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. As a songwriter, it's very hard to listen to music that's not coming from the heart and soul, personally.

Jake Bugg

#3. Music is a handshake where I, as a songwriter, am only part of the equation. I love that, the fact that you can make the song your own.

Jon Foreman

#4. I'm a songwriter and I'd love to make that a part of my career.

Condola Rashad

#5. I'd love to claim the title of 'songwriter' or 'intellectual,' but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.

Brandi Carlile

#6. The thing about being a songwriter is,even if you been fucked over, you can find consolation in writing about it, and pour it out. Everything has something to do with something; nothing is divorced. It becomes an experience,a feeling or a aconglomeration of experiences ...

Keith Richards

#7. I'm a songwriter first.

Carole King

#8. 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

#9. I don't want to be a critic of the world. I want to encourage it.

Charlotte Eriksson

#10. 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

#11. 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

#12. Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.

Criss Jami

#13. Since my father is a musician as well, he taught me growing up that if you can play jazz, you can learn all instruments and write on them. He wanted me to be a songwriter that can do anything in any genre. I'm all about doing every genre.

Meghan Trainor

#14. I realized that I wanted to get better in every way. As a person, as a friend, as a songwriter, as a musician, as an artist, record producer, you name it.

Kenny Chesney

#15. Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be.

Stephen Malkmus

#16. I always wanted to be known as a songwriter and not just a songbird.

Carly Rae Jepsen

#17. As a songwriter, I think that comes with the territory. The older you get, you like to say it doesn't matter, but you care what people think about what you do.

Five For Fighting

#18. 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

#19. I think with any songwriter the first 1,000 songs are always terrible.

Graham Russell

#20. I'm an American songwriter, and I write from a very American perspective, and so did the records I grew up listening to.

Jenny Lewis

#21. As a songwriter, I do kind of look at 'Santa Monica' as a thing outside of itself, because it isn't just my song. This is a song a lot of people tell me is a part of their high school or college years. That means a lot to me.

Art Alexakis

#22. My only weapon is my pen, I'm a songwriter.

Sly Stone

#23. Writing for somebody else is really fun 'cause I consider myself a songwriter first and foremost.

Kesha

#24. 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

#25. If you want to be a songwriter and place a song with a popular artist, then it's OK to follow the trends. This is mainly because many labels are afraid to take big risks on something that sounds too different than the status quo.

Wendy Starland

#26. I respect Chris Carrabba as a songwriter and I also respect his past. He's got this fierce, straight edge, kind of hardcore core. There's so many songs that people are connected to and they all came together in a kind of DIY way, which I really do respect.

Stephan Jenkins

#27. Finally I started really opening up as a songwriter and an interpreter and taking songs from all kind of genres and stripping them down to just lyrics and the story inside the lyrics, and trying to make them really mine.

Lizz Wright

#28. I am a songwriter. I do get to put my personal experiences in song.

Melissa Etheridge

#29. 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

#30. As a songwriter, you might write every day and throughout the course of a year you might get four songs that are really special.

Dierks Bentley

#31. I think people appreciate a songwriter who shows different sides. The whole angst thing is cool, but if that's all you've got, it's just boring. Everything I write, whether it's happy or sad, has a sense of humor to it.

Katy Perry

#32. I like Chris Martin. I think he's a really great songwriter.

Noel Gallagher

#33. Being passionate about something is the most beautiful characteristic you can develop.

Charlotte Eriksson

#34. I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.

James Taylor

#35. 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

#36. 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

#37. I thought [ as a kid], "Maybe I don't want to start a punk band necessarily. I just want to learn to be a great songwriter," and got really into trying to figure out how that could be possible.

Ezra Furman

#38. As a songwriter, if you can touch people and make them feel a little less alone in the world, then you've done your job.

Tom Cochrane

#39. With every record, with each band, I just try to make a song good. I'm not so much focusing on my technique. There are a million better drummers than me. I try to adapt to the songwriter; I try to adapt to the situation and retain my sort of melodic power. My goal is for the band to be good.

Janet Weiss

#40. Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.

Steve Earle

#41. I think inside every rock journalist, there's somebody who wishes they had the courage to live the life that they're not, and that they're writing about. But at the same time, inside every songwriter, I guess there's a wish for happiness.

Glen Hansard

#42. I don't think there's any problem with working with a songwriter or a producer, but I just don't think you should completely hand it over to them.

Howard Lawrence

#43. Just knowing how to rap doesn't necessarily mean that you're a good songwriter.

Danny Brown

#44. Dear Sir: I will wish to establish my name as the best Ethiopian songwriter. But I am not encouraged in undertaking this as long as 'The Old Folks At Home' stares me in the face with another's name on it.

Stephen Foster

#45. I don't like the word 'rock star' or 'super star.' I am a guitar player, a songwriter who got lucky because I stayed at it and didn't give up, long enough that people noticed me.

Randy Bachman

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

John Hiatt

#47. 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

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

Sam Tsui

#49. Being sent away to boarding school at seven is as great an inspiration as any songwriter could have - to be taken away from one's family and locked away for 10 years. It does create an incredible intensity of emotion.

James Blunt

#50. If you're a songwriter, you have to do homework. You can exist for a while on the inspiration, but at some point, you have to sit down and have the discipline to write - to finish the poem, as they say.

Jenny Lewis

#51. 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

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

Sara Bareilles

#53. 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

#54. I always loved singing, but I thought it was like drawing - just something you do in your own little corner to calm yourself down. But when my friend, the French songwriter Etienne Daho, listened to my songs, he was so moved that told me that I had to do a demo, share them with the world.

Lou Doillon

#55. I'm a songwriter who's put my childhood memories and teenage angst into songs.

Paula Cole

#56. As a songwriter you have an umbilical cord to the song and it's hard to expand on your understanding of the lyrics. Whereas when you cover a song you can create your own reason why you're attached to it.

K.d. Lang

#57. Being a creator of a song I get to take all these broken fragments of failure and chaos and weave together something beautiful and meaningful. Decay. Death. Pain. Fall. And if God is a songwriter then these fallen leaves of mine can be redeemed

Jon Foreman

#58. I don't think a songwriter should lose their mojo. In my situation, I'm one of those artists that lasts over a long period rather than have your moment and your moment is gone.

Jimmy Cliff

#59. I guess it's just my job to somehow balance knowing that every song is going to come differently and be different, but also know that, on the other hand, I am a songwriter and I am a craftsman, and I do have a craft and a technique and a method. So I need to balance the technique and the method.

Brett Dennen

#60. 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

#61. I probably wouldn't be a songwriter if I didn't grow up the way I did. It was difficult and it was at times very scary to grow up in a household so unsettled and at times very violent. But, it also, I guess it earned me a sort of wisdom at a young age that's served me well.

Ray Lamontagne

#62. A songwriter should have friends who are similarly interested; should move about in the milieu of work he has chosen for himself.

Dorothy Fields

#63. The one mentality I've always tried to have is that no matter what stage in your career that you are in as a musician or a performer or a songwriter or whatever, there's always more to learn.

Nick Jonas

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

Andrew Bird

#65. 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

#66. 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

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

Michael Kiwanuka

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

Charlotte Eriksson

#69. 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

#70. I didn't come in and say: "I'm a singer." I came into the band as a second guitar player and a vocalist, but not the songwriter. I had been writing poetry for years, so I sort of had the nature of the words. I felt like no one else could sing my lyrics, so I took a crack at it.

Paul Banks

#71. I want to say at once that I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived ... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert.

George Gershwin

#72. I love Darius Rucker. He's a true artist, a great songwriter who can play his instrument, sing and write about his life.

Randy Houser

#73. I traveled the world as a DJ, as a singer, as a songwriter, as a producer.

Al Walser

#74. Time flows smoother when you are with people you love.

Charlotte Eriksson

#75. 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

#76. 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

#77. If you don't know Tom Lehrer, you should - in addition to being a classical pianist, mathematician, songwriter, satirist, researcher at Los Alamos and, he claims, inventor of the Jell-O shot, he is just delightfully funny and graceful.

Rachel Sklar

#78. I'm always shocked by that! I'm not the singer, I'm the songwriter who sings.

Nina Nastasia

#79. I come from a musical family. My dad was in a group in the 70s, The Hudson Brothers. Now he's a songwriter and producer. So, I just kind of grew up with music and it was something I always knew I wanted to do.

Sarah Hudson

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

Kevin Bacon

#81. I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

Kazuo Ishiguro

#82. I met PJ Harvey when I was in England, and the first thing I want to do when I meet a songwriter I admire is to ask them how do they receive songs.

Valerie June

#83. I love to rock 'n roll. But my finest suit, of all the things I do, is as a songwriter.

Dan Fogelberg

#84. The hack songwriter will write the absolute truth every single word, whether it makes a great song or not.

Paul Westerberg

#85. For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

Tom Waits

#86. The Bee Gees were always heavily influenced by black music. As a songwriter, it's never been difficult to pick up on the changing styles of music out there, and soul has always been my favourite genre.

Robin Gibb

#87. On the music side, I'm a cross between maybe that Texas songwriter and that Tom Petty feel.

Bryan Hayes

#88. If you're a songwriter, you want to write a song like "Oh Yeah" that radically shifts everything. You can definitely retire on that song. You want to have something you can put in your songbook that everybody can recognize, whether it's a good or bad thing.

Margaret Cho

#89. As a songwriter, it's kind of hard to listen to your own stuff with clarity.

Stone Gossard

#90. I really enjoy playing solo acoustic. I think it's good for me as a songwriter to stay in touch with what it takes to make a song work by yourself.

Jeff Tweedy

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

Vonda Shepard

#92. 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

#93. 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

#94. One of my goals from really early on was that if I was ever fortunate enough to be successful in music, I would want to stay the same person and the same songwriter.

Taylor Swift

#95. All I wanted was my art and the chance to be the creator of my own world, my own reality.

Charlotte Eriksson

#96. I feel, as a songwriter, it's one of the hardest things to do - to sit down and say how you feel.

Bruno Mars

#97. I'm a professional songwriter - personal attitudes have nothing to do with writing a song.

Sammy Cahn

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

James Bay

#99. A lot of our tracks have sounded a lot better than I thought they would because of recording, mixing, and because I probably didn't hear it that way. I'm not a songwriter.

Charlie Watts

#100. I have a hard time really claiming my place as a songwriter or as doing anything of import really because I feel like I'm tooting my own horn in a way.

Mirah