Quotes About Songwriting

I get tips from Bob Gaudio. And one of my songs somehow caught the attention of one of my idols, Marty Panzer, who wrote big hits for Barry Manilow. So two guys who inspired me to write lyrics are now teaching me to write.

I'm tired of Glen Matlock saying he was the songwriter for the Sex Pistols. I co-wrote as many songs... but I don't go shouting about it.

I don't have certain kinds of fatigue. My focus stays strong - I can work on a song for six or seven hours in one day and not get bored or tired of it.

A lot of times, somebody will say something and it will give you a good title. So you carry a pencil with you and jot that down. You don't just write a song right quick, though. You fool around and work with it. You have to keep going over and over it and see if you can't write a song that means something.

A friend and I were talking about how I don't like carnival rides that make me dizzy. I looked up from the conversation and thought, 'Dizzy - that sounds like a great title for a song.' The next day, I went into the studio with some co-writers, and we wrote that song.

Before I ever had my record deal, I just had a publishing deal over at Sony ATV. I had that title, 'Flatliner,' and just the idea of a girl stopping everybody's heart - just kind of a fun idea.

I have a notebook of concepts. There are titles everywhere if you are looking for them. I pull from them. There is a secret list that I keep for myself about what I want to sing about, and those are the ones I know I am not going to give up for someone else.

I've been a list maker for years, even before I was a musician. I was always writing things down and kept long lists of things that would make good album titles and things like that. I'm constantly thinking in terms of songwriting.

I don't know if I could write songs if it wasn't for the female race, to be honest with you.

I barely listen to the radio, to be honest. I don't want anything infiltrating my ears that I don't want to possibly put out in my song.

With songs, I've always pledged to be honest. I write my songs because I've lived them.

I have been fighting writing songs for a long time. People keep telling me I should write, and other writers have offered to write with me, and to be honest, it's not something I've ever really had a passion for - plus I wasn't sure I had the talent to do it!

I never really focus on writing for other people, to be honest. Every song I've ever written was for me to sing. Maybe if I'm writing for a rapper, but I'd still write it as though it was for myself and then sometimes I'm actually asked to do the part.

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.'

I've been singing love songs since I was a toddler, I was singing Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and even Alicia Keys song, that helped my writing so much.

The Italian duo Dumbo Gets Mad specializes in psychedelics for the sober, bringing experimentation together with detailed pop songwriting.

My songwriting process, and maybe loads of other people's, is just this sort of smashing together of emotions and stuff to make some music. It's kind of simple and really complex at the same time and, as you can see, incredibly hard to explain.

I always like story songs, Dolly Parton, Tom T. Hall, Mel Tillis, Red Stegall, when they'd do their story songs. I was totally enthralled.

Great classic music that I've been turned on to has not only inspired and influenced me, but it has had an effect on my songwriting.

Musically, I would never run dry. Any time I sit down to an instrument, I could write a song.

When I began writing, it was a cosmic thing: Inspiration! Wham! Short spurts of time when I felt out of touch with reality, temporarily insane and the result: a song!

The whole time you're bouncing ideas off each other, you continue to try and push the songs as far as you can take them and make them the best that they can be.

I have ideas for songs all the time, but musical ideas, like melodies, really come out when I'm in nature.

I wanted to play rock and roll when I started playing. Nobody at that time ever thought about songwriting. You sang songs, that's all. You sang other people's songs. That's all there were.