Top 100 Writing A Song Quotes
#1. Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage.
Alanis Morissette
#2. Writing a song is actually quite easy. Writing a good one is very, very difficult.
Joe Elliott
#3. With writing a song, I've always felt, right from the start, like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. I don't ever feel there's a font of ideas to fall back on.
Nick Cave
#4. The goal is always just to write the best song that you can write. I mean, the process for writing a song is the process for writing a song. It's not something I look at it as something I need to do something different.
Chris Stapleton
#5. Poetry is a solitary process. One does not write poetry for the masses. Poetry is a self-involved, lofty pursuit. Songs are for the people. When I'm writing a song, I imagine performing it. I imagine giving it. It's a different aspect of communication. It's for the people.
Patti Smith
#6. So writing a song is much harder than doing a classical piece for me, because in a classical piece, I can just let the mood dictate what's going to happen.
Glenn Danzig
#7. Sometimes it takes time to get into what ideas actually mean to you. Even when you're not writing a song, it's like that.
Boots Riley
#8. I write songs very quickly, so the 20 minutes of joy I get out of writing a song doesn't compare to the two months of joy I get engaging with the people who like my music.
Halsey
#9. When I'm writing a song, it's just me and the songwriters. Then when the song is done, there are publishers that hear it, then people in my management, then my wife and my boys and my friends, and if they're all lovin' it, it's kind of withstanding all the criticism I need.
Luke Bryan
#10. My goal is to think of nothing when I'm writing a song because too many influences could sabotage a potentially amazing song.
Ricky Martin
#11. I don't know - it's a bit of a mystery of how things come about when they do. I don't have a scientific explanation for it. Sometimes when you're writing a song, you don't know where you're going.
Robbie Robertson
#12. Nobody can tell you you're wrong for writing a song about how you feel - even if you don't really feel that way.
Norah Jones
#13. Often I have to move my body in a certain way, like exercising, to begin to get into the right rhythm for writing a song.
Patty Griffin
#14. I've been doing my big theater projects, which take years, and writing a song here and there.
David Friedman
#15. When you are writing a song for something else, if you are doing something for money, I always think that's bad luck.
Chad Kroeger
#16. Since I met Starsmith, my producer, I really feel like I'm making music because we write it together and produce it together. I've got a proper involvement in the end product as opposed to just writing a song and finding someone else to produce it.
Ellie Goulding
#17. When you're writing a song and there are five people invested in it, it's easy for one person to say, 'Oh, this song is about this and that', and everyone has to hear the idea and see if they can do better.
Jason Mraz
#18. Writing a song is almost like cheating-writing because you don't have to finish your sentences, you don't have to use any punctuation, no one's going to edit your work. It's so wide open. People just grunt and that's a song. You can kind of do anything.
Mirah
#19. I'm a professional songwriter - personal attitudes have nothing to do with writing a song.
Sammy Cahn
#20. 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
#21. The fact of picking up an instrument and writing a song and expressing yourself publicly has a powerful political dimension
J. Robbins
#22. As far as when I'm writing a song, I think I'm writing first and foremost for myself.
Jon Foreman
#23. It's a weird job because making music or writing a song is a personal thing ... and it kind of has to be. You can always tell when people are faking.
David Longstreth
#24. When I'm writing a song, it gives me more actual pleasure to hear someone else sing it than do it meself.
Shane MacGowan
#25. It's so important to me that I feel like I'm doing something that's never been done before, whether that's in the show, or I'm writing a song. I can exist in this little box here, but I have to do something new with it.
Rivers Cuomo
#26. You're always going to write and draw inspiration from things that you're feeling, things that you've felt. It's kind of impossible not to unless you're writing a song and there's an exact scenario that you're trying to write a song for.
Harry Styles
#27. There are two things John and I always do when we're going to sit down and write a song. First of all we sit down. Then we think about writing a song.
Paul McCartney
#28. When I was first learning songs, I'd have a favorite song, and I'd take the chords and twist them around. I'd learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.
Alicia Keys
#29. There's always a personal satisfaction in writing a song by yourself. You get the inspiration, and see it through, and you're done. It's focused and very personal.
John Oates
#30. Sometimes I feel like I'm taking on a role when I'm writing a song, and it doesn't always have to be true. I'm not sitting in my room crying with my guitar, writing a slow solo about a depressing breakup; that's not me.
Mitchel Musso
#31. I've never had any kind of work ethic. I've never sat down with the intention of writing a song.
Dan Bejar
#32. You have to love writing a song and architecture. You have to give it a form. It is my job to create a sonic landscape. I like to create ambiance and atmosphere. The writing is the intimate part of it. It is a sketch. The production is the whole painting.
Keren Ann
#33. Writing a song to be a single is hard, and I don't like to focus on that because you can get caught up in making something just terrible, which is really easy to do if you're focused on making it a single. It's more fun when you focus on what excites you musically.
Brendon Urie
#34. It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. If I start writing a song, and you try to have a conversation with me, you're a bad person.
Halsey
#35. I started teaching myself guitar because I loved singing so much. Then one day kind of out of the blue I found I was writing a song. It just happened organically.
Kina Grannis
#36. So it's the unwinding of your nervous system. The corresponding experience to what winds you up comes out in your dreams. To write a song then, even one like Don't Bother Me, helps to get rid of some subconscious burden. Writing a song is like going to confession.
George Harrison
#37. When I'm writing a song for another artist, I purposefully make it not for me; otherwise, I get too attached.
Keri Hilson
#38. I don't write songs, songs write me ... Writing a song can be agony or ecstasy. It can take half an hour or half a year ... The popular song is America's greatest ambassador.
Sammy Cahn
#39. For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn't really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I'm trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.
Taylor Swift
#40. Nothing makes me happier than writing a song that I think is good or that I want to play. Writing songs helps me.
Nina Nesbitt
#41. Art is the last thing I'm worried about when I'm writing a song. As far as I'm concerned, art is just short for 'Arthur.'
Keith Richards
#42. Seriously, my music really does help my acting, and, like, getting in and out of a character from a different lifestyle and writing a song about it. Likewise, my acting inspires the music because I can write a theme that I wouldn't necessarily approach at all in life.
Bryan Greenberg
#43. Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.
Van Morrison
#44. There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.
Beck
#45. There's two facets to writing a song. There's you sitting in your room writing the sentiments of the song; the lyrics, the melody and the changes, and then there's the part where you go into the studio and you put clothing on it.
Nuno Bettencourt
#46. Sometimes you're writing a song and you have an image whilst writing a song. I don't think you ever base a songwriting process around a video, but when you're writing a song sometimes it'll be a very visual song.
Luke Hemmings
#47. Music is an amazing thing. I don't know if we really think about it the same way we consider a painting an amazing thing. I mean, a painting is, in quotes, imaginary. There is nothing on the canvas when you start; and writing a song, there is nothing there when you start.
Lou Reed
#48. I learned to embrace my individuality, and if that meant writing a song on one chord over and over again, then that's what I do.
Beth Orton
#49. I write titles of songs a lot. sometimes I'll end up writing a song that I don't have a title for and I'll say, 'Oh, this goes with that title.
Shuggie Otis
#50. I've always felt writing a song was a bit like going on location. That's true in an almost literal sense. Where you are seeps in somehow.
Elvis Costello
#51. Songwriting as an art is a bit archaic now. Just writing a song is not good enough.
David Bowie
#52. When you get to say something in a song you're not directing it necessarily at one person. When it's in a song it's easier to get it out. I don't really worry so much about it when I'm writing a song.
Brett Dennen
#53. I really love movie soundtracks and stuff like that. That's really a huge part of any movie. I actually think about ... that this would be cool in a movie or something, like when I'm writing a song, or something you know?
Jay Gordon
#54. Songwriting is never one thing. I've spent as long as three months writing a song. Other times I've done it in twenty minutes.
Greg Lake
#55. I'm just like anybody else: I have stuff to do in the day, whether that's writing a song or recording a song. I try to treat everything I do as just work.
Adam Schlesinger
#56. Writing a song is a long road. Or it can be.
Dean Wareham
#57. Writing a song is a personal thing, and you have to have a lot of trust to try things and not be embarrassed.
Julia Stone
#59. If and when I do get "down," the last thing on my mind is writing a song. Usually, being bummed just involves lying around on the couch and taking the bad weather personally. I only write songs when I feel good - or at least something approaching "good."
Wooden Wand
#60. Popular music usually has a chorus that needs to repeat, and people need to remember the song. That's sort of the major guideline when you're writing a song.
Alex Ebert
#61. When I'm writing a song, I'm just making stuff up as I go along.
John Darnielle
#62. Most of the time I write my best songs just from feeling a strong emotion, so whether I'm just really angry or really sad or really happy, I immediately sit down at a piano and I begin writing a song.
Ella Henderson
#63. My nails are my rhythm section when I'm writing a song all alone. Some day, I may cut an album, just me and my nails.
Dolly Parton
#64. A songwriter writes songs all the time, whereas just writing a song can be done by anyone, anytime.
Bryan Adams
#65. When you first start writing a song, it's fun, then when you start recording it, it's fun, but by the time you've finished recording it, you're sick of it.
Julian Casablancas
#66. If I'm not crying while writing a song, I'm not doing it right.
Jenny Lewis
#67. Normally I begin writing a song with just with aim to express something, and sometimes I don't know what I want to express until a sentence comes to my head that will sum up everything about how I'm feeling at the time.
Lianne La Havas
#68. Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors - it's how you combine them that sets you apart.
Wolfgang Puck
#69. I get very frustrated by this term 'genre exercise.' I mean, what exactly is that? Genre is not really relevant when you are writing a song; hopefully you are doing it to explore something, to create something, and I don't agree that any of my albums are genre exercises.
Elvis Costello
#70. Staying healthy through movement and eating well gives you tons of energy and helps mold the skills that allow you to achieve goals from playing soccer to doing a tough homework assignment to writing a song.
Sabrina Bryan
#71. When you're in the middle of writing a song, you can come up with this whole web of stuff only you know how to get through. That's very entertaining for me to do that.
Jakob Dylan
#72. Writing a song is like playing a series of downs in football: Lots of rules, timing is crucial, lots of boundaries, lots of protective gear, lots of stopping and starting.
Christine Lavin
#73. When you're writing a song, you have to know two things. You have to know who you are, and you have to think about other people.
Michael Masser
#74. Very often, writing a song is a process that happens to me rather than one that I instigate. I feel a song coming on and, like a sneeze; I wait for it until it comes.
Kat Edmonson
#76. Writing a song is much like being an author. Yes, we all have tools to write (everyone has a brain I hope!), but that doesn't all of a sudden make us best selling authors.
Ken Hill
#77. I could tell it was a popular move as a writer to walk down the bass lines while you were writing a song.
Gavin DeGraw
#78. That's another way of writing a song, of course. Just talking to somebody that ain't there. That's the best way. That's the truest way. Then it just becomes a question of how heroic your speech is. To me, it's something to strive after.
Bob Dylan
#79. When you're making music, it's meant to be shared with people. Sometimes, even if I'm writing a song, someone else brings a vibe. There's something different about it. If someone can play a better bassline than me, I'll let them do it. I'm just here to fit in and see where it goes.
Benny Blanco
#80. The roughest part for me when I'm writing a song is staring at a blank page. Where am I going from here? If you're a songwriter, you have to do that every time you start a song.
Bob Weir
#81. I tried to look at writing a song almost like solving a mystery. The song was there, buried somewhere in my brain. All I had to do was follow the clues until I figured it out.
Jon Skovron
#82. I'd have to say that my favorite thing is writing a song that really says how I feel, what I believe - and it even explains the world to myself better than I knew it.
Jackson Browne
#83. Factoring in millions of people when I'm writing a song is not a good idea. I don't ever do it.
Taylor Swift
#84. Well, what's interesting, I try not to think about the radio when I'm writing a song. I want people to love the song, and that means it might not be exactly thinking about the radio, but it's thinking about your audience and saying, 'I want people to like this song after it's done.'
John Legend
#85. Sometimes when you're writing a song and that song comes into your head, it definitely comes from somewhere, like a real experience.
Vance Joy
#86. I liked the idea of writing a song saying I'm happy with who I am, and I don't mind if people think I'm some old git.
Marc Almond
#87. Fun is when you're writing a song and you're trying a rough shot at a demo and ... it works. That's when it's fun. After that, it's work.
Tom Scholz
#88. I think in most cases, when you're writing a song, you're just making up a little story, and you're not really thinking about making a point one way or another about it. You're just coming up with a little scenario and seeing it through, and that's it.
Adam Schlesinger
#89. And you know there's nothing like writing a song about someone who's mean to you, and just makes your life miserable ... and then winning a Grammy for it.
Taylor Swift
#90. When it comes to sitting down and composing, there is no hesitation, no concern, no critics breathing fire down my neck. For me, writing a song is the purest part of all. No one can mess with that.
Rufus Wainwright
#91. I was writing Diamonds and Rust' and it had nothing to do with what it turned out to be. I don't remember what it is, but I think I was writing a song. It was literally interrupted by a phone call, and it just took another curve and it came out to be what it was.
Joan Baez
#92. I tend to like to write a song and then think about it for a while. I record a demo of it and then put it away and wait until I've gotten more thoughts on it or get sure exactly how to approach it.
Christopher Owens
#93. No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula ... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose.
Lauren Mayberry
#94. I didn't want to be a big record mogul and all that stuff. I just wanted to write songs and make people laugh.
Berry Gordy
#95. If I come across an issue, or something I feel strongly about, and I happen to think of a song that would go in that direction, then I do it. But that's not what I start out, necessarily, to do. Sometimes I may have an idea for a song - Well, I'm going to write about a thing.
Charlie Daniels
#96. You could do a 'Les Mis'-type musical about Hamilton, but it would have to be 12 hours long, because the amount of words on the bars when you're writing a typical song - that's maybe got 10 words per line.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
#97. When I began writing songs, there was a pretty direct line between what was happening in my life and what I wrote about. So my first album was really all about my failed attempts to make a particular relationship work.
Erin McKeown
#98. To take part in the African revolution, it is not enough to write a revolutionary song. You must fashion the revolution with the people. And if you fashion it with the people, the songs will come by themselves.
Ahmed Sekou Toure
#99. I think it's hard to really write a song that will educate someone because songs are meant to be ... you don't want to be too didactic in a song because it doesn't make for good music. And I think the role of songs can be to inspire people but there needs to education and prose to back that up.
John Legend
#100. Unlike motor sport, I didn't get into music for the live performances. I like writing and studio work and seeing how a song can come to life.
Jacques Villeneuve
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