Quotes About Songwriting

I'm not somebody who carries around a notepad and writes songs all day long. I don't imagine everything I think of is worth being in a song. So I tend to collect notes, and I set time aside to go to work and write songs.

I think Barry Gibb would be a wonderful person to work with. Because he just writes good tunes.

A lot of times, people assume that I write all the songs: that I arrange them and I stick Kevin up there as kind of a puppet or something. It's absolutely not that way. In fact, he writes probably 60 percent of the songs, and I write probably 40 percent.

I think it would be cool to maybe do something with Ed Sheeran. That would be awesome and interesting. He writes amazing songs, and I could easily hear Backstreet Boys sing 'Shape Of You.'

I know Ed Sheeran writes with a bunch of fantastic writers, but for me, it's quite difficult to be that honest with other people.

From the beginning, my songwriting was from writing in a journal; it was completely unfiltered. I don't know if I really meant to show everyone this side of me, but when I saw how people resonated to the things I was saying, some of the questions I was asking, I realized I was not alone.

I tried writing a song and it wasn't very good. I sung it to my mom and she told me it was bad - but I was eight, so it's okay.

I have always been fascinated by dark and mysterious stuff. I guess I have a pretty dark and gloomy side. Writing songs saves me from going completely gonzo.

I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm just writing songs that I like, and that's where I've always come from.

Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you're working with; otherwise, you're not gonna come out with something that's really you.

I think when you're writing songs, it's impossible to not draw on personal experiences, whether it be traveling or girls or anything. Just emotions.

Elvis Costello's song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It's storytelling and it's deeply intelligent and clever.

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.

I can't say that I'm always writing in my head but I do spend a lot of time in my head writing or coming up with ideas. And what I do usually is write the music and melody and then, you know, maybe the basic idea. But when I feel that I don't have a song or just say, God, please give me another song. And I just am quiet and it happens.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

Singing was probably my first love, and song writing. I write a lot of love songs and heartbreaking songs.

I started writing songs in high school, so you had to write this stuff out and register it with the Library of Congress. You had to learn how to do that stuff.

I wish I had a nickel for every song that I've left in the bathroom, written down on a matchbox, or just totally forgotten about.

I'm totally convinced I can write the perfect pop song.

No matter what, I will always hope for that day when I look around and can say, 'Oh yeah, I wrote a song that touched me emotionally the way that a song like 'She's Got A Way,' by Billy Joel did.'

One day, I was just fingering around on the keys of a Fender Rhodes piano, and I came up with this little riff, and all of a sudden, it morphed into a song. It had never been touched by a guitar, which was very weird for us. 'Under the Ground' is the first song I have ever written that had nothing to do with the guitar.

When I hear somebody like Hayes Carll write a song that's touching and poignant and sad and funny all at the same time, it motivates me to step my game up and try to figure out a way to get more different emotions into one line or one song.

I don't write songs that don't affect me on some level, because I figure if I am not moved by it, if its not something that I have a longing to celebrate or to be reminded of, if it doesn't affect me, then how can I possibly think it is going to affect somebody else. My touchstone is write something that matters.

Songwriting was very tough for me... I would go in and sit and hope for inspiration to come, and it was rarely forthcoming.