Songwriting's Quotes

#1. Songwriting's never been a natural art for me; it's always been a bit of a struggle.

Rod Stewart

#2. Songwriting's a weird game. I never intended to become one - I fell into this by mistake, and I can't get out of it. It fascinates me. I like to point out the rawer points of life.

Keith Richards

#3. Well, [bluntness in songwriting]'s a lot cheaper than therapy ... There's been a lot of things going on for the past 10 years that I just never really confronted, or used metaphors to do so. This time out I wanted to make sure that everyone knows what I'm talking about and where I'm coming from.

Brent Smith

#4. At first it was my brother's songwriting and I was just doing what everyone told me.

Gwen Stefani

#5. Songwriting is best. It's the hardest ... finest ... tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

Pete Townshend

#6. I always have to remember that I am the narrator, but it doesn't have to be about me. A lot of songwriting is about trying to use what part of me is valid in telling the story. I don't want to overcook it, you know? Sometimes it seems that's really where the work is.

Ryan Adams

#7. It doesn't stop. It really doesn't stop. It's the way I live every single day. I don't do anything else. I have no other interest other than music. At all.

Steven Morrissey

#8. 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

#9. I've always been insecure about my singing. That's why I've focused so much on my songwriting.

Brenda Russell

#10. Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control.

Tracy Chapman

#11. When you're in a songwriting class, and you write a song, and you hand it in to a teacher to grade, I'm still going to say that it's a really awesome song whether I got an A or a D. I learned to stick to my guns and take the tools as tools and not as rules.

Madi Diaz

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

Taylor Swift

#13. But there's a thin line between songwriting and arranging.

Warren Zevon

#14. The songwriting has never really stepped forward from the '50's.

Brian Setzer

#15. For me, it's good to have those dissimilar modes of songwriting sit side-by-side on a record, because they yield such different results.

David Grubbs

#16. It's very professionally done, very clever songwriting. I like Backstreet Boys more than 'N Sync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, it's all very well done stuff. Much better than the Partridge Family and New Kids On The Block. I took my kids to see Backstreet Boys live and they flipped out

Gene Simmons

#17. You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.

Conor Oberst

#18. Unless the object of the singer's affection is a vampire, surely what Hart means is unphotogenic. Only vampires are unphotographable, but affectionate '-enic' rhymes are hard to come by.

Stephen Sondheim

#19. I'm from a little island off of Massachusetts, Nantucket. It's hard getting into the music business from there, but my parents took me to songwriting festivals because I would write and produce my own music.

Meghan Trainor

#20. 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

#21. 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

#22. That's the great thing about songwriting: You have that time to have perspective and look back and think about all the things you'd want to say.

Gin Wigmore

#23. It's not that I have resisted songwriting, it's just not something I felt I have had to do. I've just not woken up and thought, I must do this. But I have often heard music that I have instantly felt 'I have to sing that song'.

Alison Krauss

#24. I sort of have various sort of theories when people ask me about songwriting because it is a mystery. You don't really know. Sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can't. It's really peculiar.

Nick Lowe

#25. Self-discovery in songwriting, bringing something forth that's instructive to yourself - some of the best songs that you will ever write are the ones where you didn't have to think about any of that stuff, but nonetheless that's what's happening in the song.

Jackson Browne

#26. Songwriting is hard - it's so easy to fall into the same traps. It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.

Julian Casablancas

#27. People keep putting limitations on themselves and creating this reality that soul music is dead. That's only in their reality. It's not true. To me, Adele is R&B. Bruno Mars is R&B. It's just good songwriting and songs. That is going to last.

Ester Dean

#28. 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

#29. To me, the guitar is a tool for songwriting, and it's fun, too. The day that it's not fun, that's when I'm not gonna play guitar anymore.

Scott Ian

#30. The New Kids took some hits for, you know, not writing their own music. But on a songwriting standpoint, I mean, I'd never written music before when I was in the group, ... Now the music is my music, so it's kind of like my baby, and that was a whole different experience.

Joey McIntyre

#31. No one can attack you when you're songwriting; it's you and a song, which is a great place to be.

Gin Wigmore

#32. It's unfashionable to admit, but playing music makes us happy and makes us smile.

Chris Hesse

#33. Melody is the first thing that comes to me when I'm songwriting. I learned piano classically first, and then I went into soul, and so melody has always been the first. It's so important.

Emeli Sande

#34. Each song has its own secret that's different from another song, and each has its own life. Sometimes it has to be teased out, whereas other times it might come fast. There are no laws about songwriting or producing. It depends on what you're doing, not just who you're doing.

Mark Knopfler

#35. Well, the way you'd been, old lady
I could see the fear in your windows
Under your furry crawling brow
A silver bow rings up in inches
You were afraid you'd be the devil's red wife
But it's alright, God dug your dance
And would have you young and in his harum

Don Van Vliet

#36. Songwriting is the way of perpetual want. Songwriters are the blessed/cursed people. You will never have a moment's peace in your life. You will always be wanting the next song.

Jon Stewart

#37. There's a standard of songwriting that, when you start immersing yourself in those types of songs, it raises your own bar as a songwriter. There's also simplicity in the songwriting. It's much harder to be simple than it is to be complicated.

Sinead O'Connor

#38. Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.

Hunter Hayes

#39. (Songwriting) It's a gift. It all comes from somewhere. I started out really young, when I was four, five, six, writing poems, before I could play an instrument. I was writing about things when I was eight or 10 years old that I hadn't lived long enough to experience.

Willie Nelson

#40. Before I went on stage at Kyle Hutton's Real Life Real Music Festival, I heard one of his songwriting students, Abbey Hirvela, sing; she was in the poet's saddle and riding that horse like she owned it. She was good! I probably ruined her by showing her how to make an E chord without the 3rd though.

Ray Wylie Hubbard

#41. I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing than a hundred people's ninth favorite thing.

Jeff Bowen

#42. I'm fascinated by America ... it's so odd.

John Prine

#43. Songwriting can be cathartic, but then you just keep it private. If you're going to play out and have other people listen to you, then you need to make sure there's some point to what you're saying.

Patterson Hood

#44. I always said I would have gone in to psychology, or maybe the FBI. I'm really in to and interested in humans and their minds and emotions. I think that's another reason I like songwriting. It's amazing the stories you can tell about someone, just from a little people watching

Jessica Harp

#45. Please rehearse new material," Brian's telegram said. They chose to interpret this as "please write new material" and, in this instant, the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership was effectively reborn.

Mark Lewisohn

#46. 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

#47. There's been many times when a producer will say, 'I don't think you want to say that.' We were told we shouldn't be so brutally honest about songwriting or radio or the industry.

Tyler Joseph

#48. Personally, being somewhat envious of Richard's (Thompson) songwriting and guitar playing, it's somewhat satisfying he's not yet achieved household-name status. It serves him right for being so good.

David Byrne

#49. Songwriting is kind of like a craft. It's not something that just comes in a dream. You've got to work at it.

Sean Lennon

#50. 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

#51. I like drawing people in the airport or on the bus or in venues. I like catching people in the moment. It's a similar inspiration for me in terms of songwriting.

James Bay

#52. Songwriting isn't always something that's directly proportionate to the experience.

Amos Lee

#53. 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

#54. There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.

Nick Cave

#55. 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

#56. The jam stuff doesn't appeal to me in general. My newfound love for the Dead came from Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia's songwriting, not the elaborate guitar solos. I'm a song person. Once it starts to break out of that structure and become loopy, it's uninteresting to me.

Colin Meloy

#57. My songwriting process is painful. Songwriting is brilliant. It's a load of fun - when it works. It's really difficult as well.

James Bay

#58. Country music was the music I was brought up on. It's the music that's closest to my heart and the music that speaks to me the most, and it's always been a big influence on my own songwriting.

Teddy Thompson

#59. You need to work at the craft of songwriting, but not only the craft. When I see people working both on themselves and the craft, and they combine those things ... I just go, That's just fabulous.

Fred Eaglesmith

#60. Songwriting is a very frustrating art form. You have to get on tape exactly what's playing inside your head

Michael Jackson

#61. My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that as a great compliment. That's exactly my intention.

Joni Mitchell

#62. Songwriting is something that's very daunting until you have your first successful song, I think.

Richie Sambora

#63. I don't really know that there's any real rules for songwriting.

Amos Lee

#64. 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

#65. When you get married and have children, and you start having hits and success and your business starts growing, there's less and less time for songwriting.

Josh Turner

#66. 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

#67. Songwriting never feels like it's me doing anything consciously except for becoming aware somehow that it's time to let something out, or let something in, depending on how you look at it.

Scout Niblett

#68. Living in war, and being a wartime band, I don't think there's any way that can't somehow influence the songwriting.

Colin Meloy

#69. There's only two kinds of music: the blues and zippety doo-dah.

Townes Van Zandt

#70. I love songs, and I love songwriting, and there's a standard of songwriting within Chicago blues in particular. I don't like the sad blues, necessarily; the Chicago blues is what I like, which is the kind of blues you can dance to.

Sinead O'Connor

#71. I do look at songwriting as a lot of work. I don't over-intellectualize music as a special medium that only some people deserve to do. I think it's something you do if you put the work in.

Jakob Dylan

#72. Think back to the early rock n' roll records, and the average record length in the '50s - and well into the '60s - was two and a half minutes. It's very hard to put that much songwriting into two and a half minutes.

J. D. Souther

#73. 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

#74. If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It's a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

Bono

#75. A lot of what has pushed me forward is desire, and I have expressed that in my songwriting - perhaps because it's safer!

Brian Molko

#76. What songwriting does better than almost anything is empathy - it's incredibly empathetic. The reason people sat around in bars when they were bummed out and listened to country songs is because it made them feel better in the long run.

Steve Earle

#77. [Songwriting is] something that I own - it's my property, it's my music, it's my voice.

Nick Jonas

#78. Songwriting never gets old. There's always stuff to write about.

Tori Kelly

#79. My favorite songwriting trick is writing something like 'XO.' In my brain, I thought, 'This is probably going to be a love song. How can I change that and find ways to twist that.' As a songwriter, it's your job for the song to take twists and turns that people don't expect.

Kelsea Ballerini

#80. When someone asks me what a song is about, it's like, I feel like I might ruin it if you ask me that. I feel like I did my best to explain the song in the song on its own terms as a song.

Kyle Morton

#81. When I was 13, I started writing songs, and it fell into my lap all of a sudden. I wrote poems and journals, but that's when it switched for me to songwriting. That's when I wanted to do everything. It was like a fire all of a sudden. I started coming to Nashville and moved here when I was 15.

Kelsea Ballerini

#82. I've been very grateful and humbled by the fact that young people really dig Joy Division's music. It's a great testament to the chemistry and the songwriting prowess between the four original members.

Peter Hook

#83. As time progressed, my songwriting developed out of my bass, because that's all I could do. I decided to take it as far as it could go and to use my skill as a tool.

Stephen Bruner

#84. For me, in songwriting, I have a route I can take. Maybe there's some forks, I can go this way, this way. But I know those roads. I still have the experience behind me.

Dave Matthews

#85. I wrote poetry before I wrote songs, and T.S. Eliot was my inspiration. I love his honesty and try to bring that to my own songwriting.

Gabrielle Aplin

#86. Is the phrase 'pay' or 'play the piper'
I inquire, why
'Cause I admire a desire to flip the switch
Yeah make a way to face the music like
Life savings for a mosh pit riot
Listen to a mix
Rock the tickets, higher volume
Velocity which shakes a cockpit's pilot

Criss Jami

#87. As far as songwriting, my inspirations came from love, life and death, and viewing other people's situations.

Ed Sheeran

#88. I've finally decided to write about profit for a change
But before I really started I already started to feel lame
Baby what's it to a beast who manely to money remains untamed

Criss Jami

#89. 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

#90. I like the songwriting. I don't ever listen and then go back and change stuff. For me when I wrote the song, it's always really fun and exciting.

Christopher Owens

#91. That's really where my heart is, unfortunately - I'm less interested in songwriting and more into just making noise.

Sufjan Stevens

#92. You're just like, "I like doing this - it's something I have a lot of passion for." You happen to do it, you enjoy songwriting, and eventually if you're writing enough songs, then you fall into it.

Vance Joy

#93. It's true when they say songwriting is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. In truth, what happens is ... songs comes through you.

Greg Lake

#94. As I've grown older I've been more influenced by more meandering styles of guitar playing, whether it's Celtic or Ethiopian folk music or some kind of noisier jazz like Sonny Sharrock. In terms of songwriting, I don't know that I could even pin it down.

Ted Leo

#95. On 'Van Halen,' I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I'd say that at the time of 'Fair Warning,' I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people's minds I'm just a gunslinger.

Eddie Van Halen

#96. It's nice to finally have a CD out which reflects my songwriting, my singing and the band that I have.

Mick Taylor

#97. My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose.

Conor Oberst

#98. Songwriting is my true passion and that's what the BMI awards are all about.

Kevin Rudolf

#99. I do feel songwriting is a bit of its own creature and the writerliness of it ... it's freeing. It's good for people who have an innate resistance to any restrictions whatsoever.

Mirah

#100. There's a big gaping hole in the EDM space for songwriting. It's one thing to learn how to be a great sound designer and become big just on sound design. Especially if you're in the dubstep category, it's like, how much fatter and more interesting can you make those drops.

Steve Aoki