Quotes About Lyrics

I've tried writing darker, more serious songs, but they don't go anywhere. Everything revolves around the chorus for me.

I think all the best songs do that: they offer some sort of hope and light in the darkness.

I'm lyric conscious. I like to tell stories, give advice. Instead of writing a 'Dear Abby' column, I do it on records.

I study my competition for at least an hour a day. I get on the Internet, I look at what they doing, and then I look at ways to defeat them. I know their mixtapes track-by-track. I know some of their lyrics.

I'm not really going to defend anyone's lyrics.

To me, the lyrics of the song define the kind of style it is.

I always capture one aspect or the other of Delhi in my raps.

With 'Someone New', I was at my rawest, and I didn't want to cover it up. And same with 'You Should Know' and 'Under the Table.' I wanted it to be the lyrics and the chord progressions, and the intricacies of the guitar of 'Someone New' are so delicate, sometimes that's all you need.

When we make demos of our songs, we do our demos in English - the whole song's in English.

In fact, many rock critics look askance at explicitly political lyrics, which I think is pretty stupid, without denying that some political lyrics are also pretty stupid.

I always like to sing along to some depressing, angry Morrissey.

I would describe my sound in the field of electro pop. A combination of deep yet simple lyrics coupled with easy beats.

Sometimes my lyrics may describe a situation that happened to a friend. Other times, I create a story from the ground up.

When you start rhyming, it's hard to find things that rhyme with Yauch, Horovitz and Diamond.

If you take the duality of things - like sunny-sounding music with weird lyrics on it - it makes this dichotomy. I've never had that because when I make music, I make major chords, happy-sounding stuff, and my lyrics are positive.

The objectification of females is not a good thing! Not every rapper does this, but when the lyrics focus solely on the strip club, 'poppin' bottles' and how many girls they can 'tap,' it distorts what kids are learning. I think if there was more of a female presence in hip hop we could break up the monotony. It's all about balance.

There are bands that make parodies of being in a band, like Spinal Tap. That's a big influence. They're making fun of a rock band, but they write lyrics that are better than real rock bands.

In the early '90s, my cousin gave me a Snoop Dogg cassette tape, and the rawness of the lyrics were something new to me.

My mom had a tape of Patsy Cline's greatest hits, and whenever we were in the car, she would put it on, and it got to the point where I knew all the words to every one of the songs, and I knew what order they came in on the tape.

I have a tape recorder, and I just sing into it. I like to write that way. Sometimes I'll just get melodic ideas, and then I'll go home and sit down and add the lyrics. Or sometimes I'll get a lyric idea that I love. Usually it's pretty combined. Usually I get some kind of a lyrical concept and a melody and work with that.

I freestyled the hook to 'Target.' I got into cadence and then it sparked the idea.

The crafting of lyrics is really a task, and when it comes to street culture, I don't feel like anyone else articulates it better than me.

I have Bob Dylan lyrics on my ribs. I'm a diehard Dylan fan, and my dad and I joke that if I ever met him, I'd have him sign his name right under my tattoo and then I'd run to the parlor to get his signature tattooed.

If somebody says 'singer-songwriter' to me, the first person I think of is James Taylor. There are plenty of modern singer-songwriters, but there is something about James Taylor that has always resonated with me.