Quotes About Songwriting

Insatiable,' the album, was more of a project, really... it was more like a songwriting excursion and an exclusive deal that hadn't really ever been done that often before... me being like, 'ooh I'm an entrepreneur,' rather than 'this is my singing career.'

I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.

I'm kind of a perfectionist about my songwriting. If I don't mean it, I don't think it's any good.

I stand firm behind the belief that, for me, songwriting isn't something that I do or command, it happens to me. I can either choose to stop and acknowledge it, or put it off and hope that it won't fade away. 'That Wasn't Me' is no exception - it came together more quickly than any other song I have ever constructed on my own.

I started to feel songwriting was pulling different pieces of my heart out - the more I started writing, the more there was honesty.

With acting I am being led by the script, other actors, the director, etc. But with songwriting I feel it is much more self reliant and allows me to be in the creative experience without being as dependent on others.

I have always written poetry but I have never applied it to songwriting.

It wasn't so much that I had to leave to make it in the music business as I was curious to be out on my own and sort of explore. I never felt that where I was ever influenced my songwriting.

It's not that I have resisted songwriting, it's just not something I felt I have had to do. I've just not woken up and thought, I must do this. But I have often heard music that I have instantly felt 'I have to sing that song'.

I think my songwriting might be a little more on the darker side maybe.

My voice is very country, and my songwriting is very country.

Songwriting is my craft now, and it's more than something I just enjoy.

I think Bob Dylan showed us that songs can rise to the level of literature, and he proved it over and over again. That's why they keep trying to get him a Nobel Prize for literature: because there is no Nobel Prize for songwriting.

There's a lot of personal stuff that can go into songwriting but there's also a lot of dramatization and fictionalization. You have to do that to make a good song.

My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.

Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control.

And I look forward to the time when I can become more indulgent with my songwriting. But this band is a family, and it's a process that we have to grow with together.

The songwriting of Hall & Oates is deceptively complex. There are a number of key changes that pass you by as you're listening to the song because they're so seamless and clever.

The classic, quote/unquote, craft of songwriting still works; it still is relevant.

When I get all focused on songwriting, I get into all the marketing and promotion that we do to make it happen. Then the right song comes along and blows it all out of the water. The right song will do it for you every time.

I found songwriting really hard at first, but after a while it was actually very easy. I wrote about everyday stuff.

Not that there is anything wrong with confessional songwriting, there are plenty of people that do that I admire. I think it is great, it just isn't how I do things.

The rule of songwriting: say what you want to say, say it again, say it a different way, then say it again.

I don't really premeditate what I write my songs about; you know, they just kind of happen, and I can't start writing songs to please a certain group of people or propagate a certain message all the time. That's just not how my songwriting works - it just sort of comes out, and the songs are what they are.