writing songs. Everything really blossomed from there.

Becky G

#30. I think when you're writing songs, it's impossible to not draw on personal experiences, whether it be traveling or girls or anything. Just emotions.

Harry Styles

#31. When I started The Shins, it really was just me, alone, but it was still The Shins. I was totally recording stuff and writing songs as The Shins and all of that. So the beginning inception of the whole thing was some sort of a lie, I guess.

James Mercer

#32. It's amazing to know that 5 years ago I was writing songs in a basement in the ghetto and now I'm writing for Michael Jackson. I'd be a fool not to say it's a dream come true.

R. Kelly

#33. I started writing songs by myself. That always came from whatever I was feeling and being honest about that because I never had any intention of anyone ever hearing them.

Kelsea Ballerini

#34. I'm probably writing music now for the same reason as I started writing songs when I was 14 - to meet women.

Billy Joel

#35. To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.

Chris Cornell

#36. I was in a band at school, and almost from the day we started, I started writing songs, just because that seemed what you did.

Jamie Lawson

#37. We had offers to go everywhere and we could have done them. But what would have been the point? We were tired. We had worked hard and needed a break before we got stale. We spent six months at home and writing songs.

John Bonham

#38. While I'm playing baseball, I'm still writing songs and having tapes sent to me. I'm sure I'll spend a lot of time in the whirlpool resting these tired bones, so I'll be thinking of music then.

Garth Brooks

#39. I started to work up in my old bedroom, playing, writing songs, and it somehow came to me that I could introduce soul music. Nobody seemed to be doing that.

Graham Parker

#40. Idol has pretty much taken me out of my recording and out of my choreography. I have managed to slip in some choreography jobs. And I've been writing songs for other artists.

Paula Abdul

#41. 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

#42. 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

#43. Then l learned to play guitar and l started writing songs and my mother formed for me a publishing business, so we started publishing and managing artists.

Tommy Rettig

#44. Bob Dylan and John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen, these are soul guys. Bruce Springsteen might not sing like Otis Redding, but he sings with white soul. He's singing and he's writing songs from the bottom of his gut.

Robin Thicke

#45. I'd like to be writing songs for other people - I just like writing songs.

Darren Criss

#46. I have chosen to keep my personal life separate from my music, as the two are exclusive from each other, and I want to remain that way. I'll talk music, production, writing songs, touring with anyone but keep religion, politics and world affairs off the table, as my expertise is in songs and music.

Randy Bachman

#47. I'm blessed, because I enjoy every part of my life. I enjoy writing songs. I've been trying to write songs since I was five years old.

Smokey Robinson

#48. The more I go on in this career of making albums, writing songs and playing music, the more I think of each album as a movie. I really wanted to make a film, but making a film is much more expensive than making a record.

J. D. Souther

#49. I'm enjoying writing songs that are more stripped back.

Delta Goodrem

#50. 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

#51. Breaking up monotony is key to life and it doesn't matter whether I'm stacking shelves or writing songs, if I was doing the same thing every day I just couldn't take it.

Doc Brown

#52. I started writing songs, I guess, when I was about 13 or 14, but I didn't know if they were good enough yet or anything.

Lucinda Williams

#53. When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

Alanis Morissette

#54. 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

#55. 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

#56. I've been writing songs since I was 14 years old, and that's my true love.

Rick Springfield

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

Tori Amos

#58. 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

#59. Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.

Tom Waits

#60. If I can't sing them myself, there's nothing better than writing songs for other people and watching them be performed. It's kind of more thrilling than doing it yourself.

Kathleen Hanna

#61. I literally left school and went straight into music via art college for a year, and I've been so involved in my job of writing songs that the more actively involved part became channeled into standing on the stage and saying things that way.

P.J. Harvey

#62. 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

#63. I have been writing songs and poems since I was a little girl. I started writing short scripts, which evolved into the idea for a book.

Hilary Duff

#64. I've been writing songs since I was at least 20. That's what I wanted to do before I became a model.

Karen Elson

#65. I'm not really one to be on camera, I'd rather be writing songs.

Jon Foreman

#66. I was just writing songs because, if a song shows up, you've gotta write it. I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't have any faith in my voice.

Benmont Tench

#67. 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

#68. 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

#69. My brother says that I was writing songs about fate while he was off playing soccer. Now I tell him he's 33 and being a professional while I'm playing soccer with my friends. Ha!

Alanis Morissette

#70. I didn't even realize I was writing songs - I thought I was just being witty and sarcastic.

Halsey

#71. Writing songs for other people was never the goal for me.

Skylar Grey

#72. I'm writing songs with the hope someone can get behind my feeling.

Andy Biersack

#73. The beauty of being a musician is writing songs. That's the best part. It's therapeutic and honest and private.

Gin Wigmore

#74. If you want to grow in writing songs that will express the wonders of God, immerse yourself in God.

Tim Hughes

#75. 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

#76. Being in a rock band is about touring. It's about writing songs and it's about making records but it's also about taking a wonderful smile onto that stage and making the people feel good about themselves.

James Young

#77. Writing songs is super intimate. It's a bit like getting naked.

Gwen Stefani

#78. It's what I do. I don't deserve any awards for this, it's just music. It's just writing songs. You sit down, you write a song, you record it. You tour and play the songs live, dress them up a bit differently, or dress them down.

Elvis Costello

#79. 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

#80. I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs.

Stephen Sondheim

#81. I put my energy into writing songs. I have to carve out a living somehow doing this, and licensing is one way. It's hard to register what's "too much" for other people. I don't watch TV, so it's tough for me to gauge. I just take it as it comes, and don't put a whole lot of thought into it.

Iron & Wine

#82. I've been writing songs on little pieces of paper since I was a little kid, and it's just always been something I've done.

Chris Carmack

#83. 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

#84. Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

Jeff Tweedy

#85. 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

#86. 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

#87. 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

#88. I feel the only way I can survive is to spend a lot of time writing songs. I have to have incredible, killer songs that also are hits, or I just don't have a chance.

Dan Hill

#89. Between the Dinosaur Jr. albums and his recent solo albums, 'Several Shades of Why' and 'Heavy Blanket,' J Mascis is emerging as one of the last men from all that '80s indie madness, still writing songs that you want to listen to over and over.

Henry Rollins

#90. In 2012, I started writing songs - not for the world to hear, but for certain people I needed to talk to. My family, we were not big communicators. I had a hard time talking to people in general.

Benjamin Booker

#91. I do like writing songs in a band. When it's rock, it's such a different kind of dynamic, obviously.

Colin Hay

#92. Writing songs with Brian and performing them with Al Jardine, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, David Marks, Bruce Johnston and many other brilliant musicians over the years is my legacy, and something of which I am very proud and protective.

Mike Love

#93. I was immersed in popular songs of the time, of the '30s and '40s. I was writing songs, making fun of the attitudes of those songs, in the musical style of the songs themselves; love songs, folk songs, marches, football.

Tom Lehrer

#94. I don't separate writing songs from poetry and short fiction. In the area where I work in my house, there's a word processor and a guitar.

Steve Earle

#95. 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

#96. We've all got to earn a living. And writing songs is what I do. But when I've done a record, it's not that I think it's better or worse than anyone else's, but if I think that nobody else would have done it if I hadn't, well then that's ok.

Robert Wyatt

#97. I love writing songs and being a musician, but you can't really buy the feeling of connecting with people.

Michael Kiwanuka

#98. 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

#99. 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

#100. I've been writing songs since I was, like, five and I've been singing since, like, I can't remember.

Taylor Momsen