Quotes About Songwriting

Writing songs is a solo activity, so, if I put my mind to it, I can do it.

I write most of my songs to beats. I play around on guitar, but not enough to where I can compose my own stuff or play solos. I can accompany myself 'cause most songs are, like, four chords.

Especially with 'Be Alright,' that's about a bunch of relationships and some people that I'd never even met, there was some stories friend and family had told me over the years, that I put into the song.

My life has been many examples of shortsighted goals that I thought would fix things. You know, if there's something broken inside me, if there's a hole in there, I thought: If I could just write a good song someday, then I'd be OK. You know, if I could just be on stage in front of people I'd never seen before and be validated by them.

I'm writing all the time. I want to do this forever. I want to have a box set someday. I can't stop. The day I stop being inspired to write songs, I'll go sit on the beach - until I become inspired again.

I've always felt writing a song was a bit like going on location. That's true in an almost literal sense. Where you are seeps in somehow.

Even though my songs may sound very personal, to me most of them are fiction. It is a great way for me to be able to live a fantasy life as a writer because I get to be someone else, someplace else for three and a half minutes, just like the listener.

I'd love to have a Christmas classic under my belt. It's hard to write a Christmas song.

I believe that tracks speak to me. Some tracks make me write certain music or make me feel sad or inspire me to write a sad love song. Each track has its feeling to me.

The very first day that Hillary came over, we were working on a song called 'All We'd Ever Need.' But we never even thought about it until we had written 5, 6, 7 songs. Then we played our first show, and we all enjoyed it so much. We felt like it was something a special and different. So from there we decided to do Lady Antebellum.

I gave everything I ever wrote to Johnny Cash. I think he said later in some interview that he would take them home and throw them in the lake with all the other demos. I'm sure he got a million of them.

My music has always been strong in melodic content.

It's never like, 'Now I'm going to sit down and write this or that kind of song.' The melodies may show up in the car, in the shower.

I used to help Viv with the chords and melodies sometimes.

I think country has the biggest melodies ever.

I'm always writing; my phone is full of ideas - melodies and lyrics and stuff.

What I can feel the most and what I can remember the most are the melodies I want to write to.

I feel like when I get into most rooms, melodies come really easily to me, and they sound good in my head. I never really know until I hear the song back and it's finished if it actually is good.

I think if you go to 'Strength of the World,' a song like that, the chorus isn't that great, but you go into the bridge and other things and the catchier parts and the better melodies we were really focused on.

The Beatles were a huge influence on me to write really good melodies.

I kind of write in a very classic way. I sit in the piano, working on some catchy, cool melodies and coming up with song concepts for those melodies. I kind of write in a very traditional way '- how people have written since the early '40s.

That's pretty much how every song of mine works - I start with gibberish and melody and phrasing. I speak it naturally first. And then I think about lyrics that fit into that.

I would love to write a song that's exciting, bright, and has a fresh melody and lyrics.

When I'm writing, I'm focusing more on just the basic melody and the lyrics.