Singer Songwriter Quotes

#1. After the Beatles and Dylan, there's this assumption that you are a singer-songwriter, or that if someone else is writing your rhymes, you're a fake rapper.

Alan Light

#2. I honestly and truly love and believe in what I'm making, and it's not a joke, whereas some people would take a singer-songwriter sitting behind an acoustic guitar as sincere.

Casey Spooner

#3. I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress.

Anita Baker

#4. I'm still trying to make it. I'm still trying to get this over and do it and hopefully leave some kind of a mark on the course of American music, particularly in the tradition of what you might call the singer-songwriter.

Steve Forbert

#5. It's a whole package, singer/songwriter. I like writing but I like performing just as much.

John Hiatt

#6. My writing voice is a little quirkier, more singer-songwriter-y than the Top 40 stuff I cover.

Sam Tsui

#7. You know you don't really need the band or the singer/songwriter in the same way, so you look at everything as part of your palette.

DJ Spooky

#8. I'm a traditional singer-songwriter. I have a more organic sound.

Sara Bareilles

#9. Texas people are really strong in their roots. I started writing and playing guitar at 17. I've always loved music, and my dad is a singer-songwriter.

Miranda Lambert

#10. The way I work, I'm not a confessional singer-songwriter.

Andrew Bird

#11. The worst thing for a singer/songwriter is to run out of songs.

Michael Kiwanuka

#12. I always saw myself as a singer-songwriter, a solo-artist, that's why working with other artists was never satisfying for me.

John Legend

#13. I've made three studio albums and one live one with my brother. It's melodic singer-songwriter acoustic-rock music.

Kevin Bacon

#14. I could have become a mime or a juggler, but I became a singer-songwriter instead.

Vonda Shepard

#15. I never intended to set out and be a singer-songwriter. I just sort of became one because I put out my own record.

Jenny Lewis

#16. For me, the intent in a song is to sing it. I compose songs, meaning I'm writing words to be set to music; I'm intending it to not be recited. I'm a singer-songwriter, and I'm a poet, and there really isn't a contradiction, at least for me.

Cornelius Eady

#17. It's bad to be labeled just another singer-songwriter.

James Bay

#18. Ryan Alvanos is an offbeat, insanely inventive singer-songwriter who sneaks up on you with a sly wit and subtle power.

Steve Morse

#19. I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up, or at least a singer/songwriter.

Katey Sagal

#20. I would advise anyone starting out as a singer/songwriter to play live as much possible. You never know who might be in the audience.

Vonda Shepard

#21. The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand.

Steve Earle

#22. I'm not just a singer-songwriter doing songs in the key of me.

Arlo Guthrie

#23. I studied piano and viola and voice in high school and music composition in college. For many years before I became an author I was a singer songwriter, writing for Disney and Sesame Street. I believe in perfect rhymes - no cheating!

Sarah Weeks

#24. A lot of festivals can be a jumble of electronic music and rock and roll, and everything's all mixed up - some things are more performance art or light shows or dance parties, and then you'll have a singer-songwriter stuck in the middle to make the changeovers easier.

Jenny O.

#25. Miranda Lambert is actually mixing the singer-songwriter philosophy with the commercial country [mindset]. And I find it just inspiring. My hat's off completely, because she's pulling it off, and I couldn't figure out a way to do it.

Allison Moorer

#26. I didn't want to be this four-chord acoustic singer songwriter because that stuff just got so old to me.

Kathleen Edwards

#27. I always did go against the singer-songwriter form. I think I've always had a lot of storytelling songs.

Jill Sobule

#28. My first instrument is piano, I play some piano and guitar. So my solo music is more like real singer/songwriter type stuff.

Nikki Jean

#29. After a while, though, you realize that a whole slew of young singer-songwriter piano players are getting compared to you. That's when you feel the passage of time is occurring.

Tori Amos

#30. In order to make a normal-sized record, a singer songwriter should have a couple dozen finished songs. Once they go through the process of production, the ones that scream out at you that they're finished are the ones that make the record.

M. Ward

#31. I'm just a singer/songwriter and entertainer and I miss people and the energy of the crowd. When I play live it's a lovefest with me and my audience. It's how I get my rocks off.

Dolly Parton

#32. 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

#33. A screenplay adaptation of my 'Punktown' novel 'Health Agent' has been making the rounds. The screenplay was written by my friend, singer/songwriter Walter Egan of 'Magnet & Steel' fame!

Jeffrey Thomas

#34. I didn't get into music to become a blues musician, or a country musician. I'm a singer-songwriter. In my book that means I get to do whatever I want.

Justin Townes Earle

#35. I think the '60s and '70s were the peak period for the singer-songwriter, for sure.

Andrew Gold

#36. As much as I love being a singer-songwriter, I love throwing down on stage and letting it all out.

Tift Merritt

#37. Most people in the U.K. discovered me playing a standard on Parkinson. In America, it was on VH1 singing an original called 'All At Sea,' which is a contemporary pop song. So the people that know me there tend to think of me in the singer/songwriter category.

Jamie Cullum

#38. Gordon Lightfoot has created some of the most beautiful and lasting music of our time. He is Bob Dylan's favorite singer/songwriter - high praise from the best of us, applauded by the rest of us.

Kris Kristofferson

#39. Anyway, in my performance style, I'm a singer-songwriter. People can call it neo-soul or R&B or whatever. But at the core, when you see me live, I'm a singer-songwriter.

India.Arie

#40. Yeah, I always listen to both classic and newer folk-influenced music. Singer-songwriter, alternative music. I also listen to more experimental dance music.

Brad Delson

#41. SPEAK OF TROUBLE highlights the abilities of Lowell Sostomi as singer/songwriter and brings together a talented band of musicians with amazing dexterity, loads of energy, and very original arrangements. Im impressed.

Gordon Lightfoot

#42. A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared.

Van Morrison

#43. I'm a singer-songwriter. So I play guitar, and I sing. Along the lines of, I guess you could call it, alternative rock.

Brandon Jones

#44. It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news.

John Mellencamp

#45. I really want to be just a singer-songwriter. That's who I am.

Jessica Simpson

#46. Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter.

Melissa Manchester

#47. You don't just wake up one morning and decide to become a singer-songwriter.

Karen Elson

#48. Morley is one of the outstanding voices of her generation, as a singer, songwriter and bandleader she's in a class of her own, transcends all categories and is making a major contribution to contemporary music.

David Amram

#49. And that's the kind of thing people think, you know, that if you sign up to be a singer-songwriter you know how to deal with people setting up hate websites, or people being obsessed with you and crying when you touch them, but you don't, and you just have to deal with.

Jessie J.

#50. You always have to work to become a better singer, songwriter and performer.

Luke Bryan

#51. I mainly like to do singer/songwriter kind of stuff.

Hayley Orrantia

#52. There was a singer-songwriter who slept on our couch for a year when I was about 7 or 8. She used to sing these songs for us, and I loved it. It was magical to watch her.

Vonda Shepard

#53. When I started out, I wanted to be Billy Joel. The plan was to be a singer-songwriter of that ilk, and, then, I got waylaid - that's probably an unfair way to say it - from being a rock star by the musical theatre stuff, which I love doing.

Jason Robert Brown

#54. I never was strutting through the hallways like, "Yeah, I'm a singer/songwriter." That's never a cool thing to do - to be the brooding guy.

Tyler Hilton

#55. The business today is completely different and it's very producer driven, so that a songwriter needs to have producing chops, be a singer/songwriter, or find a singer to develop.

Cynthia Weil

#56. Getting on stage, for me, was a huge thing when I first started. And back in high school, everyone was in rock bands and I was a singer/songwriter. It just seems kind of lame.

Tyler Hilton

#57. As a singer-songwriter, what I do is write about how the human feels.

Bjork

#58. On her new LP, Shatter, Jude Johnstone examines heartbreak and loss with such tender resignation that I wept in acknowledgement of its artful simplicity. A lesson in melodic grace delivered by as fine a singer-songwriter as any I know.

Rodney Crowell

#59. I have felt for a long time that I want to return back to being a singer-songwriter for a period of time. I will go back to Broadway. But I want to make the right choices about why to go back and when I am ready to go back.

Tony Vincent

#60. I think the singer/songwriter genre is going to be like bluegrass and jazz. You can make a living at it, but it's not part of the musical mainstream anymore.

Steve Earle

#61. I think one thing you could probably say for all my albums is that they're all pretty eclectic pop. There's always a little bit of urban influence, some dance, a little bit of country, singer-songwriter, pop-rock. I like everything! On every album you can find that.

Kelly Clarkson

#62. I have always been a singer/songwriter, and I was pushed in places I didn't want to do, like pop or top forty. I don't belong there.

Lisa Marie Presley

#63. I think Everclear is a weird combination of a singer-songwriter and a hard-rock band. That's why some people really dig the band, and some don't.

Art Alexakis

#64. Video is a funny thing. It's one thing to be an artist, singer-songwriter, and use words and create pictures in people's minds. And then be asked to do video for it, to actually give a certain visual for your song.

Melissa Etheridge

#65. Adam Ezra writes with the heart of a troubadour and sings like a rock star. He is truely a fresh voice in singer/songwriter scene.

Catie Curtis

#66. As a singer-songwriter who gets up on stage and sings about those things that make me vulnerable is an amazing experience. You get up on stage and effectively take your clothes off in front of thousands of people.

James Blunt

#67. If somebody says 'singer-songwriter' to me, the first person I think of is James Taylor. There are plenty of modern singer-songwriters, but there is something about James Taylor that has always resonated with me.

Zachary Levi

#68. 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

#69. My brother sings. My brother is a singer-songwriter. His name is Parker Ainsworth. He changed his last name to his middle name.

Lauren Worsham

#70. John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction.

Pete Seeger

#71. Very unique: I was a singer-songwriter-guitarist. Very unusual in the late Seventies to find a singer-songwriter, and on top of that, a guitarist.

Andy Kindler

#72. The generation I grew up in was the beginning of "stand up for yourself," whether being a singer-songwriter or a feminist. In my college years, the feminist movement was really coming to fore, so we wouldn't have put up with guys treating us less than equal.

Bonnie Raitt

#73. I'm definitely a singer-songwriter. I'm somewhere in the vein between Elliott Smith and Jack Johnson.

Bryan Greenberg

#74. The stores and the things like that, the business side of things came out at the point when, I'd say probably in the early '70s, it looked like the year of the singer-songwriter was over, 'cause music changed in our time and the spotlight was out.

Jimmy Buffett

#75. Pieta Brown is a great singer/songwriter who possesses major star power magnetism.

Don Was

#76. I'm almost a black singer. And without the backbeat, it's singer/songwriter. There's a definite choice to be made there, every time. And I love the sex of singing with a beat; I like the sexiness of it. I think it's really where I'm from.

John Waite

#77. As a singer-songwriter, a solo artist with a guitar, I can only write so many weepie little bedroom songs.

James Bay

#78. I am at my core a singer/songwriter a la James Taylor or a la Billy Joel. It's not that I don't want to work with people, but I do just love doing my own thing.

Brian McKnight

#79. I'm always looking for overlooked post-Dylan singer-songwriter records from the '70s.

Noah Baumbach

#80. A young female essayist saying they're influenced by Joan Didion is like a young female singer-songwriter saying they're influenced by Joni Mitchell.

Meghan Daum

#81. I like country music. I'm not going to lie. I'm from the South, and I grew up on it. My dad was a country singer-songwriter, so it's in my blood, and I love it.

Kim Dickens

#82. I think I come under the singer/songwriter badge. I've always written songs right from the very beginning. Because of my style of playing people tend of me more of a guitar player than a singer sometimes.

Bert Jansch

#83. I'm an around-the-way girl. I'm a singer, songwriter. I'm about positivity and spreading a good message and telling the people's story.

Elle Varner

#84. I started playing the acoustic guitar for more singer-songwriter type stuff. I bet if I would have gotten more approval for my "rock playing", I might be a world class shredder.

Jill Sobule

#85. I'm a folk singer-songwriter. I am pretty poppy though.

Vance Joy

#86. I've made music for grownups most of my life as a singer/songwriter - often with my band, Nine Stories - recorded many albums, and 10 years ago I started recording kid's music, too.

Lisa Loeb

#87. I think being a singer-songwriter ... your job is to tell a story that other people can't really tell themselves.

Gabrielle Aplin

#88. I don't like the idea of a singer-songwriter record. I don't picture myself that way, and it's not my favorite sort of look, I guess. It's really just an aesthetic thing.

James Mercer

#89. If anything, I want to be seen as a singer-songwriter rather than a pop artist.

Lykke Li

#90. I'm a closet singer-songwriter. That keeps my creative juices flowing.

Zoe McLellan

#91. I love being a very personal singer-songwriter, but I also like being a scientist or explorer.

Bjork

#92. You make that climb, take it step by step and hopefully the view is great. I try to be a friend for Miley. I know that's not everyone's parenting style. But I try to be a friend, a partner as a singer, actor, songwriter and let her be a teenage girl and do her thing.

Billy Ray Cyrus

#93. I quite like American music, like The Fray - I'm a massive fan of them - and The Killers. I also like more acoustic stuff like Ed Sheeran; I like this English songwriter James Morrison and another singer called Ben Howard.

Louis Tomlinson

#94. Rap ain't out there for everybody; everybody can't be a rapper. Everybody can't be a singer; anybody can't just be a songwriter, but it may - there's some profession out there you can be in.

Juicy J

#95. I never took singing lessons. I guess, I feel comfortable with it, but I do not feel like a singer. I never want to sing without a guitar in my hand. I consider myself more of a songwriter, rather than a singer. I could never be in a wedding band and just sing Marvin Gaye songs.

Jack Johnson

#96. Music is my personal addiction. So much of everything I've done has only been to open more doors for the music itself. It all gets back to the fact that I am, first of all, a songwriter and a singer.

Dolly Parton

#97. That little Miley Cyrus ... she's like a little Elvis. The kids love her because she's Hannah Montana, but what people don't realize about her is she is such a fantastic singer and songwriter. She writes songs like she's 40 years old!

Dolly Parton

#98. Growing up as a singer, and a cast member, and now as an adult, a songwriter, I get the luxury of choosing the kinds of songs that I want to sing, because I'll write, you know, hundreds of songs. Even though only 12 appear on the album. That's 12 that I've chosen to sing of my catalog.

Jason Mraz

#99. I didn't do music to live; I lived so that I could do music.

Charlotte Eriksson

#100. Sometimes I'm very disappointed at some of the people in our family of communicators, whether it be a songwriter or a rapper that's always talking about negativity or a singer or a columnist or a network that basically gets off on just trying to create the negative.

Stevie Wonder