Quotes About Songwriting

I get the biggest kick out of it, to hear words that I wrote and chords that I wrote being sung by somebody else.

It's very hard for me to write a generic song that could be sung by anybody.

I'm not the kind of writer that goes, 'I'm gonna write a song about sunshine,' or, 'I've just heard a phrase, so I'm gonna write that,' and then I write a song. I'll wait for inspiration to hit, and you can't depend on it.

My songwriting is so influenced by orchestrated music, dramatic, super glam rock-y stuff. Two of my biggest influences in songwriting were Elton John and Freddie Mercury.

People assume that a lot of pop artists don't write their songs. That, for me, is super frustrating because I think it detracts from some of the art and some of the craft of what we do. I'm at the helm of it, and I think that is what people don't see.

Leonard (Cohen) never broke my heart, but his songs have, every time I sing or hear one of them. As Leonard says, "There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in.

Even in the beginning, when we knew there was a legal argument about how much our song sounds like his song, as one songwriter to another, I wasn't sure that Cat Stevens would take that as bad.

best songwriting partner I've ever had, but besides that, he's a pretty good guy. We have a sort of history together, but I won't go into that. I just have a bad feeling about this, and I don't think we're gonna see him again." Sam got back into his

I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't they want that positive, uptempo thing.

I do write a lot from personal experience, but I also embellish a bit.

The problem as you get older is, from my perspective, after a certain amount of songs, you tend to start writing something and then you stop and say, 'Wait, I think I've written that before.'

In the beginning, I wrote OK songs, but they didn't have a unique perspective.

Sometimes I make songs about girls, and I say 'he,' or I'll make songs about guys, and I say 'she,' or sometimes they're exactly what they're about. I feel like it just allows me to get a lot more perspective.

When you're collaborating with somebody, there has to be a spirit of cooperation. There are a lot of times when you just can't persuade someone to write a certain type of song, either musically or lyrically.

That's one of my pet peeves. People always want to put something into a category - this one or that one. You know, a great song is a great song.

Etta James takes credit for writing some of the lyrics on 'I'd Rather Go Blind,' which I think are some of the most phenomenal lyrics I've ever heard. There's arguments now about who wrote it, but she always takes credit for it in her live performances.

I just make up lyrics off the top of my head. A lot of times, there's a phrase I really like, and I kind of build the song around that.

The more songs I've written, the more I've grown interested in telling a story. When I first began, I had this list of opaque phrases where you can make of it what you want.

The piano has been my friend all my life; it has always comforted me. Writing songs and sitting down at the piano is not only a business, it's a hobby I enjoy.

I wanted to try to write songs on the piano to get a different flavor.

When I write, I write the drum beat. Though sometimes I write on piano or guitar.

When I was young, I just sat down and started playing Chopsticks at the piano. I got so far and then lost interest. Eventually, I regained it and started writing songs.

My mother bought a piano, put it in the front room, and I just started writing my songs.

I actually write more on guitar than I do on piano.