Quotes About Songwriting

I work in a dramatic context, meaning we write with a lot of character specifics, a lot of story specifics. There's a lot of architecture in our songs.

I am an incurable romantic. I am even in love with the idea of being in love, and hence, I write a lot of love songs.

I had been writing songs for awhile - since I was 14 - and playing guitar, but I never really knew how to go about making an actual career.

I found it was really impossible for me to write songs when I couldn't sing.

I live on eight acres out in the country in Nashville, and it gets creepy and foggy. It's the best atmosphere to write songs.

I always try to write the best song I can in the moment, and those songs are often going to end up on Death Cab for Cutie records. I don't set out to write a solo song or write a band song. I just write, and where that songs ends up is kind of TBD.

I don't think writing open-ended lyrics is necessarily an important part of writing good pop songs.

When I learning to write songs, I never really was interested in the chorus.

I've always tended to write songs prolifically.

I'm a very slow songwriter; it takes me sometimes years to write one song, if I ever finish.

If you aren't already a songwriter, try it. When you can say what you want to say, in your own words, it's incredibly easy to show an audience who you are.

I'm not an author, but as a songwriter, I'm afforded this kind of luxurious ambiguity in songs of being able to confess the secrets of my relationships with people and face basically no consequences, or ask for no approval or permission.

I'm still learning a lot as a songwriter. I try to write down and make a note of ideas that I cross paths with on a day-to-day basis, whether it be a conversation or something I hear on the radio, seeing a movie, or just thoughts in my head as I'm walking down the street.

As a songwriter, pop music really is a love and a joy and a science, and I feel like a lot of people look at pop music with a very formulaic perspective in numbers and patterns, but an outsider would think that the process is very natural.

I never considered myself a songwriter, but now since I've been working with Nick Lowe, I am contributing to an extent. But I'm the guitarist and he's not, so we compliment each other in a way.

Just knowing how to rap doesn't necessarily mean that you're a good songwriter.

As a songwriter, I've always loved to tell stories. But in my band, it was always about what would make sense for a band to put out.

I don't have the songwriter's obligatory sob story. My sister and I both had a very happy, normal childhood and we've turned into sensible adults.

I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart.

When I was 12 years old and first decided I wanted to be a songwriter, the people that I always looked up to were Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, and people like that.

I want to say at once that I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived.... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert.

I think people appreciate a songwriter who shows different sides. The whole angst thing is cool, but if that's all you've got, it's just boring. Everything I write, whether it's happy or sad, has a sense of humor to it.

There's so much about Dolly Parton that every female artist should look to, whether it's reading her quotes or reading her interviews or going to one of her live shows. She's been such an amazing example to every female songwriter out there.

Every song I write is autobiographical and is about people, and that's one of the things that gets complicated. You have to decide where's your place as a songwriter.