Songwriting With Quotes

#1. I really wanted to focus on my songwriting, or songwriting with other people. I wanted to go learn from other people who were really good at the classic, more traditional idea of songwriting.

Mikky Ekko

#2. I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you've experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run.

Mick Jagger

#3. With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.

Carrie Brownstein

#4. My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it's so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

Taylor Swift

#5. I write about what I know and what I've experienced. That's the only way it can be real to me. I love songwriting. There is something so satisfying in coming up with an idea and turning it into a song that means something to people ...

Aaron Tippin

#6. What I strive to do with songwriting is be really honest, authentic and try to be open and share that with people. I choose that over trying to be clever, poetic, or lyrical.

Brett Dennen

#7. I am nervous that the craft of songwriting is taking a nose dive ... And since I'm a songwriter and I connect with an interpretative, you know, interpretation of a song, I miss it. I just miss it.

Barry Manilow

#8. Songwriting is like a therapy, it's a connection that you have with another person, and I'm not scared of it at all for some reason.

Colbie Caillat

#9. I do more writing by myself than with anybody else. My best thing is sitting ... around somewhere with a guitar, and having an idea. You never know where it'd come from. Songwriting is a God-given talent.

Charlie Daniels

#10. With acting I am being led by the script, other actors, the director, etc. But with songwriting I feel it is much more self reliant and allows me to be in the creative experience without being as dependent on others.

Helen Slater

#11. I can't get enough of this guy called Baths. He's a total L.A. dude and really young as well. It's super-electronic, but with almost Hall & Oates-style songwriting. Without the context of the production, it could be super-cheesy, but it has amazing harmonies.

Jamie Cullum

#12. I think topical songwriting is a real gift, and it's hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

#13. I wasn't born with a natural talent for songwriting.

Natalie Imbruglia

#14. When I recorded my solo album, 'Keep It Hid,' in 2008, I'd gotten more interested in songwriting, inspired by reading Charles Bukowski and connecting with unfancy, interesting language.

Dan Auerbach

#15. The trick to songwriting is writing in a poetic enough way that other people can identify with it.

Lights

#16. I was in 'Jacques Brel' Off-Broadway for many years, so I've always been a singing actress, but the songwriting was a complete surprise. I had never written a song in my life. We were on the road with 'Jacques Brel' doing the national tour, and I picked up a guitar one day and I wrote a song.

Amanda McBroom

#17. What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh.

Pete Townshend

#18. I think you can't really beat Bob Marley, especially the stuff he was doing with Lee Perry. Just that kind of clubby and dark and crazy stuff, even with the Wailers ... Some of the songwriting was phenomenal.

Diplo

#19. Songwriting helps me sort out my personal problems. With acting, you're just a tool for someone's ideas.

Gary Kemp

#20. Before I'd even started doing music or having opportunities with my own music, I was studying production and business and stuff anyway. I knew there were so many jobs within the music industry - songwriting or session playing or working at a label - and I was really interested in how it all works.

Gabrielle Aplin

#21. Not that there is anything wrong with confessional songwriting, there are plenty of people that do that I admire. I think it is great, it just isn't how I do things.

Zooey Deschanel

#22. Anyone involved with songwriting will testify to the fact that each song, no matter how pure or from the heart, has its own story, its own peculiar way of getting written.

C. Sigman

#23. Songwriting is an art unto itself, not to be confused with performing.

Jo Stafford

#24. When you're songwriting, it's like talking about your own life experience. When you're with a band, you have to compromise.

Timothy B. Schmit

#25. Anybody I'm in a band with can do what they do better than me. I'm a huge believer that I can play bass or whatever I bring to the table - producing, songwriting, orchestrating - and I can look at the other guys and say, "He's got that, he's got this, and I have this." It's a team thing.

Nikki Sixx

#26. For me, songwriting starts with a melody. When a musician plays a chord progression, either the words and vocal melody come to me, or they don't. That's how I determine who to write with. It works, or it doesn't.

Rain Phoenix

#27. Traditional songwriting, to us, is where the experimental nature comes in. We're all involved with so much outside activity with really hardcore, experimental music-making.

Thurston Moore

#28. Sometimes when I'm writing a song I'll get carried away with production when I'm only on the first verse, and that sacrifices the songwriting.

Nina Nesbitt

#29. I'm just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure ...

Shane MacGowan

#30. I got signed with the songwriting deal when I was sixteen and they were really great - my publishers, who to this day are still my publishers and are like my musical family, my second family - they took me in and taught me what a good song is.

Lights

#31. The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.

Nick Cave

#32. Upwell is one of the most terrifyingly great bands I have ever known out of Seattle. Their musicianship and songwriting is monstrous ... They're heavy like Soundgarden or Zeppelin with killer female vocals, but with their own unique style.

Jack Endino

#33. All I know is when I start getting serious about songwriting ... it's like a playground. All responsibilities slip away and you're with your essence. There can be delight there and self-discovery. You can dance there ... I think of it as my serious playground.

Laura Nyro

#34. Songwriting is like going to church. I'm connecting to something, and it's rewarding in really important ways. I don't need to share it with anyone to feel good about it.

Juliana Hatfield

#35. And I look forward to the time when I can become more indulgent with my songwriting. But this band is a family, and it's a process that we have to grow with together.

Stone Gossard

#36. I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just left with rhythm.

Jack White

#37. The music is in the lead here, and a large part of this, I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel a closer bond with the craft of songwriting, stronger than I ever have.

Ben Harper

#38. Obviously I attach myself so much to my songwriting. If I didn't attach myself to that being my sole attribute, then I would be fine with those.

Luke Temple

#39. I feel like when the songwriting slows, I'd love to help others with their records. If it's something I really believe in, it's worth the effort.

Mark Kozelek

#40. Basically, I'm just a guitar player that figured out I wasn't ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing so I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.

J.J. Cale

#41. With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I'm teeming with the drive to write.

Alanis Morissette

#42. I love my complexion, but like so many of us, in the early years at primary school, I grew up thinking that my dark skin wasn't a great thing. I've found freedom in music and songwriting, which has given me a freedom in how I present myself. I'm glad I've got makeup to celebrate that with.

Laura Mvula

#43. People think of songwriting as a very personal thing: A guy gets up there with an acoustic guitar and he sings his heart out, bares his soul.

Craig Finn

#44. Anyone who takes the craft of songwriting seriously I radiate towards. Spending time with Daryl Hall was a dream come true. I picked his brain a lot because Hall And Oats is timeless.

Travie McCoy

#45. I felt I never needed to fight for a more prominent songwriting and increased vocal role with the Cars.

Benjamin Orr

#46. Well, the gold fish in the bowl lay upside down bloating
Full in the sky and the plains were bleached white with skeletons
Various species grouped together according
To their past beliefs
The only way they ever all got together was
Not in love but shameful grief

Don Van Vliet

#47. What happens is, especially when I was writing for my band, Creedence, and it's the way I write now, I go into "guitar lick" mode. When I do, it sort of leads into a real song. I'd say to myself, your songwriting is coming up with a guitar lick, and the rest is easy!

John Fogerty

#48. Because of my interest in songwriting, I was invited to visit a friend in L.A. for songwriting sessions with him and his friends. We wrote six songs by the end of the weekend, and 'Hide Away' happened to be one of them!

Daya

#49. What we hear now is great-sounding records with great-sounding grooves and loops. And the sound of these records is irresistible, but the craft of songwriting is just about over. That's why, whenever I get an opportunity to do an album full of standards, I jump at it because I miss it.

Barry Manilow

#50. Where I've arrived now is the product of mixing the very straight with the very exploratory; there's a fine line between the two, although it tends to be getting straighter and straighter because my songwriting is getting better.

Andy Partridge

#51. Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.

Luke Bryan

#52. I've been writing a lot about my encounter with love. Which is the white stag as far as songwriting is concerned because love songs are so banal, and my experience with love is anything but that.

J. Tillman