Songwriting Quotes

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.

When you tune your guitar in a different way, it lends itself to a new way of looking at your songwriting.

I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't.

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

All is fair in love and songwriting.

I respect country music because I feel like it's more about the talent and the songwriting and I put on a big show and we have a lot of stuff, but I feel confident in myself enough as an artist and a singer that I can have all of those fun toys and know that we don't need all the bells and whistles either.

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.

The songwriting of Hall & Oates is deceptively complex. There are a number of key changes that pass you by as you're listening to the song because they're so seamless and clever.

Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing.

Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.

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

Songwriting is my gift from God.

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.

That is what intrigues me; songwriting and song structure and expression.

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

I mean Gorilla was really our first sort of goes at songwriting.

Everything in life influences my music. I've always used songwriting as a means to share what I think is profound.

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.

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'.

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.

Songwriting's a weird game.

The guitar influence that affected my songwriting came from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

I think my songwriting might be a little more on the darker side maybe.

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.

We influence singing but never really songwriting.

For me, songwriting is something I have to do ritually. I don't just wait for inspiration; I try to write a little bit every day.

There's a lot of personal stuff that can go into songwriting but there's also a lot of dramatization and fictionalization. You have to do that to make a good song.

I don't enjoy songwriting.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

The key to songwriting is just to be able to observe, and put yourself in situations to be around people, and let those ideas come to you.