Quotes About Songwriting

By the time I got to songwriting, I had been faced with a lot of troubles as a result of my own collective of trauma. I was someone who instinctively figured out that writing songs about the struggle helps you with the struggle.

I really do pride myself on being able to help other people tell their stories and bring out the best in them. But I still, every song I'm writing, I still need to relate to it. I still need to find my true self in it, or else it'll feel dishonest. I mean, everything has a queer meaning as far as I'm concerned.

I don't believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it's a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.

The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I've performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.

I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record. Originally I was not writing songs for myself. Songwriting is my gift from God.

Either you write songs or you don't. And if you do write songs like I do, I think there's a natural desire to want to make records.

Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter.

Any time I write a new song, I am jazzed about it for like 24 hours and then I am over it and want to write another one.

I don't really care about how good a song is, I only want them to reflect what I felt when I was writing them

When a lot of musicians change styles, their songwriting suffers because they want to be different.

Normally when we go in and write the songs we write, we think about doing a cover, but never a covers record. That would be, for us, a concept. We don't want to have a concept!

One of my goals from really early on was that if I was ever fortunate enough to be successful in music, I would want to stay the same person and the same songwriter.

If I hear a really good song it's like, oh man, I want to write a song that good. But the urge to create mostly comes from nature, weather and I think it just effects me.

My next project will be a Christian album, another one. I wrote the songs for the ones you're referring to, but I want to do some of my old gospel favorites. That's what my next album's going to be.

I remember writing 'All I Want Is You' and hoping it would get me out of trouble. I haven't stopped writing songs or getting into trouble since.

That sense of failure, I don't know where people put it who don't write songs and aren't able to emote physically. It must go somewhere.

I get so frustrated with all these so-called singer-songwriters coming out and they don't write!

I love a beautiful, soaring, singable melody. But what really draws me to a song, at the end of the day, is the words.

I've written songs sober and I've written songs high.

Even people that are close to me or people that are acquaintances... The only question I get now is, 'How is music going?' It's an overpowering quality of my life now, the fact that I write songs. It's weird to navigate what that means socially.

If you put all the songs together that I've written on band records, and put it up next to my solo record, there's definitely a different kind of feel than Billy's songs.

Between the Dinosaur Jr. albums and his recent solo albums, 'Several Shades of Why' and 'Heavy Blanket,' J Mascis is emerging as one of the last men from all that '80s indie madness, still writing songs that you want to listen to over and over.

Sometimes I feel like I'm taking on a role when I'm writing a song, and it doesn't always have to be true. I'm not sitting in my room crying with my guitar, writing a slow solo about a depressing breakup; that's not me.

A great solo does not make a great piece. Rather, a great solo in a great song - that's what makes a 10 out of 10. It's the combination of emotional feel and inventive ideas.