Quotes About Songwriting

The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life, my relationship with God, and where I'm from. Well, I can't write a song on purpose, my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.

I would love to work with Paolo Nutini because he is so soulful and an amazing songwriter.

By mid-1966, an astounding eighty-eight Lennon-McCartney songs had been recorded in over 2,900 versions. Gershwin finally had competition.

The greatest songwriting is never conclusive, but the search for conclusion

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.

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.

Music was never just a hobby for me. I'd pick up a guitar every day to work on whatever I was writing at the time. I would put my ideas in songs the way some people might put them in diaries or journals.

When I graduated high school, I bought a guitar and, at first, didn't really think I'd get into the songwriting thing as much as I did. But after learning a few songs of other people's to play on the guitar, I got bored with that and just started writing songs on my own, and that's kinda how it came about.

I've been writing a lot of sad songs, and I got to the point where I was like, 'You can't write another one or you're lying.'

When you write an album and you're writing about relationships, the stuff that I've been through in my relationships, 99 percent of it is really good, but it's that one percent that always inspires you to write a song.

I write almost all my songs on an acoustic guitar, even if they turn into rock songs, hard rock songs, metal songs, heavy metal songs, really heavy songs... I love writing on an acoustic because I can hear what every string is doing; the vibrations haven't been combined in a collision of distortion or effects yet.

I've always been aware that probably writing songs - stupid songs or, at least, theatrical songs - is, I dunno, I certainly don't think about that, about my persona on stage. In fact, I work really hard not to address it too much in my head.

I didn't even realize I was writing songs - I thought I was just being witty and sarcastic.

When I was writing 'Shotgun,' it's one of the first songs that's come to me as an image.

Sometimes I'll go without writing for a while and I'll start to be driven nuts. I start doubting my writing ability. So I'll sit down and a dozen songs will pop out. It's fun.

I'm a crap guitarist and I find it really hard writing on my own.

Usually I start with a beat, I start making a beat, and my producer side is making the beat. And on a good day, my rapper side will jump in and start the writing process - maybe come up with a hook or start a verse. Sometimes it just happens like that. A song like 'Lights Please' happens like that.

It's writing songs within the structure of telling a story, so it becomes a platform for diverse songwriting, for a writing process that's broader than just figuring out a song. You're also dealing with always pushing the story forward, with casting the voices, with the orchestration, with the arrangements.

I got a little bit lost in the writing process: like, that moment in the 'Fight Song' music video where I'm throwing the crumpled paper on the bed, that was really true life. I was filling journals with different possibilities of lyrics for the first verse. And none of them felt right.

The writing process for us is different with every song. Sometimes they come from our lives, or someone else we know may be going through something that we choose to write about.

When it's your words, and then you watch it connect with an audience as the artist, I kinda reflect back on the writing process and why those words were important to me. And to watch people sing it back, I mean, that kinda means everything because that's the whole point for me - performance and songwriting - is to connect with people.

Bike riding is great for your thinking. I can't say I've written an entire tune while cycling, but riding has definitely inspired songwriting ideas.

Melody is king, and don't you ever forget it. Lyrics appear to be out front, but they're not; they're just an accompanying factor. If they're good, you're really in good shape. Lyrics are written to be rewritten.

Ever since I've been young I've been fascinated by the human body. I've written songs about it, but you can become quite morbid if you think about it too much - paranoid and a hypochondriac.